I started the second grade late for my age. We first arrived in the United States. in March and I attended summer school and started the new school year in September. For years that was part of my explanation for why I was older than other kids in my classes. That tended to be awkward sometimes but I always worked hard and if my teachers ever wondered if I had been held back they soon realized that was not the case. I attended Glenallen Elementary, Briggs Chaney M.S. and Paint Branch H.S.
I credit the foundation of my educational experience to my first years of school in Costa Rica (where I was born) and to my very first teacher in the United States, Ms. Dorothy Williams. She was an African-American teacher who loved to tease her students by saying she had eyes in the back of her head. She knew each of us so personally that she could guess what shenanigans someone might be up to as she was writing on the black board without turning around. But what she did for me in second and third grade was so UTTERLY powerful that I know it set me on the path to success. It was simple. She expected me to be excellent. She did not see my need to learn English as an excuse to hold back my learning. By the time I left her classroom I had caught up with my classmates. I was on the honor roll every single year/semester from that point on until I finished High School.
I did not realize until I I started college (University of Maryland College Park) how much I had benefited the education I had received from an excellent school system. The vast majority of my teachers were excellent. I was shocked to learn that a good number of the people in my college classes had never read Maya Angelo or Sandra Cisneros (both authors I was introduced to in High School), or had never been taught about the Civil Rights movement, for example.
I do however remember feeling negatively judged for my ethnicity as a child and teenager either by classmates or school administrators. I was picked on viciously by African American students in Middle School. I was always one of just a few Latinos in my classes. I always felt ethnically isolated from others of the same ethnic group as myself. In high school I remember administrators and security guards assuming I was a trouble maker as a freshman simply because I was a Latina. The first time I ever had a Latino teacher was in college. But this disconnect was balanced by my family's connection with a Latino communities of faith. I do wish I had had closer relationship with other latinas growing up. It is a void I still feel very deeply. On the other hand, I completely embraced the diversity of my schools and my norm was close friendships with people outside my own ethnic group or experience in general. My two best friends were from India and Liberia. The one link between the three of us was that we had arrived in the country at roughly the same age, and our faith in Jesus.
The greatest challenge for me was having to navigate the school system essentially on my own. My parents were supportive but lacked the awareness to understand why things like extracurricular activities or volunteering were necessary for admission to college. It taught me self-sufficiency. It also frustrated me because I knew that other kids had access to resources and information not available to me if, for instance, their parents where on the PTA. I often had to take things into my own hands, such as figuring out who could give me a ride home after theater practice or completing a FAFSA, or remaining determined to attend a University despite the attempted steering of a career resource person to community college or the military (talk about not knowing your students!).
Despite the challenges I faced I am a big believer in public education and am determined to make that work for my children as well. They will have the advantage of parents who have navigated these waters before and can be advocates for them and others. As we continue to grow in number, the more of us who are Latino that can be involved as parents, teachers and administrators the better for the future generations of this country.