This weekend, I sat on a panel with other Latino educators as we answered questions from that Latino high school students. One of the questions inspired me to write a series of blog posts about lessons I’ve learned from my parents backgrounds as immigrants and how they shaped who I am today.
I realized the importance of sharing these lessons with others as I saw the engagement in the students’ eyes. I could tell how significant it was for them to hear about the value that these experiences and stories added to my life. I can imagine how this could give them “permission” to take pride in their families’ stories and backgrounds.
At the same time, I can also see the meaning these stories can have to people who don’t share my experiences. Latinos need to continue to change the narrative behind who we are and where we come from.
This has motivated me to start a series where I share stories that highlight lessons from my parents that have stuck with me. These stories are derived from their experiences in El Salvador, as well as their new lives here in the United States.
I’m going to kick off this series with a story from my mom.
There is so much admiration I have for my mom. As the oldest in her family, it was an expectation for her to take care of her siblings and be the owner of a significant load of work at home. She remembers her responsibilities starting when she was in elementary school, as she had to cook and clean for her family. There is one example of the work she had to do that always comes to the forefront of my mind. It was about her daily schedule while in school. My mom would wake up and walk 1.5 hours into the hillside to water their crops. She’d then walk back home for another 1.5 hours to make it to school by 7:30am.
This wasn’t it, as it was also my mom’s responsibility to make sure her father got lunch every day. Now, we’re not talking about preparing a sandwich in the morning or meal prepping for the week. I’m talking about her father having a hot lunch in the middle of the day delivered to him by my mom or one of her siblings. As my mom recounted the story, she emphasized the fact that the tortillas still had to be warm by the time she got the food to her father. Unfortunately, this often meant that she couldn’t attend school for the second half of the day.
It’s important to note that these “chores” didn’t result in an allowance or other responsibilities. She was the eldest among her siblings, born into poverty. Work was a normal part of her life, while education was a luxury. Regardless the work she put in and desires she had to get an education, finishing high school wasn’t a realistic possibility for her. That is something that was drilled into me and that I will never forget. I never took my education for granted because I saw how precious it was in my mother’s eyes. My mother instilled within me a desire to learn, and the utmost respect for the education I was afforded.
Lessons and stories such as this one help explain my passion for educational equity. Simply by being born in this country, I was afforded with privilege that my mother could only dream of during her childhood in El Salvador. At the same time, I see that there are grave injustices in communities of color throughout United States. I’m committed to doing my part to changing the narrative for the students whom I serve so that they won’t grow up as my mother did, with educational aspirations left unfulfilled.
