Teacher Activist in the Classroom: Part One

As I start this journey of teaching about cultural diversity, racism, oppression, and injustice and the systems that perpetuate it in our country in a way that is age appropriate for my students (see my previous post where I explain why I decided to go on this journey here), I struggled with figuring out where to start. Then it dawned on me. You can't look forward without looking back. Sometimes looking back can be painful. The history of this country, and of people of color as a whole is especially difficult, but what I discovered was that looking back at myself, and Mexican American people specifically, no matter how uncomfortable, was necessary. I can't begin to help others if I first don't know how we got here, how this all started, and when I began searching, I wanted to know more about people who are like me in a way that I had no idea I needed before.


I went to the library some time last week to sign up my youngest daughter and I for the summer reading programs as I do every year. I started search for a few books to read. I like to read science fiction stories, biographies or anything on astronomy most of the time. As I search for the astronomy books, I walked past a section of books about cultures and racism. Light bulb! Since I'm trying to teach more about these topics in my classroom, why not read more about it? I had originally wanted to start exploring curriculum from Teaching Tolerance, but I decided maybe I needed to focus on how years of systemic racism from hundreds of years in the past can affect my life in the present, but especially how it may impact my children's lives in the future. You can't defend yourself from oppression if you don't even realize how you're being oppressed.

I picked up two books to read. "The Hispanic Struggle for Social Justice" by James D. Cockcroft and "Issues in Racism" by Mary E. Williams. I decided to start with "The Hispanic Struggle..." since that book is about my specific ethnicity. I started to think back to when I was back in college finishing the undergrad program. It was my last year of school. One of the classes what I needed to take wasn't offered that spring so I had to wait until the summer. This left one class I needed to fill in order to stay a full time student. I looked thru what was being offered and decided to take a class about multicultural education. It was an online class so the first assignment was introducing yourself and sharing with everyone an internal conflict you might have about your ethnicity/race. I'm from Texas, born in San Antonio. What does everyone think of when you think of San Antonio? You got it, the Alamo. Growing up there, I had visited plenty of times and it's a big part of growing up in the city. It isn't very big which is shocking to most tourist, but the grounds around the Alamo have exhibits about life in the mission and of the battle. What I remember the most is feeling very conflicted. I struggled with asking myself, "Who should I go for?" and "What side am I on?" I am Mexican American and what I didn't even realize that even back then being so young and not having the words to describe it, I was at war with myself. Literally, two sides of my identity in opposition of each other. Up until that class, I had never expressed this out loud. I ended up really enjoying the class. There was a lot of good dialogue and I'm glad I ended up taking it.

Now that I'm older, I have learned a lot more about the two countries that I call home. To this day that conflict continues. As I was reading the book and reading more about how both Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans were at the forefront of the unionization of many industrial jobs in order for workers of all races to get benefits, I can see where my fighting spirit came from. It is literally in my blood. What I didn't expect was my emotional reaction to reading a lot of this history. A particular section that was very difficult for me to read was about how Mexican families who lived in Texas when it was Mexico had their lands stolen from them once the state joined the Union. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had in place provisions so that those Mexican citizens who were now American Citizens could keep their property. Of course the U.S. judicial system ignored the treaty and went on to steal the land from these families to give to white men. They told of a man Antonio T. Chacón whose family had own their land for generations. There was no deed with his name on it because it was simply passed down to family. Now that Texas was part of the United States, white men took advantage and stole the land. There in black and white was my family name. I cried and I didn't even completely understand why. I know about the story of each of my parents coming to the United States for work. I knew my grandparents on both sides and of their parents, but that was it. Beyond that I didn't know much about previous generations of my family. Seeing my family's name in print and reading about how their land was stolen, their families left with absolutely nothing and then having to work the land that white men and corporations stole for pennies made me see it as MY history. I'm not dense I knew all this before, but seeing my family's name there made it real for ME and also for my children. My parents come from Piedras Negras which is right across the border from Eagle Pass, TX. The Río Grande literally can be seen from my mother's family's land. My father's family lives a block away. I realized that had each of my parent's families lived on the opposite side of that river, my entire family would've been born U.S. citizens. And then the realization that it wouldn't have even mattered. When certain people look at me, I will always be seen as other even though I was born here. That will always be their first thought no matter what. When they look at my mother and father, they will always see illegal even though they are both naturalized citizen. That is precisely WHY we must confront racism. This is why I am determine to have these conversations with my students. So that one day future generations of my family will live in a world where no one makes assumptions about them when they look at their skin.

I order to advocate for others, we first must know ourselves. How has racism affected me and generations of my family before? Have I or generations of my family benefited from racism? History can't be changed, but as the saying goes knowledge is power. We teach History to avoid making the same mistakes. If you are black, how does the trauma of slavery continue to affect you? If you are white, do you know how the white privilege you were born into was put into place? None of this is fun, but it is necessary. How can I talk and teach about all of this if I've not learned accurate history? Sure we all know racism is bad and traumatic, but it's important to know exactly why and how it has continued for so long. I'll admit that it can be emotionally draining and exhausting to discover all these feelings I didn't know I had, but it has helped me discover how proud I am of my roots and want to share all of this even more with my own children. I next want to read more about other ethnicities that have history of racism in our country so that I can use my voice to support their's. Not to mention that learning about and appreciating other cultures will also help me teach my students about these cultures as well.

I hope that even if you aren't planning to integrate this into our curriculum this upcoming school year, I hope that you will pick up a book, magazine, newspaper that will help you tap into the history of our country and of your own family. It is an important piece of the puzzle that makes us who we are as individuals and as a country.