This month I have the privilege of celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month alongside 120 strong, resilient and tenacious eighth- and ninth-graders.
In the majority African-American school where I teach, most of my students don’t share my Hispanic identity. And yet, the occasion has offered us a powerful opportunity to draw connections around what we do share.
As I work to create a culturally responsive classroom where my kids find inspiration from figures like Maya Angelou and Frederick Douglass, we also learn about Cesar Chavez and Sandra Cisneros. Along the way, we see the many similarities in our struggles and our stories, along with a common future full of promise and possibility.
By 2040, nearly one out of every four U.S. citizens will identify as Hispanic. But as we see Latino leadership rising across the country, there’s one leadership shortage that hits home for me: Today, just eight percent of teachers identify as Latino.
This gap has real, immediate implications for students of color and is a big part of what ultimately brought me to Baltimore to teach and to help my students reach and exceed the expectations our society has for them — and in some cases, even those they have for themselves.
Every day my students must combat the deep inequities that plague low-income communities and impact our education system. They head to school knowing that nearly a third of students in Baltimore will never graduate. I see this play out with my students, but I know the struggle is not unique to them.
Millions of kids growing up in diverse communities do not currently have access to the opportunities that will empower them to reach their full potential. As future leaders, we can make a choice to take action and change this.
In the classroom, my identity as a Hispanic teacher profoundly shapes how I interact with my students. For many of my students, I am the first Hispanic teacher they’ve ever had.
This means I come to the classroom with the privilege and responsibility to counter the narrative of what being Hispanic means. In Baltimore, where neighborhoods and schools are overwhelmingly segregated by race and income, my presence helps them understand another community and culture — a powerful experience for exploring their own identities.
By bringing my full self to my classroom — as a woman, a UNM graduate and first-generation college student — I have the opportunity to show my students what is possible with a great education, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender.
In my classroom we learn that, while the road will not be easy, hard work today makes it possible to be successful tomorrow.
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In return, my students prove what is possible, demonstrate resilience and fill me with hope. They ask to take our novels home so they can read ahead. They create their own assignments by suggesting topics they would like to learn about and then conducting research as homework. They engage in Socratic seminars to discuss and debate big, complicated ideas.
As a Teach for America alum, I know that I am part of a growing network of more than 3,000 Latino leaders answering the call to fight for social justice in the classroom. This year, 13 percent of Teach for America’s incoming corps identify as Hispanic and one-third are the first in their families to attend college.
As the organization continues to host national Latino Leadership Summits from Los Angeles to Colorado to New York, I’m proud to be part of this group and prouder still to be working to empower the students in my care. They are the leaders on which our community’s future depends.
The path toward meaningful change has been taken by regular people committed to making extraordinary things possible. Great teachers come from all backgrounds, identities and experiences, but we are united by this difficult and deeply inspiring work.
Every day I am challenged to play a role in the future I imagine, and humbled to work with a group of students whose imaginations never cease to amaze.
Deanna Delgado is a 2008 Teach for America alum. She majored in English and history, received her master’s degree in education from Johns Hopkins, and currently teaches in Baltimore, Maryland.
