“Drug traffickers.” “Illegals.” “Rapists.”
These are just a few of the terms that have been used in recent months to describe people who look like me. They’ve been heard in the blogosphere, on talk radio and even from presidential hopefuls on the national stage. They have fueled a sometimes nasty, often inaccurate debate about immigration in the United States. Along the way – amidst all the pain and vitriol – they have created a huge opportunity: one on which our generation must take the lead.
The current dialogue about immigration has put Latinos in the United States at the forefront of national discussion. And the fact that it’s not the caliber of conversation our Latino communities deserve means we have the chance to change it.
As a teacher in Las Vegas, I had more opportunities to do this than most. Every day I got to see what students are capable of when they receive the support they need. When one of my students in my first year of teaching was acting up in class, I pulled him out into the hallway and told him I knew he was capable of more and that I had higher expectations of him. He went back into the classroom and got to work. After class he waited around to tell me, “Thank you, Miss.” I said, “For what?” He replied, “No one has ever told me I was smart before. Thanks.”
Like kids of color in general, my students don’t achieve at lower levels than their white peers because they are less capable or less motivated. The gaps that manifest in the classroom directly reflect systemic gaps in educational opportunity according to race, class and zip code.
As a teacher and policy maker, I’ve seen this in a million ways, perhaps most painfully in students who miss out on the special education services they’re legally entitled to because their parents don’t have the resources to advocate for their rights. With our country’s demographic makeup moving towards majority-minority, unless we address these gaps, we will soon be living in a world where the majority of students are underserved and behind.
When I first came to UNM, my career plans looked very different. My senior year, I had plans to go to grad school for a program in Higher Education and Student Affairs. But as spring rolled around, I learned more about Teach For America and started to wonder if maybe my graduate plans could wait.
Three years later, I’ve found a passion I never knew I had. Kids need to understand that they can do so much more than what society tells them they can. And as a generation with a widely diverse range of backgrounds and experiences, we’ve got to be the ones that tell them.
When stereotypes and insults fly, it’s easy to get angry. It’s easy to scream or walk away. It’s easy to fall victim to doubts that anything will ever change. But we have to remember that kids are listening. It’s up to us to use our education and our experiences to help them learn how to tune out the noise. It’s up to us to empower them to fulfill their potential and rewrite the current, untrue narrative into one that fits.
“Resilient.” “Strong.” “Smart.” Those are the words that describe my kids, my family and my community. It’s time for their country to know it.
Jade Rivera is a 2012 UNM alumna and Teach For America-Las Vegas Valley. She currently works as a policy administrator in the New Mexico Public Education Department.
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