Getting Latinos involved in education
César Chávez observed, “Once social change has begun, there is no turning back. You can’t take the education away from someone who has learned to read. You can’t continue to humiliate a person who has acquired pride.”
Perhaps the greatest challenge for the Latino community here in Sonoma is to access the right to learning and education.
We are stuck in a system of altruism and social help, either material or demagogical, but which lacks capacity-building and opportunities for people who desire to be self sufficient. It’s essential to a admit that the systems currently in place to serve the Latino community only work partially at best, and sometimes not at all.
We can take the educational system as an example. The law requires school sites with a certain number of English learners to offer appropriate support, and to work with the parents so these children are successful. Take the monthly requisite meeting of ELAC, the English Learner Advisory Committee. The law is very specific in setting out how and what needs to be done. Its aim is empower the parents to understand their rights and responsibilities, so they can advise school staff as to how to help these English learners achieve success.
My experience as a parent of children who have been English learners for the last 10 years, is that these services and programs do not function. They are obsolete!
There is also DELAC, the District English Learners Advisory Council. Representatives of each school’s ELAC attend a monthly meeting with teachers, administrators and a school board member. Actual results from these meetings, which have been held for years, are minimal. The mechanisms are in place but the systems are outdated. For some reason, there is not a genuine interest in these systems really working.
The million dollar question is what would happen if these ELACs really worked? If Latino parents had the opportunity to organize themselves and contribute to decisions affecting their children. What would happen if instead of one Latino school board member we had two or three representing us? What would happen if we understood managing the economic resources and could participate in our children’s futures? For better or for worse, we are still a long way from achieving this.
The majority of Latino parents are still very distant from their children’s education. The biggest obstacle seems to be work, the struggle to earn a daily living. Here in Sonoma Valley there is a silent war that has to do with social and economic inequality. When Latino families barely earn enough to pay the rent after working three jobs. Or when they have to choose between buying food and going to the doctor. And it’s not about giving more food to FISH, or more of the extra clothes from your closets. Rather it’s about paying a fair wage to the people who are working in the fields, in the hotels, cooking your meals. A fair wage for their work.
It is unfortunate when those who are responsible for bringing Latino parents into connection with their children’s education blame them, accuse them of apathy and lack of responsibility, instead of working creatively to connect with them. Of course there are exceptions, but most parents have a genuine interest in participating in their children’s education.
Who benefits from the poor functioning of these systems? Doesn’t it really affect everyone? Because at the end of the day, the students are the next generations who will live, grow up and establish themselves in our community.
The problem is more complex than it seems at first. But part of the solution has to be the recognition that there is a problem and starting to address it with something other than the usual. It will require creative systems headed up by people whose understanding of education is popular, not text book.
Translated from Spanish by Anna Pier
