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About the Author
As a young, little girl, I remember wanting to play and asking my siblings in my broken, new language, “Eschool.” Pronounced phonetically as es-cool. I would always want to play the coveted role of the teacher. Sometimes I’d win, and I learned the taste early on of wanting to be a caring, patient teacher with my students. Even though they were my sisters, brother and neighborhood kids sitting in the bedroom with chubby crayons writing on the brown, paper thin paper we would get from school. I loved pretending and emulating my mom’s kind and compassionate ways of teaching us, and also because I had come from a long line of teachers. My mom’s younger sisters were able to proceed with their schooling in Mexico, while my mom was forced to stop her schooling in sixth grade, to fulfill traditional roles and values that stifled her dream to go to college. Because she was the oldest girl of eight children, it was her role to take care of her siblings and housework. My mother selflessly worked to provide support to her sisters.
After meeting my father, they decided to move to El Norte, the North as the US was referred to, to a small, rural town in the Napa Valley. Mind you that my father had travelled to the US as a Bracero in the 1960s, working in the vineyards and tree orchards, toiling the land. Prior to their move, he was a successful student, a semi pro boxer in his native town in Mexico, where the language and values of the times benefitted him. He was literate in Spanish writing, reading, a natural mathematician, eloquent, witty and charming person. It was the strong bond he had with his brothers that justified their move to the Napa Valley, that facilitated the decision to bring his beautiful bride to a new land where she and he didn’t have the “Language” of the new US land. The strange new patterns that their mouths had to learn, with the placement of the tongue, the teeth, the lips. The different sounds that they both sought and struggled to learn. After years of living in the US, and having my 3 sisters and brother on Californian land, they continued to only speak Spanish to us at home.
We were students in the Head Start program and I vividly recall my teachers, my classmates, the food, the smells, my cubby and my name written on a sentence strip that had been cut to fit my name. “Martha” was written in the neatest, thick, black handwriting. Laminated, so as to protect it and to give it longer endurance. From there, I became a Spanish speaker that learned to listen, speak, read and to write in English in Kindergarten. I began my journey with acquiring a new language, alongside learning new set of values, traditions, experiences of being a first generation US born, struggling at times to find my identity, keep my first language, and continue my hunger for more languages, for more knowledge, for helping others. It is my passion and inspiration.
Fast forward to 2015, and I am still so grateful to have the opportunity to play the coveted role of teacher. Considering the amount of hours that I have spent inside a classroom, in different capacities, with different purposes, one might agree that I have a lifetime of classroom experiences. Thirty five years of experience, as a Head Start Preschool student, elementary through high school student, Instructional Aide working with students with special needs, college student, and dual immersion elementary school teacher. Yet, always a continuing learner with my proverbial shovel of digging deeper, to gain deeper knowledge. Deeper understanding of how to reach all students, but how to effectively serve the needs of English learners.
After fourteen years at the Napa Valley Language Academy, a dual immersion Charter school, teaching third and fourth grade to over 400 students in the Napa Valley Unified School District, living through the struggles of fighting against district members, that at times, saw no benefit in Bilingual Education, of being resilient when the community at times were vicious with their words, with their racist views and spiteful tactics, our fearless leaders and colleagues were able to see the integrity of the research based program through fruition. It was a struggle on all aspects, but I would never trade those experiences in. They built up my confidence, my advocacy, victories for our English Learners, for our English Learners’ parents and for our community.
You might also want to include a link to your personal web page, blog, etc.
After meeting my father, they decided to move to El Norte, the North as the US was referred to, to a small, rural town in the Napa Valley. Mind you that my father had travelled to the US as a Bracero in the 1960s, working in the vineyards and tree orchards, toiling the land. Prior to their move, he was a successful student, a semi pro boxer in his native town in Mexico, where the language and values of the times benefitted him. He was literate in Spanish writing, reading, a natural mathematician, eloquent, witty and charming person. It was the strong bond he had with his brothers that justified their move to the Napa Valley, that facilitated the decision to bring his beautiful bride to a new land where she and he didn’t have the “Language” of the new US land. The strange new patterns that their mouths had to learn, with the placement of the tongue, the teeth, the lips. The different sounds that they both sought and struggled to learn. After years of living in the US, and having my 3 sisters and brother on Californian land, they continued to only speak Spanish to us at home.
We were students in the Head Start program and I vividly recall my teachers, my classmates, the food, the smells, my cubby and my name written on a sentence strip that had been cut to fit my name. “Martha” was written in the neatest, thick, black handwriting. Laminated, so as to protect it and to give it longer endurance. From there, I became a Spanish speaker that learned to listen, speak, read and to write in English in Kindergarten. I began my journey with acquiring a new language, alongside learning new set of values, traditions, experiences of being a first generation US born, struggling at times to find my identity, keep my first language, and continue my hunger for more languages, for more knowledge, for helping others. It is my passion and inspiration.
Fast forward to 2015, and I am still so grateful to have the opportunity to play the coveted role of teacher. Considering the amount of hours that I have spent inside a classroom, in different capacities, with different purposes, one might agree that I have a lifetime of classroom experiences. Thirty five years of experience, as a Head Start Preschool student, elementary through high school student, Instructional Aide working with students with special needs, college student, and dual immersion elementary school teacher. Yet, always a continuing learner with my proverbial shovel of digging deeper, to gain deeper knowledge. Deeper understanding of how to reach all students, but how to effectively serve the needs of English learners.
After fourteen years at the Napa Valley Language Academy, a dual immersion Charter school, teaching third and fourth grade to over 400 students in the Napa Valley Unified School District, living through the struggles of fighting against district members, that at times, saw no benefit in Bilingual Education, of being resilient when the community at times were vicious with their words, with their racist views and spiteful tactics, our fearless leaders and colleagues were able to see the integrity of the research based program through fruition. It was a struggle on all aspects, but I would never trade those experiences in. They built up my confidence, my advocacy, victories for our English Learners, for our English Learners’ parents and for our community.
You might also want to include a link to your personal web page, blog, etc.
