My grandparents were migrant farm workers, cherry pickers, and hop pickers. Although both were born in Texas, their Mexican identity and socioeconomic status shaped their daily lives, but not their futures.
I came to realize that there was an unspoken pride in my family that was rooted in the Latino experience of the American dream. My grandparents knew that education was a way out of low wages and difficult working conditions. So my grandfather decided to work as a janitor in a public school to get a stable job.
It is no coincidence, then, that I am an educator, and that is why I worry about how to present and process the American Dream with my students. When we think of the American Dream, we often conjure up images of “The Great Gatsby” and Ellis Island, but we are less likely to unravel the image of the American Dream on the Mexican-American border. On this dividing line, the American Dream guarantees safety, education, economic stability, and outright survival for many Mexican and Central Americans.
As a Spanish teacher, I have the opportunity to expand my students' awareness of the American Dream, including the experiences of Latinos who have come and lived in the United States. Although I work at a small Catholic girls' school in Minnesota, I have students whose families have immigrated to the United States and who have also suffered the deportation of undocumented family members. For them, the opportunities and challenges implied by the American Dream felt more real than ever.
As the number of Latino students increases in our schools, it is important to humanize the immigrant experience so we can redefine the American dream for today's students.
living in a bubble
Most students at the all-girl Catholic school believe they live in a bubble. Even though our schools are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, there is still a feeling of cocooning here and that our schools do not provide a true reflection of the outside world. This student's perception is a bit exaggerated, but I get it. Students want to be connected, educated, and aware of realities beyond the classroom.
I also advise our co-curricular group, the Students of Color Society. The small group is led by two Latino students who, like me, have stories of families living out the promises of the American Dream. These students and their parents believe in the power of education for their collective future in this country.
I want to help students taking Spanish classes gain appreciation for the experience and get beyond the bubble. For me, a Spanish course is about more than grammar structures. It's about connection, cultural competency, and global engagement. I teach Spanish through the lens of history and justice. Because for our students, studying Latin America and gaining an understanding of its people is mind-opening. Students can then challenge negative stereotypes about Latino immigrants and the biased political campaigns they are exposed to in the media. This is how we begin to puncture the bubble that will help our students hope to break free.
Redefining the American Dream
In class, we learn that Mexico, Central America, and South America are each experiencing social and economic difficulties. This has led many people and families to move to the border in hopes of living free of violence, obtaining safe jobs, and receiving an education that will prepare future generations for success. Dreams allow us to imagine the opportunities that are within our reach, but it is also important for our classes to study the various obstacles that impede the advancement of historically and systemically marginalized people.
To humanize and inspire deeper compassion for those who come to our borders without documentation, we read the introduction and first two chapters of “Enrique’s Journey,” published in 2006 by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Sonia Nazario. Like many of our students, Enrique was a teenager with unique living circumstances, but he suffered from violence, poverty, depression and drug addiction that eventually led him to drop out of school. His dream is to reunite with his mother, who moved to the United States to find a way for Enrique and his sister to earn a sustainable income. Enrique travels atop a train to the Texas-Mexico border to find his mother, Lourdes, in North Carolina. But he discovered that living in America meant trading one form of poverty and oppression for another. In reality, the American dream was so fraught with racial prejudice and limited low-income jobs that Lourdes could barely make ends meet.
Reading Enrique's Journey allows students to see a three-dimensional portrait of the immigrant experience and strengthen the power of compassion. Together, we discover how difficult it really is to achieve everything the American Dream leads us to believe is possible.
In it, I ask students to decide whether the American Dream actually exists for undocumented people. They often say no, and if they do, it's the exception rather than the rule. Students invariably point out that there is an aspect of the American Dream that leads to change and an envisioned future. It's not only education for immigrant families and children, but it's also education for teachers and students who are helping to shift the narrative. migration.
Training and Empowerment
Last October, during our school's celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, Latino leaders from our Students of Color association shared their stories with the broader school community. They talked openly and honestly about their struggles, but they also wanted to turn their struggles into something that empowered them. Inspired by America Ferrera's TED Talk, “My Identity is a Superpower,” our students shared their stories of becoming warriors, embracing their Latinx identity, and finding belonging amidst discrimination and worries that their undocumented relatives would be deported.
I can't help but believe that the courage of these students to speak their truth is imbued with the humanity of the American dream that we seek to define in Spanish class. What we cultivate in our classrooms ultimately affects the entire culture of our schools. When we humanize those who are perceived as outsiders to society, we create a sense of belonging based on empathy and a shared understanding that students and their families want to live lives where they can grow safely and joyfully.
The American Dream will always be tied to political debates and geographic borders, but we must remember that our opinions and perceptions of the American Dream will change, as will the demographics of our schools. If you believe in the power of education, like my students and their parents, like my grandparents, you can achieve that dream. Whether it's crossing the border in search of a future or attending an all-girls Catholic school in the Midwest.
I want my students to understand that the fundamental promises of prosperity, education, and growth underpinned by the American Dream reveal our human relationships with one another. Above all, I hope that our students will burst the bubble by challenging dominant narratives and stereotypical interpretations of what it means to migrate and achieve the American dream.
As educators and students, we must strive to center humanity and uplift one another as we courageously explore the possibilities of the dreams we harbor – the dreams of our ancestors.