Hispanic Heritage Month: “La Historia De Mi Gente”

By: Amanda Zepeda

My to start with lecturers had been my parents. Both of those grew up in immigrant households in the vivid town of Los Angeles. They were Chicano latch-vital-young children of the 1970s. My father started functioning at a younger age, supplementing the family’s earnings with a paper route ahead of school and gardening work with my grandfather on the weekend. My mother beloved examining and crafting. She was always the natural way superior with quantities and phrases, which manufactured her stand out in her courses. The two ended up rapid-witted and able, and nevertheless neither of them ended up particularly pushed by their mothers and fathers academically. As a defiant reaction to this, my mother and father built it a place to repeat phrases these types of as “Appreciate what you have”, “Pay attention in school”, and “You’re going to college!”. They manufactured it their mission to ‘break the cycle’ and give us what they had not been given. 

My dad inevitably obtained a position proper out of substantial university, and my mother built her way to a four-year university, encouraged to do so by her academics. She dropped out in advance of graduating, but sooner or later went back again just about twenty many years afterwards to cross that stage. The encounters that they experienced helped to condition who they grew to become and hence shaped how they made a decision to raise my siblings and me. They taught us the worth of relatives, to clearly show compassion, to persevere, and most importantly, the worth of education.  

I believe education and learning is the most precious supply of liberty a individual can have. All over historical past, persons have been imprisoned, punished, and castigated above awareness. Thousands have fought to get hold of it and other individuals have fought to continue to keep men and women from owning it. Expertise is our way to success understanding of our culture, knowledge of our men and women, and knowledge of our history. 

Developing up in the San Fernando Valley, I was surrounded by my Latino local community. Nonetheless, I did not normally see myself or my local community represented in school. We learned about Columbus, the California Missions, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and lots of other subjects and nonetheless the achievements of my communities ended up mysteriously missing from our textbooks and conversations. Whilst those individuals and situations are significant to fully grasp the complexity of United States heritage, they do not convey to the comprehensive tale. 

The initial time I experienced a Latina trainer was the initially time I had a instructor that spoke like me, looked like me, and experienced tales like mine. I did not have this encounter until eventually I was in local community college or university. Right before this, I experienced felt disconnected from my historical past, my family’s tale, and myself for so very long. I didn’t even notice anything at all was incorrect. Sitting down in my initial Ethnic Scientific studies class was the first time I acquired about Indigenous resistance in opposition to Europeans all through North The usa, or about empowered Chicanas in the 1960s demanding social change, or about the intertwined record in between the United States and Latin America. It was my heritage my family’s tale becoming instructed. A tale of immigration, reduction, trauma, adore, toughness, and perseverance. La historia de mi gente. I realized that this is what I wished for the up coming era. I did not want them to wait around 20 years to hear their stories. I required them to see on their own reflected, acknowledged, and valued in their K-12 courses. So, I resolved to continue what my mom and dad had begun, to endeavor to “break the cycle” of lack of education and learning for as a lot of children as I could. I resolved to turn into a teacher. 

Celebrating Latino Heritage thirty day period to me usually means commemorating and acknowledging these that arrived prior to us. It usually means honoring our ancestors and sharing their strong tales in and outside the classroom. Tales of neighborhood, of resistance, of enjoy, of enthusiasm, of wrestle and of achievement. Tales that we can find out from, that will convey us collectively, and make us more powerful. 

Amanda Zepeda is a next technology Chicana from the San Fernando Valley. She was a local community university transfer scholar that graduated from San Francisco Condition University with a double big in Record and Latina/o Scientific studies and a slight is Race and Resistance. This is her second year as a higher faculty educator teaching equally Ethnic Reports and United States History and has been doing work within the education and learning subject for the past 8 many years.