Travel to Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico, Fall 2019

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One of the reasons I chose to attend Minnesota State Mankato for my undergraduate studies was because people from my high school were not enrolling here. I wanted a fresh start and most importantly, I wanted to branch out and make new friends. 

 

This backfired initially. I did not consider the possibility that it might be hard to make new friends, especially considering the fact that I am more introverted compared to how I was in high school. I faced severe homesickness and considered dropping out of college. I wanted nothing to do with college life and I called my mom a lot the first couple weeks of being on campus. After the first couple weeks, I met a friend in the dining hall who looked as lost as I was. I sat down by her, and we started talking. Her name was Mali, and she told me how scared she was of being in the United States and that she wished I could speak Spanish. She was from Mexico. I am not particularly sure what we talked about after that, but I remember leaving the dining hall feeling a little relieved that I had made a friend. We planned to start eating together. Over the course of 15 weeks, we became extremely close. We did everything together. We ate every meal together in the dining hall, did our homework together, spent every Sunday at the mall, and she also came home with me for Thanksgiving break. My friendship with Mali was unique because this was the first time I became close with someone who lived a very different life than me. What I mean by this is that she was my first friend who didn’t grow up in the Midwest with me. One of my favorite memories of her was when she told me about drinking “chocolate abuelita,” which is a Mexican hot chocolate. She taught me how to make it and reminded me frequently not to screw it up because I told her that I’ve made hot chocolate before. I still cannot believe how close we became in such a short amount of time. We both had very similar personalities, but it was clear that we came from very different cultures. One of the biggest distinctions is that she openly expressed affection by hugging and touching me. I don’t really do this on a daily basis, and she reminded my frequently that I was going to have to get over myself I ever traveled to Mexico. Mali also helped me learn a lot about American culture because she pointed out that Americans often think they don’t have a culture and become infatuated with learning about others instead. I remember thinking that we don’t have a culture until she pointed out the cultural elements that I had not considered (e.g., Protestant work ethic, “time is money” mentality, bland food, etc.). This was the beginning of the reflective work that I was about to do in college and in my teacher preparation program. 

 

That being said, I didn’t realize until the middle of my first semester of college that she was a study abroad student and was heading back to Mexico in December. Mali told me that she was proud to call me her gringo friend and invited me to come back to Mexico with her after the semester was over. I halfheartedly agreed and bought my ticket. I was nervous because this was the first time I was traveling abroad and traveling by myself. When I arrived at the airport in Mexico, I remember being overwhelmed because there was very little English, and I did not have phone service. Mali ended up being the one to find me at the airport and we embarked on the long car ride from Puerto Vallarta to Tepic. We drove through the mountains for several hours and her mom did not speak a word of English. This was when I realized how hard it was going to be to communicate with Mali’s family if she was not near me to translate. When we arrived at her house, I met her family. The hospitality was astonishing and needless to say I had a memorable ten days. I appreciated the fact that we weren’t anywhere near tourists so I could get the full Mexican experience. 

 

My days in Tepic taught me a lot because I was able to learn more about Mexican culture and cuisine and Spanish language. It was the first time that I tried sea food dishes, and I realized that one of my favorite dishes is ceviche. Mali’s mom asked me to try ordering my food in Spanish and even though it was rocky, I figured it out. One of the best memories I have from that trip is of Mali’s mom trying to teach me the phrase “mal de puerco.” The exact transition is “pig disease” but it is slang for the feeling of being sleepy after a big meal. It took me 45 minutes to figure out what she was meant by that and without Mali intervening. 

 

Ultimately, the experience also opened my eyes to the rather ethnocentric views people in the United States hold when it comes to the English language. It amazed me how many people in Puerto Vallarta demanded to be spoken to in English even though they were visiting a Spanish speaking country. It appeared as if people from Mexico were more willing to learn English than people in the United States were willing to learn Spanish. Ultimately, I wish I would have taken Spanish more seriously during my K-12 schooling experience, because it can be really frustrating to communicate with others when there was a language barrier. There were many occasions when I wish I would have been able to talk directly to her family. At some point, I will learn Spanish. I am glad that I had this experience during the first semester of my undergraduate program because it catalyzed an interest in intercultural engagement with others. I have traveled back to Mexico each year since then and I have continued to study Spanish during my free time. This experience has been crucial to my development as a classroom teacher because they have taught me about the correlation between language and culture. This experience has also taught me that it is important to learn about my own culture before I begin to learn about other cultures, because it is impossible to understand someone else if I don’t understand myself first. As a result of my travel, I understand the value of having my emergent bilingual students in Aldine continue to read and write in Spanish. After all, language is essential for learning academic content and preserving a sense of self and culture identity. 

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IGNITE the Youth: Fighting to Remove School Police, Fall 2020

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During the Fall 2020 semester, I was invited to join IGNITE the Youth in the fight to remove school police officers from Mankato Area Public Schools. At first, I was hesitant to join because I knew that schools were places of political tension, and I didn’t want to find myself in a position where I could potentially jeopardize my ability to get a teaching job. I was also aware of the fact that I get frustrated with people rather quickly if we do not see eye to eye right away. Ultimately though, I knew deep down that I needed to join the fight because the issue was bigger than me. I remember thinking to myself, “What kind of an educator would I be if I wasn’t advocating for Black and brown students during my teacher preparation program?”

 

That said, there were two main pieces to being involved in the fight to remove school police officers: attending the community conversations at Mankato West High School and speaking publicly at the board meetings. I think the community conversations at Mankato West High School were a bit more meaningful because they were open to everyone in the community who had thoughts on this issue. The board meetings, however, were more formal and procedural. After several community conversations, I was asked to speak at the board meetings was because I was very passionate about the issue. Each board was held via Zoom, and I had the chance to speak for approximately 5 minutes. During each presentation, I compared the data of schools that had an officer to the data of schools that did not have an officer. It was obvious that the school with the police officer had higher suspension rates for students of color and that general behavioral issues were higher in the presence of a school resource officer. My central argument was that it is a waste of money to spend $193,000 on a program that does not actually prevent negative behavior in schools. 

 

I am really glad that I was able to have this experience in my teacher preparation program, despite the pandemic. I think what made this experience so valuable is the fact that it really sparked my interest in learning about anti-racism and equity in schools. I battled a lot of homophobia throughout my K-12 schooling experience, so I never really reflected on ways in which schools uphold a culture of white supremacy and settler-colonialism. I was too busy worrying about homophobia in schools. Despite the fact that LGBTQ+ students face a number of issues in schools, we cannot ignore the fact that racial minorities are also underserved in schools. Why are Black students suspended from school at higher rates than white student are? Why are Black students overrepresented in special education? Moreover, this experience was also valuable because it exposed me to the political nature of schools. At Mankato West High School, there were a number of Black students that shared their personal experiences with school police officers. They shared their experience publicly with community members who were very skeptical about the removal of the school resource officers. It was very frustrating for me to watch the way these students were treated by some community members. Their stories were blatantly disregarded, because they were unwilling to change their mind about police in schools. I really hated watching these students be ignored or being told that they were 
“being too much.” 

 

Ultimately the board failed to listen to us and voted in favor of continuing to fund the school police officer program at Mankato Area Public Schools. Despite the fact that we lost the fight, I learned a lot. I was able to learn that allyship is about echoing marginalized voices, rather than talking over them. I also learned how to communicate ideas in a way that does not shut down conversations. The old saying, “You catch more flies with sugar,” was really echoed in this experience. It has been solidified during my student teaching experience at Aldine. Next time, I will be a bit more subtle when I present the information surrounding race and school police officers. I am a very passionate person, and sometimes that can be off-putting to people. There is often a lot of white fragility, and without knowing how to navigate this, change is difficult. 

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Travel to Washington, D.C., Spring 2023

During the Spring 2023 semester, I was invited to travel to Washington, D.C. with other pre-service social studies teachers to visit the Holocaust Museum. Despite the fact that we were only going there for one day, I was really excited for this trip because it was my first time. We departed the parking lot at 3:30AM for the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport. We took a charter plane to D.C., and we were there by 8:30AM. When I arrived in D.C., I was infatuated with the cherry blossoms as we made our way to the Holocaust Museum. We took a group picture with all of the pre-service social studies teachers from Minnesota State Mankato and began to make our way through the museum. 

 

Before I begin briefly describing my experiences in the museum, I want to note that this was a trip that I contemplated going on for several weeks. I love traveling and I usually don’t take much time to think about hoping on a plane, but I contemplated this trip for a while because of the term paper I wrote on pinkwashing. Anyone who knows me would describe me as someone who can’t keep their mouth shut, and I knew I would run into a Zionist exhibit. I knew that it would bother me to see such an exhibit. Obviously, I do not support anti-Semitism and I will eventually have to teach about it, but I also do not support settler-colonialism. I was worried about getting into it with the museum guide. Ultimately, I decided to go, and I decided I was going to keep my commentary to myself. I am really glad I went on this trip. It helped me gain new perspective. 

 

First and foremost, I was really shocked by how emotionally heavy the exhibits in the museum felt. It was difficult to walk through. The exhibits seemed to be put together very carefully and the items on display in each exhibit brought the horrors of the Holocaust to life. There was a high volume of people in the museum that day because local schools were visiting, so I was able to walk through it at a slow pace and read each of the displays. They did not seem to leave anything out—the exhibits featured the Nuremberg laws, the treatment of queer men in concentration camps and post-World War II, and there was even a piece of one of the trains that brought victims to the camps. There was also a concentration camp bunk bed and one of the areas of the museum simulated a gas chamber. I think the most difficult display for me to see was the one that had thousands and thousands of shoes piled up. It made me cry. Again, it was difficult to walk through. I think the fact that I was forced to walk through it slowly helped me process a lot both intellectually and emotionally. There were also middle school students there and it was nice to see them talk about the things they saw in the museum. I think seeing those middle schoolers talk about the exhibits honestly provided me with some insight on how to teach about genocide one day. The middle schoolers occasionally made jokes about the things in the museum, but it was obvious that they were fronting, and it was a coping mechanism. 

 

When it came time to Zionist exhibit, I wasn’t able to keep my mouth shut. The tour guide told us something along the lines of Zionism being important. I scoffed and he asked me why I scoffed in front of everyone. I told him, “Obviously the stuff in this museum is horrific, so why would you suggest doing the same thing to Palestinians by saying Zionism is important?” He was uncomfortable by my comment and asked to speak with me afterwards. I declined because I already felt bad about not being able to keep my commentary to myself. 

 

Ultimately, I think that this experience showed me the importance of teaching about genocide. I learned that teaching about genocide has to be very strategically (e.g., teaching about the Holocaust and teaching about ethnic cleansing in Palestine). The museum obviously placed emphasis on remembrance and education. It served as a reminder of the consequences of hatred, bigotry, and discrimination and echoed the fact that educators need to be vigilant to intolerance and injustice. 

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