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Every year, thousands of children arrive to California. These students along with first and second-generation American students look for educational spaces willing to embrace their cultural diversity. Inner-city schools respond to these needs in three different ways. The majority of schools promote a pure assimilation/acculturation to the mainstream culture. Occasionally, the schools

Communities surrounding the big metropolis of Los Angeles ooze the need for social change. In the last ten years, before I moved to Calexico, I had worked on a petite community of Los Angeles and its social agents. Parents and teachers have shared their concerns and thoughts on themes that transcend the concrete range of learning processes. Parents represented the native voice of the community, a voice that has been silent for decades, nonetheless is prepared to become the representative of the barriohood. Teachers grew up in the aforementioned community, move out to educate themselves and later came back to their roots to educate those who cannot move out.   Read more...

In the past thirteen years, I have been learning from bicultural students.  In Barcelona, students from Morocco taught me that our lives have a literary rhythm, a rhythm that guides our reading experiences.  Their gestures, energy, and musicality helped me to understand that when the written text is presented as a mere recollection of letters and words, we are losing its fundamental essence: communication of experiences.  Once I learned how to listen to the texts, my planning became enriched with their views, and gained perceptions in a cultural environment that despite its geographical closeness was located within an infinite distance from my cultural framework.  I am fortunate that they installed a new pair of lenses on my monochromatic eyes.    Read more...