At the eye doctor, today I saw “la Maestra Sandoval“ my high school science teacher. She remembers exactly where I used to sit in her classroom 16 years ago, way in the back of the classroom with los cholos, locos, flojos poco amor. I had to apologize for failing miserably at the beginning of the year and for all of those missed assignments. You see, it was my first month in the US and learning biology at 16 with not a single word of English in your vocabulary can get pretty confusing. I sat way in the back because my cholo friends used to translate for me; probably they learned by translating. Selfishly, I encouraged them to attend class to be a service to this poor indigenous-paisa that just arrived few months ago from the mountains of the old republic. When los vatos missed the class I felt horribly alone because Mr. Sandoval will stop 10 minutes before the end of the class and provided me with a lecture about the topic in Spanish(her Spanish is so much better now). In a sense, I missed my friends and at times I did escaped with them in search of meaning outside of school; away from the place where we felt it wasn’t for us. Mr. Sandoval’s help was genuine and her attempt to lecture me in pocho-mocho Spanish indicated that she cared; but sitting there listening to a teacher while a classroom full of eyes stared at me like observing a weird creature; I’m sure you will lose focus of the topic too. I had to pretend that I was taking notes looking down, scribbling in a notepad “trágame tierra.” Truth is, I was the kid who was holding everyone from moving at a normal pace. Today, I gave her a big hug and said thank you in English. She is older with a slow walk and still carries that amazing smile and positive attitude. I spent an hour listening to the stories of her native New Mexico. Something tells me; we have so much in common. I was placed in the classroom becuase she was the only teacher who spoke a little bit of spanish. I passed the class; I stayed after-school and struggled to make sense of the damn science of cells and organism. We all know a kid like that, if you do… thank you for having so much patience and understanding. We march forward slowly. It was in the after-school environment where I learned the phrase “I’m working on it maestra. She asked me today before I walked out of the eye clinic: have you finished you PhD yet? I kindly repeated; “working on it maestra.” “los que lloran con tus lagrimas se alegran de tus triunfos.” -Excuse the typos, Im blaming my iPhone. Webfoot Chicano
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 23:05:15 +0000
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