Photo: www.solidarity-us.org
Growing up in Little Village, a well-known Mexican community in the southwest side of Chicago, offered both positive and negative challenges that helped shaped the Latina that I am today. I have to admit that in my early teens I was a bit careless and did not appreciate my Mexican cultura. Although I had first-hand knowledge of my neighborhood, it was hard not to believe the stereotypes that the media portrayed about mi gente. I was sucked into believing that people of color were careless about their living situations and therefore didn’t care to change their world of violence and drugs. In order to understand my mentality at that time, it is important to note that I grew up in a block that was one street away from the boundary of two major gangs. Keep in mind that I was thirteen years old and that my mentality at that time wasn’t disproved by the education I was receiving at my elementary school. The school was overcrowded and most teachers didn’t care much about teaching us or getting to know us. Their negative vibe is what made me uninterested in what was being taught at school. I gave a no care attitude simply because I felt that teachers didn’t care. There were some good teachers in the school, but unfortunately the bad ones outweighed the good. So much of my time and energy was dedicated to volleyball.
As the time approached to apply to high schools, I decided to apply to a new school that was going to open in the fall of 2005. My parents wanted me to apply to Whitney Young and other schools, but because all I knew was Little Village, I didn’t feel comfortable going outside of my neighborhood. What I know now is that I wasn’t prepared to experience culture shock and have other people judge me based on where I lived. I made a decision to apply to one of the four campuses in the Little Village Lawndale High School. I got accepted into my first choice, the School of Social Justice. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was interested in the school because of the name. Before classes started in the fall, the school hosted orientation over the summer where we met with other students and parents at Roosevelt University. I thought that meeting at Roosevelt University was pretty awesome, considering that we were fourteen year olds about to embark on our high school journey. I can now say that this made me feel important because the staff arranged for us to meet at a university with our parents. That was a big deal for a fourteen year old who only went to the Loop two times out of the year. I would’ never imagined that location can make a major difference in a young person. It showed me that we mattered in the world. That teachers and administrators believed that we were capable of engaging with the downtown culture that was a world apart from my world of Little Village. I had never felt this opening to a broader world prior to that day. Similar feelings developed soon after starting school.
Being a part of Little Village Lawndale High School’s first graduating class was a unique experience. We had a lot of adult volunteers at school that were genuinely interested in our education and future. The teachers were very young and ambitious. The school provided a comfortable and safe space for my fellow classmates. As part of the first class, we were in a way spoiled. I say spoiled in a good way because we received so much attention from the teachers and staff. We were able to experience pilot programs that broadened my knowledge of the world. It was fairly easy to get to know everyone because we were a freshman class of about a hundred students. We created a sense of community and family.
Aside from that, the curriculum was challenging and engaging. We learned the history of our ancestors as opposed to the traditional textbook history that we were taught in elementary school. We learned that there are many sides to history and the truth of our history is often not told. We learned about important people in history like Ghandi, Malcolm X, and many other figures who led social justice movements. We also read many work, ranging from Charles Mills to Paulo Freire. We were given materials to work with and then it was ultimately up to us to showcase what we learned and make connections between local and global issues. The curriculum was and still is centered on social justice, on educating young people of color to be informed citizens and to critically think about the world and question everything around it. For example, we took a field trip to the power plant that once stood by 32nd and Pulaski so that we could make the connection between this plant and the local environment. Among them, the connection between this site and health, such as the high rates of asthma affecting the area around the plant. We studied gentrification within our communities and held an informational session for the parents in the community about mortgage loans and interest rates.
I really enjoyed that the teachers worked with us in seeking issues that impacted our communities. They encourages us to address them is critical ways. With the guidance of teachers we were able to dig deeper into the problems that we, as people of color, have historically faced. I truly believe that the school started a revolutionary movement of educating young people to critically think on their own. The school planted in us the seeds to think critically about our society. It encouraged us to continue with our education and to educate other people of color. In brief to use knowledge to improve our communities that have been historically disenfranchised and disinvested. In my case, I believe that the education that I received at Little Village Lawndale High School transformed me in many ways, including never to be afraid to speak my mind, that we all have the right to express our voice, and that we have the capacity to build our own future, one that can’t be controlled by the powerful.
I am very happy with the decision that I made at the age of thirteen to apply to Little Village Lawndale High School. I will be forever grateful to my teachers for the time they invested in me. I learned from them the meaning of social change, the impact of social movements, and the power that people can have when they are organized, such as the 2001 hunger strike that led to the creation of my high school. Every year the students and teachers held a celebratory ceremony to commemorate the hunger strikers. We hosted a breakfast with the participants of the strike and we thanked them for fighting for the building of this school and for believing in the future of the youth. I hope to do the same in the ongoing struggle for social justice.
Little Village Lawndale High School Campus.
∴
Gloria Campos grew up in Little Village and is a senior at DePaul University. She is pursuing a degree in Education. She changed her career path from law to education because she wants to have a greater impact on the youth. As a volunteer, she tutors and mentors young people in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.