Villanueva – Rhetorics of Racism

I found this piece to be of interest, at lot of what Villanueva has to say makes me think about my experiences as a teacher. For example, his point that “[a]lthough segregation by race is no longer legal, there is an eco-nomic segregation, a white and middle-class flight from inner cities that relegates African American and Latino students to schools that lack a strong tax base and are thereby poorly funded” (Martinez 7), really stood out to me. When I started my career as a teacher, I elected to teach at a high school in South Central Los Angeles. I expected the school to be poorly funded, but that was not the case. Because of the NCLB, along with State and Federal subsidies, the school had exorbitant amounts of resources; however, there was not much buy-in from the community and as a result, the resources were not always used in the best way. This is not to say that there was no element of white flight, as the school is located in Watts, which if my history serves me correctly was a predominately Anglo-American farming community prior to WWII; however, when the school was born in the late 1970’s it was considered to be an excellent school with a predominately African American base, but then the PCP and Crack epidemic confronted the community. I chose to work at the school because I wanted to help, but quickly learned that help was not easily accepted. In order to survive and gain respect from the students at the school, seeing as I was an outsider, I had to seek guidance from members of the community. Fortunately, a man who went to the school, before deciding to become a teacher there, took me under his wings to show me the ropes. The students saw this and became willing to work with me because they saw that I respected the people of their community. There were other teachers at the school, who were young and idealistic like me, but were working under the umbrella of educational organizations, such as TFA, who in my opinion, are a bit elitist. I noticed that my colleagues made little connections with the community that they served and worked under the guidance of their organization, seeking little guidance from the locals, so to speak. What I found from my experiences working there is that in order for a teacher to make an impact, they have to respect and be respected by the community. Otherwise, as I saw with some of my colleagues, you will get walk on by the students and they will not accept you. Interesting that although you may well live only ten miles from one community, it is literally a different world and you have to learn the language.