Leadership Autobiography

Early Childhood Impressions of my life in South Central Los Angeles

So much of how a person's thoughts and beliefs develop are determined by their material circumstances and surrounding. In writing this autobiography, I feel compelled to describe not only the relationships that have impacted me but also the various neighborhoods in Los Angeles County that have shaped my politics and beliefs as an educator. 

While I was born in Los Angeles, my family is part of the Mexican Diaspora so ubiquitous in the US it is rarely seen as such. My working class parents immigrated to Los Angeles in the 80s as did much of my extended family. They formed part of a transplant community mostly that settled in South Central LA. 

Though my dad has only an eighth grade education, my mother studied at various LA community colleges in order to meet the requirements for teaching in Head Start Preschools. The youngest daughter benefited from the wisdom and advice of her older siblings, who encouraged her to go to school and  avoid working minimum wage jobs. 

As a four year old, I observed the Rodney King Uprisings from my living room window as our home was located near the epi-center of the action. It was my first time observing political agitation and laid the foundation for  my understanding of race and class relationships across Los Angeles. At the timeI was attending pre-school at Budlong Elementary School, and the uprisings convinced my mother to enroll us in the local parochial school. Located on Vermont Ave., Nativity Catholic School was largely made up of working class students whose parents were doing everything in their power to pay for private school. The school was diverse, however, there were no bilingual teachers there that could support English Learners like my sisters and me. 

When my mother was relocated to another Head-start in Boyle Heights my siblings and I abruptly changed schools. We attended another Parochial School named Santa Isabel. While at our old school, there was a relatively high degree of diversity and all our teachers had been Black, our new school in East LA was not. Attending Santa Isabel was the first time I experienced homogeneity in school and adapting was not easy. The Latino students at our new school were quick to judge my sister and  our English Learner accents. At this school my teachers were either white or Latino. Driving from South Central to East Los Angeles increased my consciousness of racial segregation in the neighborhoods and schools  of Los Angeles. Every day, as we drove through Downtown LA to get to school, I would notice Asian students playing in school yards and wonder why there weren’t any at my school. Growing up I rarely saw white people in my neighborhood and when I drove through wealthy neighborhoods it became clear to me that this was intentional. 

Pre-teen and Young Adult life in in middle class Suburbia

After two years attending school in Boyle Heights, my family permanently settled in Downey, known for having stellar public schools. For the grades 6-8th I attended schools in the Downey Unified School District. I would have liked to have stayed in one neighborhood school system all through my childhood, yet moving so much helped me understand racial and socio-ecomomic segregation rather personally. At the time my family moved to Downey, it was experiencing a mass exodus of white families. As a result, the public middle and high school I attended there was rather diverse. I really appreciated making friends with people with cultures that were different from my own. Though I performed rather well in high school, I was not politically prepared to be a student at the University of California Berkeley, the college I chose to attend. Though I really loved the campus and its history, at Berkeley I became hyperaware of my minoritized identity and developed an acute case of imposter syndrome. While there, I was paired up with a white roommate whose mother had a Doctorate of Philosophy and whose father was a corporate lawyer. I really liked her at first; she was very generous, often inviting me out to dinner with her family and giving me small gifts. It really surprised me when she started telling me her parents were better than mine because they had more education and more money. She assumed my Mexican mother was a stay at home parent (there is nothing wrong with that) when actually my mom has worked my whole life as a preschool teacher for Head Start. The class differences between our families is something she would often bring up. Eventually, she started putting me down in other ways. I had never been bullied before and became so depressed I could no longer focus on my studies. 

Dropping out in the middle of my first semester at Berkeley was one of the hardest experiences I have ever lived. At the time, I felt I might never go back to any college. It took me many years to work through the imposter syndrome I had developed as a result of that trauma and my experiences as a second generation Mexican American. Luckily I was able to regroup and rebuild my confidence with the help of my family and community college friends. I eventually transferred to a state school, and went to graduate school at the University of Southern California to become a teacher.  What happened to me at Berkeley is unfortunately rather common. Studying the intersection of political economy and institutional racism has helped me understand what I lived through when I was at Berkeley. As a result of my experience, I try to create experiences to celebrate my students’ cultures and instill in them the confidence they will need to accomplish their goals in a society that is often hostile to minorities and poor people. 

Entering the ranks of education workers and militant labor organizers

I have worked in the field of education in a myriad of positions since I graduated high school. After graduating with my Bachelors Degree, I struggled to find a full-time job due to the 2007 recession and my lack of networking-capital as the daughter of Mexican immigrants. I got my first opportunity to grow my leadership skills as an AmeriCorps Site Coordinator for a volunteer tutoring program called Reading Partners. This position helped me become more comfortable training volunteers and facilitating literacy workshops for adults. My experiences in AmeriCorps ultimately contributed to my decision to pursue a career in education. After receiving my credential and Masters from the University of Southern California, I accepted a job with the only place that would have me, a charter school network called Camino Nuevo Charter Academy. Working at a charter school was not my first choice, but I ultimately learned a lot from this experience. At Camino I was given access to excellent professional development opportunities and experiences working collaboratively with other teachers within and outside my grade level. For two of the five years I worked there, I was part of a cadre responsible for making school wide curricular decisions.  I also served as my school’s union steward, which required me to facilitate monthly meetings with teachers as well as have difficult conversations with our school admin on behalf of my colleagues. My time at Camino was the first time I had ever seen women of color in roles of leadership and that felt very inspiring and exciting for me. However, I also saw how corrosive undemocratic practices and administrative favoritism could be to a school culture. At the time that I was there, the Camino charter school that I worked for had high turnover rates and low teacher satisfaction. Inspired by the 2019 UTLA teacher strike, I left the Camino CharterNetwork  in order to work for LAUSD and join the strongest teacher's union in Los Angeles. 

Currently I work at the UCLA Community School, where I teach Kindergarten and First Grade in a Spanish Dual Language Program. I feel incredibly fortunate and proud to be at this school and while here, I have learned more about school governance and distributed leadership. UCLA CS is run unlike any school I have ever worked at and this is something I did not expect when I first got hired. Originally I wanted to work at UCLA CS for its curricular autonomy as an LAUSD pilot school and had no idea that it was also a teacher powered environment. It took me a while, but now I understand the governance model so much more; I have a deeper appreciation for the school’s democratic practices and a better understanding of the distributed leadership model characteristic of UCLA CS. The special way the school is run has helped me to continue learning and growing my skills as an educator.  

Earlier I mentioned that I had served as union steward at the charter school where I first worked. Labor organizing continues to be a core part of my activities as an education worker. In addition to the experiences and skills acquired above, I have also been an active member of United Teachers Los Angeles for the last three years, serving both as the Chapter Chair for my school and also as a member of UTLA’s North Area Steering Committee. Labor organizing has taught me the importance of building relationships with all school stakeholders, teachers, parents, and other school staff. Interestingly, a lot of what I have learned about political organizing is highly relevant for leading schools democratically and equitably. 

Present and Future Goals

Although I am wrapping up my coursework, I do not feel that my UCLA PLI journey is over and I very much look forward to staying involved with future cohorts. This coming school-year I will be taking on the role of Instructional Lead Teacher for a term of three years. This will be space in which I can put into practice more concretely all that I have learned in PLI. I have also committed to being a COTSEN Foundation Fellow and I think this experience will definitely help me more deeply understand how to approach Instructional Coaching. 

Given the current climate in LAUSD, I do not think I will have the opportunity to utilize my administrative credential in a formal capacity. I do see myself as eventually taking on the role of Assistant Principal one day, but not before working for many years as some kind of coordinator. Before then, I hope to continue growing my leadership in the areas of collaboration, democratic decision making, instructional coaching and parent engagement.

Now that I will have more time on my hands, I really look forward to making more memories with my family. Truly, I could not have come as I have without the sacrifices of my parents and encouragement of siblings, who have their own accomplishments as well.