Leticia Almanza

      My family migrated to the United States from Mexico when I was ten years-old to give their seven children an opportunity for a better life. My parents secured a roof over our heads and food on the table by working at back-breaking jobs; my dad was a ditch digger and my mother worked as a janitor. For my father, the harder we worked, physically, the prouder we made him. Today I am a high school teacher at a school that serves primarily low-income families with the same hard-work ethic with which I grew up. As a teacher and role model, I try to bridge academic achievements with the deeply engrained work ethic that keeps many kids from even considering college.
      I know first-hand the obstacles that they have encountered in the public school system and those they will encounter when they attend college. As an immigrant child, I was labeled “retarded” because I did not speak English. I graduated from high school near the top of my class. I felt a college degree was my right, a right I refused to forfeit because only with a degree would I have secure work. My thirst for an education was so great that I defied my parents and enrolled at one of Texas’ most selective public universities. I paid a price for that choice. In my parents’ culture, women did not leave the house except to get married. Going to college compromised my reputation, at least in my dad’s eyes. To make matters worse, I dropped out after the first year because I did not have sufficient financial aid. I was told that my family made too much money—my parents had minimum-wage jobs and supported four children. Seven years later, I began college again. This time my education cost me my marriage. I was a single parent on a limited income, but I finished my degree and secured the teaching position I now have. I recently earned a master’s degree in Educational Administration from Texas A & M University.
      For the past five years I have taught English at a largely Hispanic, inner city high school. Most of my students are children weighed down with the responsibilities of adults. For most of these kids, college appears unattainable, not because they do not have the ability or the discipline, but because they lack the resources. I understand their lot and try to expose them to an ideology of plurality where our families-first values become the drive for furthering their educations. I assist my students with their college applications and financial aid forms because they may not get this support or information at home. This is my version of the Leave No Child Behind program.
      I will soon be licensed as a principal and I hope to be able to assume a leadership position in my district. I have the credentials, but as a Mexican American woman, becoming a principal will be a difficult task. When I do, though, I will be in a position to positively impact a greater number of people by promoting higher education for all students. On a personal level, my daughters who are now eight and ten years-old, have futures far different than I had. They know that I will be behind them all the way.

Photo Exhibit

A nationally touring exhibit of 50 framed, museum quality, color photographs coupled with narratives created by students who are welfare eligible, single parents changing their lives through the pathway of higher education.  The installation presents a unique view of poverty from insiders’ perspectives and reframes the cultural (de)valuations of poor single parents vis-à-vis family, work and higher education in the United States today. View the Gallery Guide.