Who are the Ones in your Journey?

Written by: Edith Suárez Torres 

For a long time, i never questioned my Education.

i was simply grateful that i could get one, and it was “free,” for most of my life. My parents often shared how they did not complete beyond a 3rd-grade education because they lacked the funds. Yet, here I was finishing high school. I was grateful.

They often told me: 

“Stay in school.” 

“Mija, don’t be like us.”

“Knowledge is freedom.”

i stayed in school.

And it was throughout my college journey that i started being able to pinpoint why i felt how i did at different stages in my education. One of my earliest memories is feeling isolated seeing that almost no one looked like me in my 4th-grade classroom. At times i was embarrassed because my parents weren’t educated like my classmates’ parents. Like many, already at only age 12 i thought degrees were the only real education. It was until college when i began to realize that those feelings were not created by natural conditions but as a result of a whole history in the US, so often filled with flaws. My learning was thanks to great leaders around me: classmates, professors, and my own community. The feelings of isolation did not stop in college, but i was now at a point in my life where i knew how to advocate for myself and create my own spaces of joy. 

Later, when I worked with youth, I knew it was my responsibility

to co-create spaces of joy with them too. 

Spaces that allowed them to learn, validated their feelings and surfaced their strengths. 

Spaces that reminded them that not speaking English yet was not a deficit, it was an asset. They were becoming bilingual and/or multilingual. 

In this process, i continue to reflect on my own public education and notice how so many other people around me have also experienced feelings of isolation, confusion, not feeling smart enough, etc. i now understand how being raised in a country where the stories of our heritage are so often left out in every space can cause such feelings about who we are and our potential.

On the contrary, i have also now experienced how learning about our heritage, and doing this with others who are also interested in getting closer to their roots creates a sense of belonging, confidence, and joy. 

If this resonates with you, my goal is that by sharing my journey i can remind you that you are intelligent, strong, and capable. i want you to understand that so often, the flaws did not begin within you, but around you, in the spaces where we were meant to learn.

Still, in those spaces we find amazing leaders

We all have that one person/s that at different stages of our lives shaped us for the better. 

The great news is that even within these systems and spaces one finds amazing leaders. 

For example, 

That person that loved you.

That person that made you feel understood when no one else did.

That person that gave you the attention you needed and met you where you were.

That person that saw your potential when others couldn’t. 

That someone that gave you a chance. 

In my life, those people were my parents Faviola and Ramon, who loved me unconditionally. Ms. Lopez, in 3rd grade, who taught me about her Navajo culture, Professor Alexandra Piñeros-Shields, swho saw my potential and often gave me positive affirmations that I had not heard from any other professor. She also gave me the opportunity to facilitate and teach in her class. And Mark Brimhall-Vargas, who supported me and mentored me after a professor joked in my classroom on the first day of a new semester about how Mexicans needed to learn the sport of pole vaulting to jump the border.

I ask you today, to reflect on who are ones in your journey?

who has shaped you for the better? First, thank them. And just as importantly answer, “How you can i be that person for someone else starting today?” Maybe it’s in your workplace, in your social circle, or right there, wherever you find yourself reading this.