(gentle music) (school bell rings) (bright music) (students chattering) (machine beeping) - I never thought I'd open a school in Minnesota.

(drums beating) (group speaking Spanish) It was the community and the parents who came to me, and it was the community who supported me to do this work.

It was about empowering our community.

- We don't think it's political.

A lot of teachers will not think it's political, but we are in the most political position, (group cheering) 'cause we are developing future community organizers, future leaders in the community.

(camera snapping) - [Interviewee] The strike officially began when 1,000 Filipino workers walked out after their request for better wages had been ignored.

- The history that what was and what is and how we got here is not always beautiful.

(class chattering) You know, I tell students I work for an educational system that was definitely not designed for you all, and it was not designed for me to be leading it either.

(blocks rattling) (teacher speaking Spanish) If you are an Indigenous person, if you are Black or Brown student, Asian, not all Asians, but Hmong in particular, Minnesota is not the best place for your child.

(bright music continues) (class chattering) (class speaking Spanish) Our charter schools like El Colegio and Academia are actually a way that some of us have seen like a little door where we can actually make an impact in education in our community, versus dealing with huge bureaucracies that we just get lost in it and nothing happens.

- Both El Colegio and Academia, we're culture-affirming schools with the intention of working with the Latino community.

- The mission is for the children to become bilingual and biliterate.

If you have a strong sense of identity, it helps build your self-esteem, and if you are proud of who you are and where you come from, (laughs) you're gonna make great contributions, I believe, to our community and our society in the whole.

(gentle music) - So El Colegio is a high school, 9 through 12, and our students are very diverse.

We have 90 students, 70% are English language learners.

And then of that, probably more than half are new to country.

But it's so interesting 'cause I think when people see us they're like, "Oh, they're all Mexican."

And I'm like, "Well, (laughs) I am not Mexican.

And not all of our teachers are Mexican and not all of our students are Mexican."

(children chattering) (gentle music continues) (students chattering) - [Photographer] All right.

Let's do it.

Hands behind in the back.

And 1, 2, 3.

(camera snaps) - So today's picture day, and it's one of my favorite days here.

Academia's so diverse.

We have a lot of families from El Salvador.

It's a little bit of people from Ecuador, a little bit people from Guatemala, but we have, you know, Black father, Mexican mother, Salvadorian brother, all this mixture that is makes it so beautiful and is beyond language.

- Hands behind your back.

Perfect.

And big smile.

(camera snaps) You're all set.

(people chattering) - Yeah, of course.

- [Norma] You're gonna have to Photoshop my shirt.

(photographer laughs) It's super dirty.

- And 1, 2, 3.

(camera snaps) - 3, 2, 1, big smile.

- And one more, 1, 2, 3.

(gentle music) And you're all set.

- I'm not the poster child for teaching.

I did not like school growing up.

I have dyslexia.

I have, some people would say Ms. Norma clearly has ADD.

- But I got along with all of my teachers for the most part.

I have a few that took the time to like get to know me and I was a cheerleader, so, I mean, they all have to know who I was.

I was the brown cheerleader that stuck out (laughs) in the group of 'em, - I wanted to be a good student, but I didn't know English, so I was made to stand in the corner all day long, every day and hold my hands out like Jesus Christ when he died on the cross.

- I love learning, right, but the actual testing and all that stuff for me was never good.

And it was never, it never lift my spirit.

- I was always happy and laughing and disrupting class with a good joke.

(laughs) - And my high school counselor, in fact, he told me now, whatever you do, you're not college material.

And he said, all you need to do is go to work after you graduate from high school and help your mother financially.

(gentle music continues) (people chattering) - So go into the inner circle.

Go sit down.

Go sit down.

Okay, let's start really fast.

And from one to five, how you doing?

4, 4, 2, 3.

Nobody has an anxiety about the school's gonna be open or closed?

(gentle music) (group chattering) In the last, I don't know how many years, our kids at Academia are quite behind academically, but we know that from all the kids in the state.

St. Thomas has been talking to the board about how the academic results are not what they would like to see.

At one point the conversation was that maybe St. Thomas would not renew our contracts, unless drastic changes would happen.

As a charter director, that's your number one stressor is that you have a contract and you have enrollment.

If you don't have enrollment, you don't have school.

So you don't need an authorizer.

But it is very stressful.

It's a very stressful process.

(people chattering softly) This is my second year and when I arrived, Academia was like very assimilated.

The teachers that we had were mostly monolingual English speaking.

They were using curriculums that were more focused on making sure that the kids learn English and that they were gonna succeed in English.

(teacher speaking Spanish) And when I came in, as the students had like 30 minutes of Spanish a day.

The intention was not there of teaching the language.

English is very different from Spanish, how to teach.

In Latin America to still be taught with like oral history and a lot of storytelling.

And when you take the storytelling away from the students, you're not being culturally competent.

We have to look everything through the Spanish lens.

(tape deck clicking) (gentle guitar music) - [Arturo] We came to the United States in 1915.

- [Elvira] My father was looking for a sister that was lost in the revolution (gentle guitar music) - [Katie] Kids of color, you know, African American kids, or Latino kids, we weren't in the schools right away, in this country.

Education was designed to make assembly workers.

It was designed to control people.

- Originally the schools were created for assimilation in all the entire world.

Only when the schools were for the elite that it was to develop you.

Even in Mexico, right?

Like so Juana Ines de la Cruz, she was a nun.

So you had to be a nun in order to access knowledge.

- So it was designed to keep us out or only give us a certain amount of things, limited education.

Like you can know this but you can't know this, right?

Because if you know this, you're gonna have too much power, and that would be scary.

- In order to succeed academically, you have to be, in a big percentage, very assimilated.

For a student that is going to a four-year college, they need to be very culturally grounded and knowing who they are to succeed those environments, to come back to our community and be a change agent.

Otherwise, we lost them.

(tape deck clicking) (gentle music) - [Gilbert] There was a school called Crowley that was located outside the west side, and Crowley was a school for slow learners.

And they also send there if you couldn't speak English.

In elementary school, they would have the food groups up on the wall, you know, I mean there's no tortillas up there, frijoles, all that kind of thing So there's a lot of stuff up there's telling us about our culture, that it's not acceptable.

So my equalizer was, we became tough guys, you know?

- [Interviewer] What was the thing that made you yearn the change from a kid that was acting out to a kid that actually enjoyed being there, and got on the Dean's List?

- [Gilbert] Yeah, yeah, and I look back on that, and what it was, was my involvement with the Chicano movement.

- Mm.

- As we start getting involved and realizing what this thing was all about, about identity, about the equality, you know, and education, and this is what we ought to be doing, this is what it's about.

(people chattering) (energetic music) (slides clicking) - It was just a great time to be at the University of Minnesota in the time of the '60s.

There was rallies everywhere in campus.

Some of the Black students began to organize, to talk about the issues that were affecting the Black community.

And so I thought, "They're doing it.

We can do it too."

(gentle music) So we go into this room?

This is the last picture that we took with Cesar Chavez.

And if you can see here my Joaquin, who's the firefighter, must have been about what?

Six or seven years old.

- About that, yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

Cesar Chavez at the time sent many of his people to identify other student leader One of his workers heard of me, and so Cesar Chavez came to Minnesota and trained me one-on-one.

I learned from Cesar that we needed to fight for justice.

Yes, I learned from Cesar que si se puede but there was an energy that he gave you, and a belief that he gave you that we must stand up for our human rights.

(birds chirping) (people speaking in Spanish) - Ulises, you're getting your stuff?

- [Student] Mm-hmm.

- You're doing domestic violence, and you're doing Uvalde.

It's our week of interim, and in this class, we have a group of students that are working on building the ofrendas.

They watched a video to learn the history of El Dia de los Muertos and how it's celebrated in different places in Mexico, and then we came up with the ideas for the different altars.

(bright music plays faintly) - I would just put it right ther - Like that?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

(gentle music) I was born in Barranquilla, Colombia, and I was adopted when I was three months old and came here to Minnesota when I was four months.

(group chattering in Spanish) I learned Spanish by being in the community.

Okay.

I didn't know Spanish until I was an adult, you know?

and it was like immersing myself working at a shop on the west side.

Novedades Lupita is the store that I worked at.

It was I think the first Latina-owned business that sold like the quinceanera dresses and the baptism dresses.

Lupita, she's my comadre and you know, I owe her and her family so much, 'cause I feel like they like adopted me into their family and I'm like forever grateful for her for that opportunity.

I didn't realize I'm gonna get so emotional on it, but yeah, (laughs) that's what gave me that opportunity and it allowed me then to be more connected with the community.

It was a healing, definitely it was healing and gave me definitely what I wanted, you know?

Oh, watch for Delilah, though.

(helper laughs) Historically, El Colegio has always been a central place where people can gather and use the space in several different ways.

That energy, we feel it, (group laughing) and it's like a blessing into this space in that sense.

(lively music) El Dia de los Muertos, it's a celebration of life.

You know, yes, it's sad that we have our loved ones who pass on but at the same time, we celebrate who they were, what did they do here, and just being together in community is, that's the beautiful part and the fun part.

(laughs) (lively music continues) - So good afternoon everyone.

We're going to start today's festivities.

- Like people like me, like everybody else, we are brown and we are beautiful, but at the same time we die.

We die across the borders, we die try to looking for a better opportunity.

And remember, all our families are watching there, all el espíritu are close to us.

So thank you so much everybody.

(tape clicking) - [Interviewer] What do you remember about living on the west side?

- [Irene] Oh, when we were there they had a (speaking Spanish) Marcelina belonged to that society.

They had beautiful festivities, and for Christmas they used to have (speaking Spanish), they called them.

And Mr. Francisco Angel and his wife, they all used to teach the younger people.

All our families got together and they were all very united.

- For us, it's very important that education passes to our children through us.

And these (foreign language) are the place, a big place where we pass on that.

So they can see themselves as Indigenous people.

They can see themselves as Brown and Mexican.

But then there is nothing attached to that in the general culture.

(lively music) (slides flipping) - This is the 1970s now.

The University of St. Thomas is conducting an educational needs assessment on Latinos.

I'm saying wow the University of St. Thomas.

I never even knew they knew about Latinos.

(slides flipping) I was curious.

(upbeat music) So I went and I said, "Well could you use my expertise?"

So I took the model of the National Council of Los UnidosUS and I developed the Hispanic Pre-College Program.

It was very successful.

All of a sudden our children see teachers that look like them, that speak Spanish, that were warm, loving, welcoming to them.

And their children were learning and their scores were improving in school.

I would offer parent workshops at the Neighborhood House in the St. Paul's west side.

This cold winter day, I would have lines of parents wanting to attend our workshops.

So (laughs) I was approached by community members and our parents.

"Would you, would you please start a school serving our Latino children?"

So we set out to start a school.

(upbeat music) The parents started to call it Academia.

They felt that it wa an academy.

- Bienvenidos.

Bienvenidos.

- They were so proud of their children going there.

And when I met with some community members I said, "Well you are gonna name it after Cesar Chavez, Ramona, aren't you?"

There's who we got Academia Cesar Chavez.

When I took a step back and to see the school go off mission and vision was heartbreaking for me.

Thanks so much.

That was one reason that I really wanted to bring Norma, and I really wanted her to be hired here.

I believe that Norma would want to move what I had started forward.

I believe Norma could move it forward.

- [Norma] So I think I answered some of the stuff already.

- Okay, but what is your plan on addressing the MCA test scores academic achievement?

- So there's no curriculum.

That's one of the challenges.

The new bilingual education, the approach that we're taking is that not by using just a standard curriculum that is translated.

- That's what we found in the past.

We could never find one.

- You look at your kids, look what they bring, and start drawing from there and create your own stuff.

- And that was part of the charter, that we were gonna do that.

- Yep.

Right now we're talking about we gotta create the building blocks of the bilingual program.

If we increase the vocabulary in Spanish, it's gonna increase the vocabulary in English.

- (laughs) There's not a person that doesn't want 'em to know how to read and write and do math.

We all want them to do that, 'cause we used to want them to be good citizens, good human beings.

To us, in our culture, that's number one, because our parents used to come and say, - In one of the trainings, we have this chart where we teach about education.

(speaking Spanish) - 'Cause this means the same.

- Yep (speaking Spanish) - It's a translation, but it doesn't mean the same.

Here is your head.

- Yeah (speaking Spanish) - And educacion is your head, and your heart, and what you project to everybody else.

- Mm-hmm.

- Right?

Like are you taking care of your people?

Ultimately, what our parents want is our kids to be good human beings.

- [Ramona] They do.

They want 'em to be.

- So, and here's how about it's a way to get to money.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- Young people are like pushing this question now is like we should be able to have all of this, and be well - That's the thing that we wanna articulate at St. Thomas.

(laughs) We're still creating our own destiny, our own path, our own roadmap.

We're still, this is when we tal about our mission and our vision This is what we're talking about - Yeah.

- Yeah.

(gentle music) (paint rolling) (sweeper clicking) - Mr. Carl, you're gonna have to send out (continues faintly) It's just that the staff meeting is mainly about a reminder about the site visit on Tuesday.

Our authorizer will be here, it's about six people that are coming into the building.

And this is the site visit that they do every year, but this year is extra special, because we're in our contract renewal.

For your classes, the biggest thing that they're gonna look at is are the kids talking to each other or is the teacher talking a lot?

(gentle music continues) The academic system, or MDE, or St. Thomas is very square.

It's very, very square.

So it's always fill the box and make sure we check the boxes and we get all the boxes.

And my job, or this school's job is to make this circle so it works for our people.

That's what I'm worried about with St. Thomas, that they only want 1, 2, 3, A, B, C, and we're not like that.

And that duality that I have to have in order for us to survive.

(bell rings) - So at el Colegio, we have students from 14 to 20 years old that attend the school, right?

So we have what's known as like a 9.5, which a lot of sometimes are transfer students from other schools end up because they didn't earn enough credits.

(Joel speaking Spanish) I think sometimes in the traditional district, you just are being passed along because they have to.

They have another 500 9th graders coming in their district and they gotta keep pushing you out.

Whereas here, that's where the kind of the alternative learning where we can be flexible and like, "Okay, it's not yet.

These are what you need to do, and this is how you're gonna get there by X year."

I think it's so powerful because it allows the student to take ownership.

- So that's what makes El Colegio so special is it really is centered around what is the student need?

What's best for the student?

- Wow, everybody just, I've never had a group that is just like, let's just do it in 1, 2, 3, 4.

- And another thing that's unique here, too, with El Colegio are senior projects.

It's an opportunity for them to show their knowledge in a different way, right?

As like their capstone, in that sense.

(teacher speaking Spanish) - The way that our senior projects work is it's wrapped around our values of social justice.

- Mostly, I will write words that might be hard to pronounce.

- [Katie] Students either choose a topic that means something to them, personally.

Maybe that's a field you wanna go into when you graduate.

- See, that's what I'm saying.

- This essentially is saying all the other things that you- - All of the things, yeah.

- And then, yeah.

- So this would be, all right.

- [Katie] And then they have to research it, you go find out facts, and then write a paper, and then present it to the community.

Part of it is an art piece that goes with it.

- The key in the top, that was supposed to have like Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and I was even thinking of putting pictures of my parents, 'cause they were also farm workers.

- Sometimes there's tears and there's crying, because it gets personal.

- All right, good.

So Monday you're ready to practice then.

But at the same time it's like preparing them because that's what you do in college.

Like you have to do a dissertation or you have to do your senior paper.

You keep thinking that you're not college material, but you just did what they have to do, when you're in high school.

Well, so when I was at the University of Minnesota, at first I was gonna major in, like, being an entrepreneur, which I had no idea what I wanted to do in business.

(laughs) I had no idea, (laughs) but it sounded like a cool job.

I knew I wanted to work with people.

I joined education when I was working at La Escuelita, which was an after school program.

Norma was the first executive director, and we worked with students who were in Minneapolis schools.

When it started out, it really was about giving them different experiences, and like they would go camping, or they would do a lot of like fun things, to like know how to ski, right?

And, 'cause there's so many stereotypes.

"We don't ski.

We're Latinos."

And it's like, "No, maybe there wasn't snow where you're from, but like, doesn't mean that we can't learn."

When I joined, it kind of changed its focus more to tutoring and I really was trying to push to make sure our kids were getting into college.

- And you be a college student, feel what it's like - Here at El Colegio, we try to also focus like we're facilitators of learn and so we would do field trips to colleges.

I'm like, "This is your space.

Like you have to make it your space."

- Send your last text message, and then you're gonna put your phones away so we can show ourselves how we are as good listeners.

- So I will pass the mic to you, Isabella.

(laughs) - All right.

Hi everyone.

My name is Isabella Cook.

I'm the youth program organizer with the Unidos Minnesota.

I'm here to talk to you guys about ethnic studies, and how you can be a leader in your community.

I wanna do an activity.

To get everyone on their feet.

(student speaking Spanish) - Everyone, everyone, everyone.

- Everybody, everybody, everybody.

So I want you to hold onto your string, and I literally want you to just identify an issue that you're passionate about.

- Something, I'm passionate about a lot of things, but increasing teachers of color is a passion of mine.

- Oh, I love play soccer.

- Soccer?

- I wish there wasn't a border between Mexico and the United States.

- Look at all of this.

Doesn't this kind of look like little tangled?

Maybe a mess?

But here's the thing, we're all together.

So your main goal here, your two spiders, is to keep the web together.

Tying knots.

All right, you said you believe in access to all to education.

Okay, but if everyone has access to education, where's the money gonna come from?

All right, you said something.

- (laughs) Increased teachers of color.

- Okay.

Okay.

I think that's too focused on one group of people.

Like, what happened to all lives matter.

Okay.

No, no, no, no, we can't have that.

Right, no, no.

(students giggling) No, no, no.

You had two spiders in here who were trying their best, basically helping to overcome the issues that are bothering our community and causing us to fall apart.

So my question is, why didn't you do anything to help the spiders?

- Here at El Colegio, we've been doing ethnic studies for probably 10 years, but in some schools, they're not allowed to read the books that your teachers read with you all.

They're not allowed to talk about the subjects that they teach you all.

And so as a state, there's an effort to say that all schools should incorporate ethnic studies into their school (bell rings) - Thank you so much guys.

- You know, I tell the students we have to acknowledge that we have so much work to do.

That's that part of also decolonize spaces, you're constantly learning and trying to do better, and reflecting, recognizing that we're part of the system.

Like, we are the system.

(gentle music) (bright music) ... will give students the tools to be the leaders of the world in a better tomorrow?

- Mm-hmm.

- No.

(bright music continues) - I come before you today to represent House File 1502, a bill for ethnic studies for all Minnesota students.

- So yeah, my name is Joseline Guadalupe, I'm (speaking Spanish) and I'm an ethnic studies teacher.

I was actually born and raised here in South Minneapolis.

Then I attended Minnesota schools all my life, but I rarely ever saw myself in the curriculum.

When I attended my first year of college at the University of Minnesota, I took my first Chicano Latino history class.

Opening the first like Latino history book, for me, felt like finally like I see myself, I exist, I have a place in this country.

And this actually led to my choice of becoming a teacher.

- To be honest, there are different people, when we talk about ethnic studies, their lens is going to be very different than your lens, so I think we have to recognize that.

I would say that local school districts across the state are already doing this, and they don't need us to mandate it.

- And I think I counted and there might be more, six musts for our schools just in this bill alone.

And it puts an incredible burden upon our schools that are already charged with teaching you know, reading, math, science, social studies, phy ed I could go on and on, and now this actually adds an entire new category.

It's separate and it's going to burden our schools and it's going to take away from the core functions.

- We are mandating, right?

Because I would say that our job as legislators on this committee is not to protect school boards.

It's to protect students.

And we have young people who are telling us that I don't see myself in school, and I'm disengaging, and we know that has devastating consequences.

- [Vote Leader] And with that, all those in favor, please say aye.

- Aye.

- Opposed?

- No.

- The motion carries and the bill does move to education finance.

Thank you.

(people chattering softly) (bright music) (people chattering softly) - (speaking Spanish) We're gonna start really quickly with like just telling me from one to five, how you doing?

(Norma continues in Spanish) - A four.

- A four?

Four.

- Five.

- Five.

- Five.

What is the number one job?

Our teachers, it's a struggle.

The mental health, the pandemic was brutal.

I feel like right now I talk about my staff the way I would talk about my parents, right?

Like we have a parent that is going through a crisis, or is in the hospital or tried to commit suicide, or is drinking too much, or...

I deal that with staff.

They're humans, and I think the fact when you're humanizing somebody, you really have to see all of th None of you in this place should feel down, should feel less, should feel that doesn't belong, should not feel like So we have to make that balance.

When the teachers show their vulnerability to the students, you create a safer space for them.

The teachers that are here are committed, they understand the mission, they understand what we have to do, and they're passionate about the kids.

That that's the most important, right?

I cannot teach passion.

I can only hire.

This is the end of our contract.

So it's a super special visit tomorrow.

(class chattering softly) The teachers, they're very nervous, because you know, what if they walk into my room, it's not right they see, they don't see we're like having a meltdown.

(teacher speaking faintly) And my answer is that it's life.

You know, they have to see life.

They have to see the truth, and we're not trying to put a show.

(teacher speaking faintly) That part I'm not worried, because I'm worried about being understood.

(bright music continues) - [Visitor] Beautiful school.

- Isn't it?

- Thank you.

- [Staff Member] Should we go ahead and do the tour and start the day, per the schedule?

- So let's start from the old space.

(laughs) This is the old church.

So this is where we typically gather for staff meetings, If we lose our authorization, it's not the end of the school, necessarily, but it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad.

So the dual immersion program in middle school, the way it works is the idea is that they take three classes in Spanish, three classes in English.

- And that's in middle school.

- Middle school.

- Elementary is all Spanish.

In elementary, from preschool to third grade is 90/10.

- Okay.

- So 10%.

So we're really focusing in developing the Spanish first, and then in 3rd, they start making that transition where it's not such a clean cut.

And then 4th is 40/60, 5th is 50/50, so in 5th grade they actually change classrooms.

They go to an English-speaking teacher for half of the day and then they go to a Spanish speaking teacher for half of the day.

- Nice.

- Yeah, we're getting there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, it is.

Seems like a lot of work.

- [Norma] You're gonna come and work with us.

(group laughs) I like the rush.

I wanna get it done and I wanna get it done fast, because if my child was in this school, I wanna make sure that the school is doing anything they can to make it right.

Otherwise, I feel like it's part of the colonialism, making them disposable.

- I hope that we reiterated strongly enough that like we're back on mission and vision, and that's like the most important part of this process.

- Yeah, nobody's gonna guide us.

If we are not doing a good job, we should not exist.

Who gets to decide if we do a good job or not should not be neither St. Thomas or myself.

Should be the parents and the students and our results that we're showing.

What excites me is what can we do about it, right?

Because we, when my staff and my leadership team, we sit down and we talk about like the system, we are the system, right?

(bright music) A policy doesn't work, we should not have it.

(bright music continues) (bright music continues) We're bringing books from Mexico, from Latin America, because in here a lot of it is just translations, translations.

Best practice is now saying, like, get the books that were written original in Spanish, so they use it at least in the first grades.

(bright music continues) I was hired to really focus on going back to the mission.

So I started making these changes of removing certain curriculums that were not neither culturally competent or for the population that we served.

So start looking for that then realizing like, well there's no curriculum really that is focused on native speakers.

- Get the key?

Can you unlock the car?

- I unlocked it.

- Oh, okay.

(laughs) - [Navigation] Head south on Andrew Street, then turn left onto Belvedere Street East.

- [Ramona] This used to be our ride when my husband and I were students working with a community here on the west side.

(upbeat music) - I enrolled at the University of Minnesota in the fall of 1969.

Beverly Stewart, the general college advisor and I, we started to work together to identify Latino students on campus, and I could only identify four.

I decided to go to the local high schools and try to recruit students.

I had that drive in me because I thought, here I am, someone that I didn't think I could attend the university, attend college.

Why can't I find others that I can get them to believe just that, look at me, here I am.

I went out to rural Minnesota and went to the migrant camps and started recruiting migrant students.

That was a little bit more challenging, because I had to convince the families that they were gonna be fine and safe at the University of Minnesota.

Before you know it, you know, I had a whole lot more Chicano Latino students at the University of Minnesota.

We started to see that the University of Minnesota was not teaching their students about the Latino contributions to the United States.

And so we said, as students, we need our department as well.

(typewriter clicking) It was important that we had our own chair, our own faculty, rather than just having a course offered.

We went to the administration, and we give them a list of demands.

Well, of course they didn't get back to us in the timeframe that we wanted.

So we had people from the community, the Brown Berets, Black students, Women's Liberation, American Indian Movement.

We had all kinds of student support, and after much, much negotiation, we did get granted a Chicano Studies department.

I'm really proud that we still have it 50 years later - [Gilbert] I enrolled in the Chicano studies there at the university.

So I was like a little kid in the candy store with my mouth wide open saying, come on man, keep giving me, giving me, the Aztecas and about Chichén Itzá, you know?

The chocolate and, you know, how we fed the world.

Do you know what?

After being there, I can walk shoulder-to-shoulder with white people, because you know what?

My culture, my ancestors man, we did a lot to build America.

- So good to see you.

- You too.

Nice to see you.

- [Host] Hi, welcome everyone.

Bienvenidos to the second annual Ramona Arreguin de Rosales lecture series to honor the legacy of student activism on campus.

You wanna stand?

Put you on the spot.

(audience applauds) - Thank you.

- Thank you so much for your activism and your generational guide to educators and Chicanos like myself.

Who do you see here?

Speaking of organizing.

You do.

You do see Cesar.

Here, they're walking through the Central Valley from Delano, California, all the way up to Sacramento, California.

What were they striking for?

- [Audience Member] The farm workers?

- [Presenter] Because what was happening to the farm workers, señor?

- They were being sprayed on as they were working.

- Pesticides poisons.

- Right, that's right.

And not paid fair wages.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- The employees will not recognize the union, and because there's no law and because there are no procedures, then the only way to do it is by bringing economic pressure to bear on them, and this is where we're at.

(upbeat music) - As Cesar Chavez when he trained me, you know, to organize boycotts and strikes, because Cesar wanted all of us to understand the plight of the farm worker.

I, along with some of the other members of the west side community, we organized some boycotts against some of the local stores in the west side.

You know, tell 'em don't buy grapes, and we explained to them why not to buy grapes.

We had one of our students from the migrant camps, he went on a fast, and we were able to get the University of Minnesota to stop serving grapes in all the university campuses.

(upbeat music continues) (camera snapping) - Look at their faces.

Aren't they miserable?

(audience laughs) They're joyful.

It's not oppression studies when we talk about Mexican American or Chicano or Chicanx or Latinx studies or ethnic studies, it isn't oppression studies.

It's the study of joy, of surviving.

Always gotta stay grounded in that joy and that love and that passion, as we sacrifice.

(birds chirping) (group chattering) - Well, I mean I know they'll introduce themselves, but we have Ms. Lau here.

She graduated from El Colegio years ago.

We have Mr. Jordan, who also graduated from El Colegio, and then Ms. Martha who checked you in.

You know you're visiting here, but maybe for those of you who really do wanna work in education, here's an opportunity to start here.

- You know, El Colegio is smaller, so we don't have that same resources, so how can Academia and El Colegio share what we do have and do things together?

And so we were able to offer Intro to Urban Education, which is a concurrent enrollment class, and as we offer that class, yes, they're getting high school credit but they're also getting college credit at Metro State University.

- We are in a safe space and students are liking to learn, and they are around really great educators, so like let's start opening that door and giving them experience of seeing themselves as a teacher.

Can we start providing that and creating a pipeline even in high school, especially when they're coming out of a space that has humanized them?

- So this is our mission, so we share the same values.

We're keeping Spanish alive in the Latino community.

- In 10 years, it could be that in Minnesota there's more white people speaking Spanish and reading Spanish and writing Spanish than Latinos.

And how do we do this work?

We teach our teachers how to do different things differently, and we really create the space, Create the space, like at El Colegio, where you can be whoever you want.

We are a mixture of a lot of things, and that is okay.

So what we're gonna go do the observations.

Right, as part of your program you have to observe classes.

- [Interviewer] You've been doing culturally affirming teaching here for a while.

How do you see your students change when they're doing that practice?

- This is where you're gonna make me cry.

To see young people that come in completely broke, emotionally broken, because they think that something's wrong with them.

And when you explain to them nothing's wrong with you.

It's the system that is making you believe that you can't, that you don't fit, that you're not right, that you don't know how to do this, screw that, show us what you got, show us ... And see that transformation in students, and become members of the community that are community organizers.

They're involved in policy, that they're involved in teaching.

That gets me like, I don't need a research, I don't need some university to tell me what works.

That's the result.

- Adults that have healthier habits, coping skills and better knowledge of the negative effects on drugs.

We all know we all need to be open about talking about mental health.

(classmates clap) - All right.

You got it.

Just remember, just read and just keep going.

(gentle music) - Alright, I got love for Macalester.

Let's see, do we have El Colegio in the building?

(students cheer) There you, all right.

Thank you for joining us for El Colegio's annual senior presentations.

- Something that our lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan, likes to say, and I'm gonna repeat is, welcome to the People's House.

It is all of our house.

It is none of our house, because it was not built for (laughs) anyone that looks like this crowd, and yet here we are.

- Hello everyone.

My name is Ayanara, and today I will be talking about the youth under 21 who work in these fields and the education that workers have or receive.

- Hello, my name is Brenda Dominguez, and today I will be talking about mental health, depression in young adults.

- My name is Xitlali and I am a representative of the students of El Colegio High School who support the Ethnic Studies for All Bill.

- With ethnic studies, students can feel more comfortable with the educational system.

- Will you support us with this bill?

(bright music) - Yes, absolutely.

(crowd cheers) - This is energizing.

This is exciting.

I wanna say thank each and every one of you for coming up, stepping up, coming to the Capitol and holding all of us accountable.

- Good afternoon, my name is Angie.

My topic is "Violence Against Womens: The Different Facets."

I chose Ecuador as a case study because Ecuador, every 22 hours, a woman's is killed by victims' partners or ex-partners.

(audience applauds) (bright music) (drums beating) (horn blows) (performer shouts out) (drum music continues) (drum music continues) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) - Mr. Carl, Ms. Vanessa, Ms. Leah and Ms. Graciela.

Do you have a minute?

Can you guys come to my office please?

And everybody freaks out because they think something's happening because Ivan is being called too I need Mr. Carl and Ms. Graciela and Ms. Marty.

- Okay.

- And Jay.

Maybe everybody should go over there.

- Okay.

- Perfect.

Do you want me to help grab them?

- Yeah.

What if this was a real, where is Ms. Graciela?

Hello Ms. Leah.

Come on in.

You don't need your computer.

We're gonna take like three minutes.

- [Staff Member] Oh.

- The announcement for the authorizer came back about if we get another contract or we don't get another contract, so I'm gonna tell you and just wait for to tell everybody else.

So our chances were very slim last year when I met with them.

So St. Thomas is one of the most strict and rigorous authorizers, but they gave us two more years plus one.

So.

(group cheers and claps) (laughs) Don't cry.

So Marty's been with, how many authorizations you've been Marty?

- 23 years, so (laughs) every three or four years.

- So whatever that means?

- We have them.

- Is gonna be a lot of work.

We have to show a lot of progress in the next two years, and that we're moving forward.

Okay?

(group cheers and claps) - Thanks.

Great news.

- So get to work.

(staff member whistles) (group chattering) - Thank you.

- Thank you you for the great news.

(people chattering) A good educational foundation is going to make your life a little bit easier.

I want to believe that the Chicano movement opened up the doors - [Katie] Class of 2023.

(audience applauds) and the door is getting wider and wider opening, (audience applauds) - I'm hopeful.

I'm very hopeful.

I just need more people.

I think it's very controversial about who gets to be a teacher.

And in Minnesota, we have people who are monolingual going to state colleges here who have no clue of cultural competency.

Their knowledge of Latin America is Cancún.

They're considered highly qualified in the state of Minnesota.

We have people who are bilingual and bicultural that the state is telling me they don't have the right BA.

(teacher speaking Spanish) - So recruiting becomes this huge challenge where they have to look good for the board of teaching so they can get a certification, convince people in the community that teaching is good, that we need teachers.

(teacher speaking Spanish) - Many times I think we lack the confidence and so we need to give each other the encouragement and the confidence that yes, we can do it.

(teacher speaking Spanish) (teacher speaking Spanish) - We need more BIPOC educators, but we also need to acknowledge that they also may need their own healing, right?

Because they may have assimilated to get through that door, to get through that certificate and lost a bit of who they want to be.

- Congratulations on this great accomplishment as you are a very smart, bright young man with a lot of potential.

- Whether you're white or BIPOC or whomever, deserve to have teachers who know who they are.

(audience applauds) A lot of our community members were told they were awful students.

(group chattering and laughing) It took me a long time to be convinced that I was a good teacher, so everybody's a potential teacher.

(bright music)