Episode 13: Making the Connection

Andrea Sowers, an EL (English learner) student, shares her experience of moving to the United States from Colombia at the age of 7. She faced challenges as there was no EL program in her school, and she struggled to communicate with her classmates. Eventually, a teacher made a vital connection with her, and Andrea thrived in the new country. As an adult, she now serves as a family liaison and interpreter for the growing Latino population in her community. Andrea emphasizes the importance of her children experiencing other cultures, particularly Hispanic cultures, due to her own background. She recently took her family to the Dominican Republic, where they chose to stay in a local Airbnb to immerse themselves in the culture and avoid resort tourism. She highlights the poverty she witnessed and the determination of locals to learn English to provide for their families. Andrea celebrates her Colombian heritage and cherishes memories of spending time with her family back home. We have no weapons. We only have pots and pans. We have no power. We only have pots and pans. Beat the pots. Bang the pans. This is our revolution. Welcome to the Pots, Pans, and Gritos podcast, a voice for the English learner. I'm your host, Nolan Shigley. In this week's episode, I have the extreme privilege to sit with one of our school district's first EL students. Andrea Sowers and her mother moved to Salem, Virginia, from Barranquilla, Colombia, when she was only seven years old, back in the mid-1990s. At the time, the area certainly did not have the diversity of today. And unable to find another Spanish speaker within her elementary school, a scared little girl sat quietly for months, until one day, a single teacher made a vital connection with her. And this timid but resilient young lady, who was thrown into a new country and culture, survived and thrived until, as an adult, she returned to serve as a family liaison and interpreter for the growing Latino population of the same community. Along with this remarkable story, you will hear the beautiful sounds of Nina and Sebastian from Anagua, Nicaragua, as we showcase tracks from their remarkable album, Últimamente. And by now, you've discovered about a dozen different artists from all over the planet. In this week's description, I've included a link to our Spotify playlist that features each song we've had the pleasure to utilize on our program. As always, our mission is to create an archive of meaningful accounts while sharing artists with similar experiences and cultural backgrounds. And now, here are their stories. Andrea, you just returned from this adventure with your family down in the Dominican Republic. Describe this experience. It was a whirlwind, that's for sure. We chose that we wanted to go to Punta Cana and then quickly realized we did not want to go there. Why not? Full of just tourism and just a ton of, I mean, not, I just want to go to another country so I can really be immersed in the atmosphere of being there. So, we chose a city 45 minutes away from Punta Cana called Bayahibe. And that in itself was probably the most amazing experience for me and my husband and our kids, for them to just really be immersed in the culture that was down there. It was great. And you told me specifically when we were talking before that you did not want to take your kids to a resort. Yeah, we've done resorts in the past and I felt like every time that we were there, we almost wanted to get off of the resort. It's beautiful and it's, you know, obviously you have the chance of eating what you want and it's definitely convenient. But I didn't feel like my kids were really feeling the experience of being in another country. So, we always would go off site. So, my husband suggested that this time we just kind of rent an Airbnb and stay somewhere that was local because I speak Spanish. And we did it. We did it for 11 days. And it was great. I can't say that we won't do it again. You know, I think it was a really cool experience. I made the kids ride the bus into town. Which would be an experience if you did that here in Salem, Virginia. We actually got to go into town and really see how the locals lived. My 5-year-old was playing with other 5-year-olds that were there. And I think that, like, if I died tomorrow, I would be happy and knowing that he gets it. Why is it so important that your children experience these other cultures, particularly Hispanic cultures? So, it's important to me because I came from another culture. And they have a dad that's American. So, you know, they get to see that every day. Day in and day out. They get to live in this wonderful country that we live in with amazing opportunities. But other countries, especially Central America, Latin America, they are not as fortunate. I want them to see the reality of what's on the other side. Similar, I once took a group of students when I was teaching world history. And we did a student service learning trip. And before that, we'd been taking trips, my American students, taking trips to Europe. And it was great. But you could go to Paris and never meet a Parisian. You could go to London and never meet a local and so on and so forth. And so, we went to the Dominican Republic. We went to this little mountainous town called Jarabacoa. And we just volunteered at this little conservation school in the mountains. And then we did it again in Ecuador the next year. And then the following year, we did Nicaragua. And those were the only trips where my American students would cry at the airport because we were leaving. Yes. It's insane. We were going through the town. They had, like, rented, like, little golf carts. Like, our family rented a golf cart to go through it. And I just kind of wanted them to see the houses. The houses are, like, in a small town. So, they're made of, like, sand and stone. And their, like, shelter area, like, above in the roof, it looks like little shingles that they just kind of have put together. There was a lot of naked children, like, on the roads. And at one point, we passed a group of, like, I want to say maybe, like, five kids, probably anywhere from the age of, like, two to seven years old. And one little girl stepped out in front of our golf cart. So, my husband, like, immediately stopped. And she was talking to my five-year-old and gave him a piece of paper and asked for his autograph. Wow. And my kids were, like, why is she asking, you know? And I'm, like, in their eyes, they're probably, like, this person is famous or something. But on the other side, my kids were, like, we're nobody, you know? Like, this is crazy, you know? But it's just sad to just see the poverty that's down there. At the same time, you know, we think Dominican, oh, my gosh, it's all beaches and beautiful and tourists and, you know, all these wonderful things. But it's also really sad, like, to see how these people really live. Absolutely. We had a tour guide when we were there. We decided to go into, like, a cave, I guess. It's called a cenote there. Here, it's, like, an underground cave. Absolutely breathtaking, beautiful. But during the mealtime, you know, we really got to know our tour guide and just kind of asked him. He was 19 years old. I asked if he, like, had any plans to go to college. And he said no. You know, he kind of laughed and was, like, this is our only plan. You know, we live near a tourist part of town. And this is what we strive to do is to learn the English language so that we can provide for our families. You know, this is kind of as good as it gets for them. My name is Andrea Sowers, and I am from Colombia, born in Barranquilla, and I live in Salem. How old were you when you moved here? I was 7 years old. You were 7 years old when you moved to the United States. Do you have memories? Oh, gosh, yeah. Not many. I was little, but I lived with my mom and my two aunts and my grandmother, like, my whole life, basically, until we came here. I'm still very, very, very close with both my aunts. My grandmother has passed away, but they basically raised me. You know, my mom had to move here, and she lived here for about a year before I came. So I was with my aunts all the time. My fondest memories is just being with my cousins all the time. When I think of home, I immediately think of my family and just being in the backyard. And to this day, I try to go back about once a year, that is what I look forward to, is literally sitting in my grandma's backyard, drinking coffee with them, and I do it to this day. Do you have any memories of school? Or did you start school yet? I did. I had started school, but I do not have any memories of school. All that I know and that I remember was I wore a uniform, and in Barranquilla, we have the carnival. I don't know if you've heard of the carnival that they do. And we had to dance in it. I remember dancing in it, and I still have the outfit and the flower that was in my hair. But other than that, I have no other memories of being at school there. One of the first EL students in the Salem City School System. When did you start? So I want to say it was like 1995. 1995. And I don't know if I was the first EL, but at East Salem, there was no other EL kids there whatsoever. I feel like I probably was. I don't know. What was the EL program like, or if there was a program? There was no program. So I literally got off a plane, and a week later, I started school at East Salem. I still have the picture. It hangs on my refrigerator. I literally, kid you not, I'm going to send you that picture so you can see it. My next-door neighbor at the time, her kids and her oldest went to school with me. And they had made a banner for me because they knew I was coming in, and I was, like, obviously nervous about it. And it just said, like, you know, welcome home, and she was so excited that they were going to have a playmate. But literally, I went in, and I didn't know one word. Nothing. What was the process of learning English like? I just remember sitting in silence a lot. You know, I started out in third grade, and I think that's just because that's the grade that I was in in Columbia. And there, they're a calendar B. So, really, I should have started out in second grade, but there I was already in third, so I think that they just kind of transitioned. They didn't really know. But I didn't know anything, so I would just sit there. And during recess, like, I would sit there, and people would try to talk to me, but I couldn't really say or understand what they were saying. So I just remember for the longest time that I would watch everybody eat ice cream. And I wouldn't understand why I couldn't have ice cream. And it wasn't until, like, maybe three weeks after, there was a girl in my class whose mom was a missionary. And I guess she was a missionary in Spain, so she knew a little bit of Spanish. So they brought her in. The girl, her name was Christina. And they told my mom, like, she can have ice cream. She just has to bring 25 cents in every single day. So this entire time, it wasn't that it was the school's fault or anyone's fault. They just had no way to communicate with my mom. And I think that that's such a triggering story for me, and this is why I have the job that I do now. Because I don't ever want a kid or a family to feel like they just have no idea what's going on with their kid. [♪ music playing ♪ So we've been talking about how there was really no program in the 1990s here in Salem. But was there a teacher in particular that made a connection with you or tried to make a cultural connection and help you more? Mm-hmm. There was. So when I first started here at East Salem, I was in third grade. And I think after about maybe a month and a half, they quickly realized that, like, they needed to put me down in second grade because I wasn't, you know, like, talking or learning or anything. And they put me in a classroom, and the teacher's name was Vicki White. And she changed my life. She immediately just welcomed me and my entire family. She started asking my mom to come to church with her. And so she would literally do Bible studies, and I started going to church. And it wasn't so much the church thing. It was just a sense of community, I guess. And we were there forever. I mean, she became a part of our family. I had met, like, my Sunday school teacher, who is, like, my grandmother now. And she's still a part of my family. Her and her husband, Shorty Wright, he passed away about two years ago. If it wasn't for her, I don't think that I would be where I'm at. I still remember to this day her favorite thing in the world for our class was to bring chocolate chip cookies. She made the best chocolate chip cookies. And, like, I remember being 12 years old at her house still making chocolate chip cookies. Like, that's my one memory and just how loving and caring she was. And it wasn't just me. Like, she treated every student like that, and I think it was just such a difference that she made in me. And seeing that whole year, like, this is where this is now, you know, where I feel at home. How did you communicate with her? She would read a lot of books. I remember, oh, my gosh. What's that teacher that has, like, the red hair, the magic school bus? She would read a lot of those books in there. She'd show the movies. I don't know. I think over time I just started communicating, and it was effortless after a while. But after I was there for about six months, they did bring in a lady from Roanoke County. I cannot remember her name, but she would pull me out of class. Obviously, I guess she would teach me a little here and there, and I think that's what really did it. I felt loved in that class, you know, and I felt seen, and I think that made a huge impact. What was your high school experience like? It was great. So I feel like I learned English very quickly because I was thrown into that kind of atmosphere. So you were fluent in English? I was fluent in English about six to seven months after I came here. Wow. But granted, life then was different than now. Like, there was no Spanish TV. My mom only spoke Spanish to me in the house because she was the only person. She was also trying to learn. She was taking classes at Arnold Burton at the time for English. You know, we were immersed in it, and now I feel like, you know, with so many Hispanic communities, like, they're not really as immersed in it as back then. In high school and middle school, like, I was just your everyday teenager. You know, I played sports. I played soccer. I ran track. I did forensics here. You know, it was just every day. Like, that's just how it was. Now there are so many more opportunities here. I wish that that's how it was. And I think the only thing that was ever missing for me was I always felt like I didn't really belong. Like, I had a ton of friends, and, you know, I can't complain about my life or my childhood here in Salem at all, as a student or anything, but I never felt like I was one of them, or even that, like, when I would go to visit Columbia, that I was one of them either. I was kind of, like, in this middle because I didn't really live there, and here I didn't look like anybody else. Yeah, I have students that say the same thing all the time. How did you adapt to that? I think I just, it wasn't until maybe my senior year that I realized, like, I'm my own person, you know, and then now as an adult, obviously, I realize, like, that's who made me who I am, you know, and now, like, a mom, you know, instilling that in my own children. But it was just hard. You know, it was hard because my mom, you know, she had an accent. Nobody else's mom had an accent. I have absolutely no accent. I have no accent. None at all. So it was just, it was different, but I didn't, I don't feel like anybody treated me any differently. It was just something that I felt, you know, growing up. That was it. So we have seen a large demographic shift in our population. You know, I have a large caseload, and, you know, there's plenty of students here that are from Latin America or Latinx that don't need my services, but I wonder what was the student population like in the 1990s? So I don't remember. My class sizes were probably about 19 to 20 kids, I would say, maybe, if that. I don't remember there ever being any other kids that spoke any other languages but me. Really? Yeah. So no even Latinx students who had Hispanic parents? I was it. You were it. I was it. You were the diversity. I mean, I'm not kidding. And even my brother, who's 10 years younger, I think his class size, like, we talked about this the other day. That's so funny. We talked about, he told me, and he has, obviously, his dad's American, but he remembers being in middle school and somebody calling my mom, somebody got a hold of my mom's number, and they called my mom, and they were, like, asking her for rice and beans. They were being really mean on the phone, obviously. And we were talking about, like, how he, even though he was half American, you know, like, there was only, like, two or three in his class, and that was it, you know. And for me, I don't remember there being any. Really? Like, at all. I guess that's why I get these, like, kind of faces of surprise when I tell people in the community that I'm the EL teacher. It's a huge deal. It's a huge deal. Salem High School. They're like, it's Salem High School? Yes. It's a huge deal. Yeah. We have this beautiful, growing population that's extremely diverse, and not just Latino. We have students from all over Asia, all over the continent of Africa. Do your children, are they bilingual? My children understand it. My youngest speaks it the most, and he's the one that looks the most American. That's awesome. Are you encouraging them to become more bilingual? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So how do you celebrate your culture at home? So, obviously, I feel like Hispanic culture, it's all about family. We're very, very family oriented. You know, birthdays are big deals at our house. So we start out, like, we celebrate by, I hang up decor everywhere. That's just what my family did. I'm sure other people do it here, too. But have you ever heard Las Mañanitas? No, I don't think so. In Colombia, there's a song called Las Mañanitas, and every morning when it's someone's birthday, you play it. What does it translate to? The mornings. Oh, okay. It's called The Mornings. The Little Mornings. The Little Mornings. Yeah. And they would play that song, and so I'd play it every time for them, and then I'd sing Happy Birthday in English for them, you know. Christmas, for us, it's a big deal December 24th. So Christmas Eve is a bigger deal than what normally here is Christmas Day. You're with your family. So we always spend Christmas Eve with my mom and my uncle who are, you know, here, my brother. Everybody comes in. Those are bigger, you know, deals, I guess, in our house than what normally would be celebrated as Christmas Day here. Have you taken your children back home to Colombia? Yes, yes. What was that experience like for them? It was different. They were younger. Recently, they haven't gone since now. They're a lot older, but I feel like they loved it. They have very many memories about it. My oldest will constantly talk about the grapes. I don't know what it is about the grapes, but they were huge, and they have seeds. And here, you can never buy them, so he talks about that. But I feel like they always think of Colombia, and then they think of family because that's what they talk about is, hey, can we go see Gabby? Hey, can we go see Alex, you know, which are my cousin's kids, you know. So recently, Colombia played in the World Cup against Argentina. We were at the Dominican for it, and that was a big deal. Everybody wore their Colombian uniform. That's awesome. I was going to ask you about that, the Copa America, yeah? Yeah, it was a big deal. It was a big deal. Okay, so let's talk about life as a translator. Okay. And obviously, your childhood impacted you a lot, maybe in this decision to become a translator, but I'm sure it impacts you now within your job. Are there language barriers? Yeah. So obviously, some Spanish people do not have the same dialect, or, you know, even remotely, the language could be a little bit different than mine. You know, obviously, I'm from Colombia. I feel like Colombia is a pretty neutral Spanish, so like everybody could kind of understand. And, you know, we may do, but we do have some language barriers. There are some parents, you know, especially from like really tiny parts in Central America that don't even read it yet. So sometimes, you know, they talk very, very fast, or just like here, broken English. It could be broken Spanish. But other than that, I don't feel like I've had any negative experiences or like challenges, per se, language-wise. What would you say, in general, are the needs of our Salem families? I feel like it's every need that every parent here in the city of Salem has. You want to know that your child is safe, and you want to know that your child is at a school, that they are being seen and being heard, and that they feel loved. And that's all these people want, but they have no way to express it. And I'm just that barrier that's in between giving them a voice. So how do your experiences as an EL student, we go back to that, lend itself to that empathy and compassion that you have for those that you're serving? I think I just know exactly what those kids feel. And I know what those parents feel because I know what my mom felt, you know, when she couldn't understand or send a note in because I can't write a note to tell your teacher you have an appointment or that you're sick or even something as small as like, hey, she forgot lunch money. Like how do you call a secretary to tell them that when you cannot communicate? People call me all the time, you know, and to what some people might be like, oh, my gosh, that's so annoying to me. It's like I'm all they have. Literally, I'm all they have here. Absolutely. You're their bridge. I feel the same way as an EL teacher. And just like you said, just really simple things that become very complicated when there's a language barrier. Have you done this work before? I have. So I used to work for Roanoke County just translating and at the hospitals a lot. And that's what it kind of turned into. Once I had my oldest son, he was about one, I was asked to translate a lot at the hospitals and a lot at Roanoke City schools. And it quickly turned into, oh, my gosh, like I feel like I'm helping so much and like this is exactly what I want to do with my life. And immediately I was like, my kids are going to be going to Salem schools. This is where I came from. Like I have got to get a job there. And one thing led to another. A door was opened and here we are, you know. So it's been, I feel like it was a God thing. I really do. Andrea, how will you continue to serve the Latino community in the future? I think by doing this, I will always try to be their voices, you know, as much as I can and to help out wherever I'm needed here in the city of Salem and anywhere really. The young girl who came to East Salem Elementary back in the mid-1990s as one of the first English learners has certainly given back immeasurably to her community. Andrea has made an immediate impact and has become an immensely valuable contributor to our school system. Her services have greatly benefited our diverse community and families. Not to mention, she's made the lives of administrators, counselors, guidance coordinators, and, well, this EL teacher, just to name a few, much, much easier. Thank you, Andrea, for your work and willingness to share your story. Thank you, Nina and Sebastian, for providing the beautiful soundtrack to today's episode. And thank you, listeners, for joining us on another episode of Pots, Pans, and Gritos. But as always, thank you for being an ally to English learners everywhere. Pots, Pans, and Gritos