Episode 3: The Voice of Transformation

This is a podcast episode featuring Roger Lopez, a student at Roanoke College, who challenges stereotypes about undocumented immigrants and shares his own achievements. The episode also features the indie Latinx band Luna Luna and their debut album. Roger discusses his involvement in the Si Se Puede program, which aims to help Hispanic students embrace their identity and navigate college. He talks about his own experiences as an English learner and how he overcame challenges with the support of his mother. 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 pan. 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 episode, Roanoke College student, Roger Lopez, challenges the stereotypes of undocumented immigrants as he shares the compassionate works and impressive achievements of his young life. Born in Guatemala City, Roger immigrated from his home at an early age and grew to be a dynamic individual making positive contributions in his new community. Along with hearing Roger's inspirational story, you will discover the beautiful sounds of the indie Latinx band, Luna Luna, who formed in Dallas, Texas. You will hear portions of their debut album, Flower Moon, a unique representation of their Hispanic American roots, which has been described as a dreamy creation of nostalgic pop. 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. Let's start off with the most difficult question of the day. Explain your fascination with the Dominican Republic and Nickelodeon. Well, you know, it's always been a dream for me to go to Dominican Republic. And as Nickelodeon has a slime thing over there, I want to go so bad and, you know, enjoy it and get slimed all over me. So as a kid, Nickelodeon, we rarely had cable, but we had Nickelodeon for a short time. And I think you're referencing the show. It was called You Can't Do This on Television. And whenever a person, a character on the on the show said, I don't know, they were slimed. And if they said water, well, water fell on their head. And you're probably too young to have any idea what I'm talking about. Have you ever seen an original episode? I have not seen one at all, at all. Well, your cool points are going down. All right, Roger, please introduce yourself. Yes, so I am just a graduate from Rohnert College with a double degree, Business Administration in Spanish. And yeah, I'm 22. Roger, I want to thank you so much for the work you're doing with my students here at Salem High. And the work I'm talking about is through the Si Se Puede program with Dr. Banuelos, Professor of Languages at Rohnert College. Can you speak about what we're doing in this program? Yeah, so I think this program came up with Dr. Banuelos and I a couple months before starting and he wanted to embrace something for the kids here at Salem High School. You know, he wanted to embrace them to know their identity as a Hispanic student. So, you know, over the past few weeks, we have been working with the students knowing, making sure that they know their identity as a Hispanic community. And, you know, growing each day and learning from each other and learning from us as, you know, graduates from college and being students at Rohnert College. You and the other students from Rohnert College have been phenomenal mentors for our students. Is this a brand new program with Rohnert College? Have you done it with other high schools before? No, this is a brand new program that we have done just with y'all at Salem High School. We have done other program at Casa Latina, but it's only been with little kids. And this is our first time doing with high school student, which is wonderful. We are more than happy to be your guinea pigs. Why did you choose to be part of Si Se Puede? So it's always been something in me to embrace that unique, the uniqueness of, you know, being Hispanic and being Latino and helping others know that we do matter. And, you know, as a Hispanic student, many of the times we think that we don't have no help. And, you know, Si Se Puede was a mentor thing for students who didn't know about college, didn't know a lot about, you know, their identity. So we wanted to come and help them and know that they do matter and they do have a voice and they could be the voice of transformation for the future. You have such an outgoing, positive and compassionate personality. Did you always have this personality as a child? To be honest with you, I think I did, but at the same time, I don't think so. I think, you know, it was more as growing up, you know, learning because when I was little, when I just came to the U.S., it was kind of like, you know, harder for me to get out of the shell. But as the time went by, I think I grew this personality during my high school career, a little bit starting middle school. If I go back right on track, it started like the end of middle school, beginning of high school. And, you know, I started being more outgoing, more like me. Is English or Spanish your first language? Spanish is my first language. English is my second language. So when did you become proficient in English? To be honest with you, until this day, I don't think I'm proficient in English. Oh, you sound extremely proficient. Oh, thank you. I think, you know, as the time went by, me learning little by little each year, I think around fifth grade, I knew to understand most of the words and knew how to make a full, complete sentence. But I think that every day I learned something new as being bilingual. Do you think your bilingualism kind of coincided with your personality blooming? I think it did, to be honest with you, because, you know, as I knew how to speak both languages, it was more like a barrier that I took out. And I was like, wow, you know, I can speak both languages and I can be more me and, you know, try to help everybody out whenever I can. So this new personality, do you think it helped you overcome obstacles as an English learner and an immigrant in the United States? Yes, let me tell you something that as an immigrant here in the U.S., I thought that many of the time, you know, I wasn't going to be able to do a lot of stuff. I thought that, you know, me like a student, me as a Hispanic student, me as a Latino here in Roanoke, Virginia, I thought that we didn't have the capability. We didn't have the power. We didn't have the voice, a transformation at anything. So as the time went by, I knew that I could make the change. I could be the beginning of embracing something new to students, something embracing, something new to anybody that hears me or anybody who looks at me in any way, you know, form. But I knew that I wanted to be that transformation. And, you know, that has embraced over the years. And now that I can be here speaking with you like and, you know, talk to students, people listen to me about who I am, who I was, who I am now and what I'm becoming. It's an amazing thing. What are some other opportunities that you've taken advantage of to use your voice, to use your experience? Yes. So I have been invited to different events. I've done a lot of stuff with Dr. Manuela Jose Montes. I've also done things for Roanoke College. I've also been on the news. I've done some other things that we will be speaking a little bit more later. You know, I've always been invited with Latina Networks with Kat Pascal, who she's the owner of that. I've been invited to different things like that where I can embrace my voice and help them understand. I do a lot of posting on Facebook, on Instagram, you know, just embracing the unique of Hispanic Latinos. Roger, let's go back in time. Describe your life as an English learner, as a young English learner, challenges and accomplishments. Yes. So I will be starting with my elementary time. You know, I think that when I started school, it was kind of hard because at the time when I joined elementary, I was in kindergarten. And then I did double first grade because my English was not good. No, I did double for kindergarten. Sorry, because my English wasn't good at all. So I thought that I wasn't going to never going to learn English because it was getting harder and harder. You know, my family only spoke Spanish at that time at home. So I didn't have no practice at home. So as the time went by in middle school, I start taking, you know, SOLs and everything, you know, mid elementary, but I wouldn't take all the SOLs because I was an ESL student. So I went to middle school, took some SOLs. Then I thought that I wasn't like the same as other students because I would see other students passing their SOLs. I wouldn't be passing my English SOL. It was hard for me because I was like, how can other students pass their English SOL? I'll pass math because, you know, math has always been my favorite subject, but English was not it. As I, you know, I joined this class in sixth grade, which was with Ms. Daniels. She was a professor, a teacher in Northside Middle School who really embraced my uniqueness of loving English. She was like, you can do whatever you want. It's just believing in yourself. I remember I took the SOL the first time I failed, the second time I passed. And I was like, okay, like this was like the light up of my life. And I was like, no, I'm going to be whatever I want to be. And, you know, if she is pushing me, you know, going to middle school as, you know, we had to take SOLs to get a diploma, you know, advanced diploma, regular diploma. So I was like, no, I'm going to thrive to get the advanced diploma. And yeah, I passed every SOL from that moment. I was like, no, I can achieve anything. Where did this motivation come from? This motivation came from my mother. I will always give credit to my mother because, you know, at the end of the day, she was the biggest motivation of all. She's always was the lady who never had the opportunity, you know, as a Guatemalan, she never had the opportunity to go to college. She left her house at the age of 11 to start working, you know, probably younger, I think it was seven. And she got married around 14, 15 years old. And she promised herself that she was going to make sure every of her children will have a college degree and would be someone in life. And, you know, that motivation came from the beginning. She would always push us and be like, no, you're going to do this. And even though she didn't know English at all, like every night before when she got home from work, she would make us read. She didn't understand if we were saying the right word or not saying the right word. But she was there sitting with us. And that motivation came from her. And I will always thank her for that. Okay, Rojera. So you have, you've learned to pass the SOLs, your English has become fluent, you're motivated, you're successful. And then high school comes. What did Rojera accomplish in high school? Yes, so I accomplished so much, you know, I think that that was the beginning of many accomplishments. As the time went by, I had some amazing counselor that I will always think, which was Ms. Nail and Ms. Long, who really pushed me to do a lot of stuff. Not only was I in SGA, Spanish club, but my senior year, I made sure that I was president of several clubs. I was president around 10, 11 clubs in total. So yes, I know. I had a busy schedule. You know, we did a lot of SGA, we did homecoming, prom, we didn't did our prom because, you know, it was COVID time. But one of the biggest things I think I accomplished in high school was going to college, you know, getting ready to go to college. And those people like Ms. Nail, Ms. Long, and Ms. Amos, they were the amazing people who helped me all the way through. And not only that, I also did guidance aid with them. So they were my guidance counselor. But I did guidance aid with them. And they would be like, Roger, come here. And I would always want to miss school. But after I learned the loveness of it, it was so fun. I would always want to stay in school, you know, helping everyone out, making sure that clubs are running, making sure that the class felt happy. We did a lot of class events. We did a lot of different projects in Roanoke, not Roanoke, sorry, on the north side. So it was really fun. I really enjoyed it at high school, you know, embracing the uniqueness of Hispanic. We did a lot of Spanish club, which was, you know, one of my biggest thing. We, you know, I was president of Spanish club. I made sure we had meetings. We did Dia de los Muertos, which is something, you know, common in the Hispanic community. How diverse was your high school? My high school wasn't that big of a diversity. It was really small. But, you know, one of the things that I really enjoyed that it was everybody there, you know, it was not only Hispanic students at the Spanish club. Everyone was there. We had different culture. We had different races in this city. You know, people enjoyed it. It was like a fun moment. We would always have 10, 15 people at every event. It was really fun. Speaking of your Guatemalan culture, before we get into this amazing college story of yours, which aspects of your Guatemalan culture do you embrace that you still celebrate today? I'm going to be honest. We don't celebrate a lot of different things from Guatemala, but we do it celebrate like this week for like Holy Week and everything. We do a little, you know, fun time. We do celebrate, my mom is really big in the Day of the Dead. So, we do celebrate that. It's something really cute that, you know, I want to make sure that my kids see it and my kids, you know, embrace it and their uniqueness. I also celebrate food. I love food. So, my mom gives us a lot of Hispanic Guatemalan food. So, she makes us different dishes, which is amazing. You know, I wouldn't change anything. And I'm assuming your kids will grow up bilingual as well. Yes, for sure. You know, I have a nephew who lives with me from my brother, and he's like a kid for us because he lives with us. And I make sure that he knows English and Spanish for sure. Yeah, if I ever have kids of my own, I will for sure teach them Spanish and just embrace the English as the time goes by, as I did. Fantastic. And I always wonder what will be the first language of the children of our Latinx generation? Yes, it's a really good question. You know, right now I'm saying Spanish, but maybe in the future I'll say English. But I hope all my kids do speak both languages. I think it's a great empowerment for a Hispanic student, for any person to be able to speak two languages, you know, to break that barrier around the world and be able to help others. Here's the big question of the day. My question is, how can an undocumented student achieve the dream of college? Yes, so an undocumented student achieve the dream of college. It was something that at my time I thought it was impossible. I was always told that Hispanic students didn't have the opportunity to go to college. I was told that, you know, the barrier of being Hispanic was that you graduated from high school and you would go to the construction field, to the workforce in general. But for a Hispanic man, you had to go to the construction field. That was the only option. And when it came to picking a college, you know, I picked one college in specific. And then I was like, okay, I'm up. I was happy. I was excited. And today, exactly, I committed to Radford four years ago. And then I was excited about it. But then it came to the point where I got, you know, taken off of that opportunity for being Hispanic. I was not only going to be charged, you know, an outside, it's an out-of-state student, an out-of-state student. An out-of-state tuition? Tuition, yeah, out-of-state tuition. And then, you know, I was going to be charged way too more. But, you know, after all, I think one of the most empowerment thing that the life can bring you is seeing different doors that opens over time. And one of the biggest doors I could always think and will always be grateful is for the Verona College door, because that's where I came and learned that students like me, Hispanic, who at that moment was undocumented, they can go to college. You know, a private college does give you the opportunity to be undocumented and get the tuition, get, you know, scholarships, get every help that you can get to obtain that dream that that little kid had at once. And now it's already accomplished. And, you know, we'll pursue more accomplishment over the time. So just to clarify, the reason you weren't able to go to a public university, whether it was Radford or any other, was because of your documentation status, correct? Yes, correct. You know, it was more of like, you know, they will charge you more. It was harder for you to even get in. I was put waitlisted in some different colleges just for being undocumented. I would be fighting with other students from like international to get a position in it. And it's harder for you to be undocumented and go to a regular school, you know, public school is more, you know, they're not giving you the opportunity or, you know, not be having that barrier of not being legalized in the US. That was the problem. But, you know, there's other school I for sure, you know, after going to run a college, I learned that there's schools that do give you the opportunity, you know, private school gives you the opportunity to any student, you know, not only run a college, any private school, I have looked in research, you know, now that now from 2020 to 2024, I've seen that now public schools also give an opportunity to students undocumented to go to school, you know, with a lower tuition, trying to help them with financial aid. But in my time, it was not it. Yeah. What have been and who have been your greatest resources in Roanoke College? Let me tell you something, I think one of my biggest resource in Roanoke College has been every single professor, I cannot think like one specific one professor from my freshman year to my senior year, I think I have embraced every professor in a uniqueness way, you know, from being from my math major and business administration major to my Spanish major, and doing different classes during college, I think every professor has brought something in. I remember my freshman year going into college, I thought I was never going to graduate. The first day of school, I told my mom, Mom, I'm dropping out. It was during zoom. And I told her, ma'am, I'm dropping out. And she was like, No, you're not. I'm like, Yes, I'm gonna go into construction field. Did I know how to put a nail? No, but I was gonna go to the construction field. And then, you know, I had so many professors in my freshman year that they told me, No, you can do it. You know, one of them was Dr. Banuelos Losamontes, who was like, I had him through for my Spanish class, 312 that year. And he was like, No, you're gonna do it. And he pushed me and everything. You know, I have Dr. Barrison, who was a really big mentor. My second semester had an amazing professor for communication was, um, who was Dr. Martinez Carrillo. She's Hispanic Mexican. She also is an immigrant. And she came here and she has got her master, her doctor. And she was the one who were my eye opening came up, you know, she was the one who embraced me to be the person I am today, because she was the one who told me, Oh, Roger, like, I remember at that time, I was getting legalized in the US. And I remember when one day in her class, I received a call from my attorney and, you know, giving me the big news of being legalized. She canceled class that last 15 minutes. And she was like, Hey, can I be in a call with you? And I was like, Yes, Dr. Martinez. And then, you know, she was there the whole entire time. And she celebrated with me. And I was like, you know, there's people who do want to see you achieving this world, you know, even though many of the time, I thought I didn't have nobody support, you know, from the outside. But in reality, everybody was cheering on me to be someone in life. It's just I didn't see because I always saw that barrier in front of me. But as the time went as though, you know, being a sophomore, junior, I was like, Okay, you know, this is getting easier and easier. Private school is hard in general. But you know, over the time, I learned a lot from professors, and I wouldn't think one individual specifically, I would think every single one of them, because they all have embraced something unique in me. You just dropped names from elementary school to middle school to high school to college. That's incredible. This is why people love you. Thank you, you you you've accomplished so much, but you're still an extremely humble individual. And you remember every single person that was there with every single step. Yes, you know, something I have learned and something that my mom has taught me is to always get credit, whereas credit needed, and I would not be where I am at today. If it wasn't for God, my mother, and every single professor, teacher, administrative person, I have always said that I am the person today and I have accomplished so many things over the years is because I have been given the open door and think to you as well, you know, for giving me the opportunity to come Salem High School to embrace my uniqueness, to embrace and speak up and tell every student, every Hispanic student here that they can do it. You know, we can all make a change, we can all be the difference. We just got to push ourselves, we have to believe in ourselves. And we have to be the transformation, the voice of transformation for the future generation for the people who think that us, we don't have the power of, you know, making changes, but we do in reality is just believe in ourselves. Roja, with all of your education and motivation, obviously, the story doesn't end here. And so what is your academic and professional future? Yes, I have so amazing things coming up. I want to get my master degree in business administration. I also want to go to law school. So that's something that has always been in me and I want to accomplish in the future. You know, it's probably not in the next one or two years, but probably in the next 5-10 years, I want to get an immigration law degree and, you know, help the community a lot. You know, I think I can be the voice for a lot of Hispanic students here. And I also want to do something to communication field, you know, as I will be mentioning in a few minutes, you know, seconds, not minutes, but a little bit more what I just did. I want to do something to communication field, you know, be a little voice of transformation on social media, on the platform where we can embrace our uniqueness. It seems like you've already done so much. How old are you? I'm only 22. You're only 22 years old. You've achieved all of this academically, professionally. You've made such an incredible difference in the Latinx Latino community. Tell us about this really exciting program or exciting opportunity you have with Amazon. Yes, it's an opportunity that I never thought would come true. You know, as a little child, I always thought I wanted to be on TV, but never thought I would come on Amazon. You know, when Brennan College reached out to me saying that I got the position to be able to do a equity and inclusion, diversity, equity, and inclusion section for the college tour, I was amazed. You know, I was like, like me? Like, I can't believe it's me. But, you know, something that really embraced me was that I was going to do something that really caught my attention, you know, which was diversity, equity, and inclusion. I always made sure that while I was at Brennan College, I would embrace that. And, you know, a couple, a year ago, exactly, I won the Garen Excellence Diversity Award at Brennan College, which was an award given to a student, an upper class student who, you know, have embraced the uniqueness of diversity in school. So, when I got this opportunity from Amazon to explain a little bit more what I've done, how I've embraced the uniqueness of diversity, it was, like, amazing. I was like, wow, like, you know, I can finally speak up to the world and tell them the voice transformation that has been in me and talk a little bit about how young I was and what have I embraced over the years. Is Amazon, Amazon is working with, with Roanoke College? Yes. And where is this series going to be held, or where can one watch it? Yes, we recorded last week, so it was really fun, you know, two day of my recordings, and then it's going to be watched in Amazon Prime. So, it's going to be around September, October. We don't exactly know the date. I will get a preview next month, but y'all would have to wait until around September, October to watch it. And, of course, we'll have a link on our website. Absolutely. That's super, super exciting. Roger, before we go, what advice would you give EL students that are in similar shoes right now? An advice I would give them is always strive to be bigger than what you can imagine, because I think us as students, we sometimes don't realize that we have so much potential inside of us, and that we can do many things, you know. It's all about believing in yourself, all about believing in yourself, and like I said earlier, you being the voice of transformation from the beginning and telling the world that you can do it, and proving the world that nothing will stop you from achieving anything that you want. I always said the sky is the limit, and we always, it might be something that's always said like often, however, the sky is the limit. You can move, and you can go as far as you want. There's many things out there with door opening that you just got to go in and grab it and be like, this is me, this is what I want to do, this is what I'm going to be. It's all about you being yourself and you being that power person, you know, having that power to do the difference. And, you know, if you, one of the things I have always believed and always, you know, really am passionate about is you being the transformation. Transform yourself from being a caterpillar to a butterfly, you know, from being a little small person who don't think that can ever do anything to being a person that you believe in yourself, and that you thrive to be a bigger person. I always believe, and I think education is the biggest factor of all this. I think if you, you know, succeed in your education, if you push yourself to go to college and, you know, get a degree and learn something new each day, that will embrace the uniqueness of you inside. That was Roger Lopez, a Roanoke College student whom I've had the pleasure of working with in an after-school program here at Salem High. He's become an impactful mentor and an integral part of our students' growth as they prepare for higher education. As you've just heard, Roger is immensely invested in the local Latino community. He has certainly evolved into a valuable member of our Roanoke Valley, and I look forward to seeing what he will do next with his compassionate drive and endless positive energy. Thank you, Roger, for investing your time with our students and podcast. Thank you, Luna Luna, for permitting us to share your music on this episode. As always, you can find more information about their music and other highlighted artists on our Facebook page, Spotify, and, of course, our website. And thank you, listeners, for joining us on this episode of Pots, Pans, and Gritos. But most of all, thank you for being an ally to English learners everywhere.