Episode 4: Empowerment Through Education

The podcast episode features an interview with Dr. Jose Banuelos Montes, a professor of Spanish, discussing empowering Latinx youth. They also talk about traditional Mexican vegetarian dishes and a program called Si Se Puede, which aims to bridge the divide between high school and college for Latinx students. The program focuses on empowerment, identity, and utilizing students' home language. The interview highlights the positive impact of the program on both high school and college students. 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 great privilege to interview a friend and colleague with whom I've had the opportunity to impact young, diverse lives. Dr. Jose Banuelos Montes is a professor of Spanish and head of the World Language Department at Roanoke College. Today, we discuss empowering EL students, particularly Latinx youth. Dr. Banuelos shares in-depth insight and provides meaningful examples of encouraging young Latinos. Along the way, you will enjoy the traditional sounds of Grupo Mono Blanco, translated White Monkey Group. Their style is known as Son Jarocho, a regional folk music from Veracruz, Mexico. They have been sharing their culture through music and inspiring other musicians for nearly 50 years. Disclaimer. As an educated listener, you understand that English learning is synonymous with immigration. Therefore, it should not be surprising that the topic of undocumented immigration is and will continue to be a common theme in our program. Other controversial topics, such as child labor, as described in today's episode, will also arise in our program. The views of our guests do not necessarily reflect those of mine nor Salem High Schools, and we understand that listening to personal accounts can at times be uncomfortable. Nonetheless, we have created a platform in which our guests can freely and safely share their experiences. We hope you gain insight into the lives of others and better understand different perspectives. And now, here are their stories. Dr. Banuelos, I have a challenge for you. My girlfriend and I recently returned from Mexico City, and we both declared it the greatest city of food. What are three vegetarian traditional Mexican dishes that I need to try, that I need to cook in my kitchen? Well, one of them for breakfast, which is very traditional in Mexico, are called chilaquiles. Absolutely. And there are some places in Mexico that they can add meat and chicken, beef. But the traditional one, it is just chilaquiles with beans, tomato, lettuce, salsa. And you can actually add the traditional plant or nopales to it as well. This idea of nachos for breakfast? I don't know how Americans didn't start that first, but my first time having them was just a mind-blowing, epiphanal moment. Okay, so I don't eat meat. I go to Mexico thinking that, okay, maybe this is not going to be the greatest place for vegetarians. But what we found out is that there's this new wave, this movement of veganism throughout Mexico City. What about other places outside of the capital city? It is catching up a little bit more than what it used to be maybe five or ten years ago. But I've been to Merida, Yucatan on several occasions, and you will not be surprised when you enter some of these traditional restaurants that you're going to have a section for vegan people. So there is what they call sambotes and panuchos that traditionally carry chicken or turkey. What they do is that they take away just the meat and they keep the vegetables in it, and people enjoy those sambotes or those panuchos eaten in that particular way. You have one more food to offer me, one more. It could be traditional or it could be more innovative. Well, in terms of the stereotypical thing here, you know that tacos are a delicacy. Oh, my God, yes. And you can try tacos with different types of meat. We had tacos al pastor, a vegan version of it, and it was mind-blowing. Well, now you can eat tacos without meat in them. And they have this thing called acelga, which I think is a chad, C-H-A-D in English. I have no idea. But that acelga is very common, you know. And they can also be accompanied with cauliflower. Oh, yes, roasted cauliflower with a spice on it, absolutely. Do not forget the cilantro, the cebolla, and then your salsas. Okay, we're done talking about food right now. We're hungry now. Dr. Jose Banuelos, can you please introduce yourself? Yes. My name is Jose Banuelos. I'm an associate professor of Spanish at Roanoke College, also the chair of the Modern Languages Department, and I've been teaching at Roanoke College for the past 17 years. So I get a random email from Dr. Jose Banuelos about starting this new project here at Salem High School with my students. And I was very inquisitive. I was like, okay, well, what is this about? And, what, three or four months later, we have this tremendous relationship, you and I do, but so do our students from Salem High and Roanoke College. And this project I speak of is no other than Si Se Puede. Can you explain, I guess, the birth of Si Se Puede, why you chose Salem High School? Si Se Puede was a program launched by Casa Latina many, many years ago. What is Casa Latina? Casa Latina is a nonprofit organization in Roanoke, in the Roanoke Valley, that supports the Latinx community with all kinds of educational programs, for example, computer literacy, DMV classes to help the Latinos have to prepare themselves for the written test. We do an after-school program, children to learn Spanish and get back into contact with their Hispanic roots. So that's an organization that we run, several of us do, in the Roanoke Valley area. So we actually had this program several years ago, pre-pandemic, in William Fleming and also Patrick Henry, but it stopped for many years. And then we were introduced again with the opportunity of launching this program. So we went back to the traditional high schools, but for some reason we didn't have any success until I met Karen Werner. I had a conversation with her from Roanoke College in the education department. Amazing person. And I told her this is happening, it's not working, what can I do? And then she was the one that mentioned your name and told me that there was a program already running here, Bridges, and that it was fabulous, it was phenomenal, the support was excellent. And I told her that is exactly what I'm looking for with Si Se Puede. So she put me in contact with you, I sent you the e-mail, we got together, I got to visit your English learners class at the same time where you were teaching La Casa Mango Street, the House of Mango Street, and I think that's when I felt, I mean, this is going to work very well. Thank you, Sandra Cisneros. Thanks to Sandra Cisneros and to Karen as well. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. What is the purpose of Si Se Puede? One of the ideas of Si Se Puede, this is the second year that we teach Spanish 306, which is Spanish for heritage speakers. And throughout the history of my years at Roanoke College, we've been experimenting or seeing Latinx students that cannot cope, that they cannot adjust to this environment when they have to travel many, many miles, maybe 100 or 200 miles. And we were fighting or struggling with the idea of how to develop this sense of belonging, how can we help them do that. Since those students were already here, then the idea of the Si Se Puede program came up. And to Karen about it, I told her I would like to use my Latinx students with his Latinx students also and create this bridge of communication and to better prepare high school students to face the challenges of college and for the Latinx students to see themselves in the high school student as a way of strengthening their own beliefs, their own sense of being, and see themselves from different angles and come to the realization that, hey, I can help a group of students where I face challenges. I can use that experience to strengthen the belief that they are able to make it in college. So that's the main goal, how to bridge that divide between high school and college and make it more accessible to high school students. And I'll give you one word, empowerment. Empowerment, yeah. Oh, my gosh, this has been such an empowering experience for my students. And, of course, because I jump into discussions, our group discussions, this has been so empowering for your Roanoke College students. Yes, I actually talked to the college students that help us in the Si Se Puede program. And just basically I tell them, so what do you guys think? And the comments are very, very positive. I feel different. I think different. I didn't know that this was happening with me. And I want to use that experience to prepare the students that are making the jump to college. So that awareness, and I think you mentioned that before, Nolan, that awareness of who they are, you know, strengthening that sense of identity, but it's to help them, you know, make that transition into college much more accessible, understanding, and that they can perceive themselves right now that they will be able to adjust and to make it and face any challenges that comes towards them. And being able to relate with older college students and being able to utilize their home language. So it's a bilingual program, and so we're speaking English, but we probably speak 75% Spanish. And, you know, finally they have found a spot in the school where that's accepted. Yeah. I think one of the greatest achievements of the CISAPODE program is that if a high school student, Latinx student, you know, who is a bilingual speaker, sees this Latinx student who is in his second or first or second year, but already stepping in a college environment, that they can see or foresee themselves. Yeah, they see the future. Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like in this program we're also encouraging them to embrace their home culture again, certainly their language. And more than that, it's the diversity that we have in this group. I mean, we have different nationalities. We have Guatemalans, Salvadorans. Venezuela, Mexico, Peru. Mexicans, Peru, Nicaragua. So, I mean, one of the things that we want the students to understand is that no matter from what Latin American country you come from, here in this space, it's your space. You make it your own. You empower yourself by accepting who you are, but also you're empowering yourself by becoming conscientious that your peer next to you from a different Latin American country, it's in the same situation that you are in. Thank you so much for bringing this to my classroom, to our school, to our EL program. No, we are very happy. And thanks to Salem High School and thanks to you that you paved the way for that. What are some other ways you're empowering your own EL students at Roanoke College? One of the things that we do is that one of the biggest challenges that we face are two. Number one is understanding, helping them to understand who they are and what they're doing in that college environment. And number two is developing a sense of belonging. I don't feel the same. I don't think the same. I don't see myself the same. What is happening to me? Well, just to interrupt, a lot of your students, would you agree that a lot of my students, they'll be the first ones from their family to go to college. Would you agree that you encounter the same situation? Yes, we have encountered first-generation students that just to leave the family behind, you know, that separation, instead of seeing the enrichment opportunity, it's more of a displacement, a situation that, you know, just brings other factors in like nostalgia, melancholy, do I really want to be here? I miss my family a lot. So we deal with this type of situation and these type of feelings. But something that is kind of interesting of what is happening by pairing up, you know, college students with high school students is that now they're understanding what they're going through much better, knowing that they are assisting high school students in that transition. So it's kind of, it's like a mirror, you know, in which they can see themselves and now they're understanding themselves a little bit more in the challenges ahead. So this experience helps them to be who they are, you know, in the college campus and how to build community among themselves first, strengthening that community and then fan out or spread out, you know, into the wider college campus. Have you seen your Latino and just English learners in general, have you seen that population grow at Roanoke College? Yes, it is growing steadily, but it is growing. So one of the things that we have communicated to the administration is that we need to start serving this population. If they are dead serious about increasing numbers of Latinx students, the college has to be ready to embrace the students. So we've been talking about a cultural center for Latinx students. We are talking about revising the general curriculum in which we are teaching information that they can see themselves being represented in the curriculum, at least in the first year, because that's the most challenging year for them in terms of adapting to this new system. We took a trip to Roanoke College last year and a lot of my students were just amazed by the diversity that they saw on the college campus because I think for a lot of them, they had that stereotype in their head that college is for Americans. And we're really changing that mindset here at Salem High. And that is so crucial that high school teachers and high school counselors, principals, assistant principals, to be on the same page because as you already know Nolan, the Latino population is continuing to grow. And there's a concern right now, what is the future going to be like of this nation in the next 50, 100 years? Well, your Latino population at the turn of the century is going to number at least maybe like 100 or 110 million. In other words, they are going to be the future of this nation. So you have to start helping them believe that this is possible because they possess the skills in order to make it. Your own experience as a college student, you were a first generation college student yourself, but you took it far beyond obviously because I call you Dr. Banuelos. Well, I wish I had a program or a group of dedicated teachers. I don't take anything away to what they did. They were there, they were invested, but I wish that there were programs for us back then in which they were preparing us mentally for a college. So you were not mentally prepared for college? I was not mentally prepared for college. Before college, I was mentally prepared for one thing. You play soccer in high school, you give me a 3.0 and you play soccer, and then you can go to college and play soccer. So many of us, that was our thought. Nobody knew about a major. Nobody knew about, hey, you can become a teacher, you can become a doctor, you can become an engineer, you can become this, you can become this professional. No one taught us that, no one. We only knew that our soccer coach, he was a Latino, and he was a pastor at a church. So he had no knowledge about soccer, but he had knowledge about discipline. And later on, we found out that to play sports in high school, you needed a 2.0, but he pressed forward for us to get a 3.0, but we had no idea. It's just a little white lie. Yeah, it's a little white lie, but I knew why he did it at the end. He wanted to prepare a couple of us for college. Fantastic. He had that bar set up high. Yeah, the bar set up high. That's why a lot of students didn't make it to the soccer team. I struggled mightily my first two years. I certainly was not prepared, and there was no language barrier or cultural barrier. You shared a funny story with me, and I'm not calling you out, but you shared it with our Si Se Puede program, so I feel like I can share it here. What happened in your anthropology class when you were studying the Aztecs? One of the good things about Si Se Puede and serving the Latinx population at Ronald College is that they look at you and you think that you are this god coming down from Mount Olympus or this Quetzalcoatl, you know. I'm talking about gods from— That's a more appropriate god. More appropriate god, no? For this conversation. But we are down-to-earth people. We're planted in this earth, and once we start sharing our own experiences to get here, because they think that we're perfect, but once we start sharing the experiences of how we had to confront the struggles, then students start to relax more and start to say, hey, it's okay to make mistakes, but you have to recover yourself. One of the stories that I always use with them is that I tell them that in my sophomore year in college at Cal State San Bernardino, I took a class in anthropology, and it was the history of the Aztecs. And I took the class because I loved the class. I said, well, I want to know more because I was in the Mecha Club, the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, so I was trying to find my own identity, so I formed part of Mecha. And Mecha said, well, I mean, there's some classes that can help you a lot, understanding about your roots. And that's why I took the anthropology class of the history of the Aztecs, because they were talking about the Aztecs all of the time, that we come from the Aztecs and that's a root of the Aztecs and everything. So I took the class, and to be honest, I didn't put the effort that I had to put. Why? Because soccer was more important for me. So I failed. I got an F for that class. In your defense, there are plenty of gringos that do not pass United States history. No, yeah. Again, if you don't have the right people preparing you for college, because going back to that experience, I was a senior already in high school, and I was preparing myself to go out and do what my dad used to tell us to do, learn English, and you're going to get a five-hour job, and that was a big thing for him. And then suddenly in the spring semester of my senior year, my counselor came and knocked at the door of my house, and I said to myself, what is he doing here? Am I in trouble? So then I opened the door and I said, hey, Mr. Hernandez, what are you doing here? And he said, well, I want to talk to your mom and dad. And I said, oh, gosh, it is something bad. You know how we are in the Latino, you know, with another grown-up. We do something wrong. So then I went into the kitchen, and I didn't want to go that far because I want to hear the conversation. And Mr. Hernandez told my mom and dad, I came to tell you that your son has the grace to go to college. Wow. And my mom and dad, college, what is that? I mean, what does that mean? I mean, they didn't have an education. My mom, I think she only went to sixth grade in Mexico and then spent her 50 years, you know, rearing kids. So then I heard that, and I said college. And, again, the only thing that popped to my mind was soccer. That was the only thing. So then he left, and then my mom turns to me and then like kind of mad tells me, what was that? I mean, what is it about college? Did they see opportunity in that? Or that was just such a foreign concept to them? It was a foreign concept to them because my dad, in his mind, when you finish high school, you know English, you're going to get a five-hour job, a job for $5 an hour. ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ Let's go to the history of your parents. Talk about your childhood, especially that part of growing up as an English learner. I have to connect to that also, the part of accepting that I was an immigrant. Because once I accepted that, things became clear to me. I didn't put a lot of pressure on me. I didn't put a lot of stress, and I didn't put a classification on me that I wanted to sweep under the rug. I wanted to be someone else, just because of the classification of being an immigrant, of the discrimination that we grew up with. But in the case of my parents, when I was probably around seven or eight, my mom and dad and my older brother immigrated to the United States. So we were left behind with my older sister. When I was eight that time, my older sister was 12. So six of us stayed behind, younger siblings, under the care of a 12-year-old for one year. I learned to sell tostadas. I learned to sell jello. I learned to sell bread. I had to learn a lot of stuff for two years. Then my dad just comes one night without telling us that he was coming. He comes in one night around 7 or 8 p.m. and just tells us, just pack whatever you can. Then by 5, 6 a.m., there were a couple of taxis outside the door of our house. We went to Guadalajara, and then he had the tickets bought for a train, which was called La Bala, a very famous train in Mexico. They called it La Bala because it was the fastest way of transportation. Nowadays, you can ride a bus. So we actually got to Mexicali, and in Mexicali, it was a whole ordeal how you're going to cross then. Then my dad, who had a job in the Coachella Valley, he was able to come and go because he had a green card. None of us did it, but we stayed with a compadre in Mexicali for about four or six months just trying to find a way to cross the border. Then my mom couldn't see us because she was undocumented, so she actually had to stay taking care of the mother of a family that she was working with. Then it took planning with the Coyotes how we were going to cross the border. They actually trained us that there was this plane passing every 20 minutes. So once the plane was distant for 20 minutes, then they asked us to jump a 24-foot-high fence. So you have little kids, you know, like spiders, crawling up the fence. We were able to get into a small dachshund, very, very small for five people. You had to pack in seven people into the dachshund. So we drove all night long, and that time it wasn't successful because the immigration caught us. I remember that one of the immigration officers, they were crying because they said, I mean, where are these kids coming from? It was the dad. My dad was right at the corner at a restaurant looking at everything, and then he said, I really wanted to go, but I couldn't. I couldn't cut the dream. So then he knew that they were going to take us back, and they were going to drop us off at the border in Mexico, and his compadre was right there waiting for us to take us back to his house. So we did it a second time, and then the second time we were lucky, and the rest is history. That is a fascinating story, man. Yeah, I never use this story in my college classes. Even though I do teach the Latino experience through literature and film, but I do always tell them, first of all, you are taking this class with an immigrant. I am an immigrant, and then I am your professor, but I never share this story with them. [♪ singing in Spanish ♪ Your parents grew up as farmers, migrant workers in, you said, the Coachella Valley, and then later you moved further north? Yeah, yeah. We did what's called the Corrida, and the Corrida meant that people started in the Coachella Valley, working in the grape fields, and then once the job ended there early, like late June, then we would move into Irving, knowing the great Central Valley for another two weeks. Then you move into the Leno for another two weeks, and then you end up either in Bakersfield or Fresno. And it was in that area and in roughly that time when the movement led by Cesar Chavez was going on? Well, it was just more of the sentiment of what Cesar Chavez was able to accomplish on the political spectrum, getting better wages for the migrant worker, better living conditions also for the migrant workers, the human treatment of the migrant workers, which was not really happening. So that was the movement, and it was very strong. That sentiment was actually very strong in Northern California, in the great Central Valley, but it was not strong in the Coachella Valley. Actually, it was a counter sentiment because many people believe that what Cesar was fighting for in Northern California could be affecting the job of thousands of migrant workers in the Coachella Valley, meaning that the farm workers or the ranchers could actually stop the production of grapes in Southern California, and then that would keep a lot of Mexicans who depend on the job out of the jobs. Dr. Banuelos, where does your compassion and your empathy for others, and not just the Latino-Hispanic population, not just the Latinx population, but just for all diverse people? That's a good question because we don't grow up telling us you've got to do community service. We don't grow up where our parents are telling us you have to go help with the food pantry. No, we don't grow up that way. The way that we grow up is by our parents telling us we have to be good to each other. We have to treat each other with respect, and if you see someone in need, then you offer help. If you have two tacos, then divide your tacos. If you have two apples, divide your apples. So that's the way we grew up. So every time we see a need, it's like it's programming us. It's genetically already programming us. It's part of that collective society. It's part of that collective society, and I know we don't want to use the word here because people don't understand them. It's a socialism in a way that you think about the people first. All these other concepts that we have from an individualistic society, when our students are from these complete opposite values, society of these, we say collectivism again, where the top nations of collectivism are Central America, South America, East Asia, South Asia, where the concept of group and family and team come before the individual. Yeah, and that is what you see in the immigrant population, that they still bring this concept of family, immediate family, nuclear family, extended family, in the social gatherings. You see them on weekends in the parks, just getting together, happy to see each other because the week is very demanding. They have to work. Sometimes the man has to go out and work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and then the mom has to stay home and rear the kids and just work in the house. And then they have this space for them, this time in which they all gather in a park. And this idea that you mentioned about collectivism, again, it's ingrained in us already. We don't have to think about it. It comes out very, very naturally. And to your question about empathy, there's this concept that we practice a lot in the Latino family, and it's a universal feeling. It's about love and respect, and that transfer to every environment. That was Dr. José Banuelos Montes, professor and head of world languages at Roanoke College. His Sise Puede program has enhanced the educational experience of my Latinx students. Each Thursday, I look forward to his arrival as he walks in with bags of Takis and Doritos in hand while surrounded by his Roanoke entourage. His greeting is always a warm hug with a deep, welcoming Buenas Tardes, profe, from that soothing voice that could easily be the narrator of a major motion picture. Dr. Banuelos is also the host of a radio program, Puentes Culturales, Cultural Bridges, that gives us further opportunity to enjoy both his voice and his insight. You can find the link to his radio show in this week's episode description. Thank you, Dr. Banuelos, for sharing your meaningful thoughts and stories today. Thank you, Grupo Mono Blanco, for providing today's soundtrack. You can find a link to discover more of their traditional sounds in our episode description. 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. ¶¶ ¶¶