Sophia Vasquez

Still Falling Through the Cracks was a meta-analysis paper about the educational pipeline for latinx students focusing on California school and higher education systems and providing recommendations to schools on how to improve the pipeline for Latinx students. Precious Knowledge was a film focused on the importance of ethnic studies courses for Latinx students and how that improves the students outlook on education. The paper we read was more of an overarching paper about the problems with the education system for Latinx students and Precious Knowledge, from the small snippet we watched, is focused more on a specific school system, Arizona, and how in a way the teachers at this school are somewhat portraying the recommendations in the paper in a real education system. Both articles have an overarching idea, that we have been discussing in class, that the system is the issue and is not uplifting our communities. For example, students like in Precious Knowledge are retaliating against it by making sure their history, American history, is protected and not allowing the system to define what their history is similar to how many Indigenous communities will not allow themselves to be identified as Native American. Both pieces do a great job at not just stating what the problem is, the system, but promoting solutions that can be applied nationwide. One thing I found disheartening within the paper was the fact that promotion and tenure were not defined strictly and were harder to attain for Latinx professors. I had assumed that they were standardized but again ambiguity allows for white supremacy to persevere. One thing I found beautiful was the way the teacher taught about the different deities from MesoAmerica, he was able to create life-lessons from what each deity represents to help students practice those life-lessons and learn about what each deity is. I am a person of faith and this way of teaching about different cultures is very beautiful and shows the humanity that has been so often stripped from these cultures. The film and paper highlighted the importance of changing the narrative and creating empathy for Latinx students because before it was projected that these students did not care but rather that they were given up on and internalized those perceptions. Latinx students have been set up to fail and it is the communities responsibility to uplift and provide resources that the system will not provide.