Meet an Oakland Graduate

Stanford, by way of East Oakland
For Michelle Gómez, last spring was filled with days of waiting and wondering. It was acceptance letter season, and Michelle, then a senior at Life Academy of Health and Bioscience, had yet to hear from Stanford University. March 26 figured to be yet another day of waiting.

“I expected to hear on April 1, but the news came a week early,” she recalls. “I was in Life Academy’s College and Career Information Center (CCIC), happened to have my email open, and realized I had a message from Stanford. I didn’t want to tell anyone, because I was prepared for rejection.” Bracing for the worst, she quietly clicked open the email. “I scrolled down, and as soon I read Congratulations!, I just started crying.”

She wasn’t the only one. “Everyone in the room started crying too, and everyone in the hallway started screaming. Even some of our teachers were crying.”

But the most rewarding moment was yet to come. “When I got home I told my parents, and they were so proud,” reflects Michelle as she relives the day. “That night I was so excited I couldn’t really sleep, and from my room I could hear my parents talking. They come from a very humble small town in Mexico, and I could hear them saying they couldn’t believe their daughter could be going to one of the best universities in the country. I would be the first person in my family to go to college. I felt so proud for paying back all the sacrifices they made for me.”

What’s more, thanks to support from Life Academy’s CCIC, Michelle had applied for and earned a partial scholarship. But over the next few days, Michelle stepped back from the emotions to weigh her decision. After all, she had acceptances from seven other schools. “I didn’t want to go just because of the name,” she explains. “I wanted to go because it was the right place for me.”
She had concerns about Stanford’s diversity, but on a visit to the campus Michelle was heartened to discover El Centro Chicano, the university’s Latino Community Center. There she met the Center’s president, who was also from East Oakland.

“I really connected with her and felt that people like me can be successful at Stanford,” says Michelle. “I decided Stanford would ultimately be the best school for me. They have strong programs in all fields, and I’m going in as pre-med.”

She credits Life Academy, where she was co-valedictorian of her class, with helping her reach that point. “At Life Academy, I was pushed to become a leader. Prior to high school, I was very, very shy and would not speak in front of a crowd or raise my hand in class. At Life I was pushed beyond my comfort zone so that I could be better than I was.”

“I know my first year is going to be really, really hard,” she continues. “But Life Academy has prepared me for that and I’m not going to give up, ever. Not at all.”

Moving forward, and giving back
Fast-forward to this November, and Michelle’s first semester at Stanford. “It’s only my second month in,” she says, “but I’m really trying to be resourceful and take advantage of every opportunity.”

As with her decision to attend Stanford, Michelle is approaching the college experience with an open mind.

“I’m just trying to be conscious of everything going on. There’s just so much, so many things happening on this campus,” she explains. “Like kickboxing – I never realized you could take that as a class! And I’m taking a Humanities course called ‘Journeys,’ which explores different philosophies and journeys that people take. It’s difficult, but very enlightening.”

While she still intends to pursue a health-related career – “I want to be one of the people who reforms healthcare” – Michelle is also considering other community-based lines of work.

“I think my heart will always be in social service and Latino issues, which relates back to my experiences in Oakland,” she reflects. “Right now I’m helping out in East Palo Alto, through a Stanford program called MEChA.” (A student group “dedicated to progressive changes for the Chicano/Latino community at Stanford and beyond.”) She’s also volunteering at SPOON, the Stanford Project on Hunger, collecting food around campus and delivering it to homeless shelters.

This desire to give back is firmly rooted in Michelle’s commitment to Oakland. The first weeks on Stanford’s campus have “made me reflect a lot about high school and Oakland and living in a low-income neighborhood,” she says. “Here at Stanford you have people coming from all over, and from very rich areas. I’m really grateful to have this opportunity, and it saddens me that a lot of my peers haven’t had it.”

“I feel empowered to be in this position, to get an education from a school like Stanford, and to have a voice. I want people back home to have the same opportunities. I feel that no one should have an excuse to turn away from education.”

With her East Oakland home and current Life Academy students in mind, she is encouraging her sister, cousin, and others to join extracurricular programs and do all they can to create their own opportunities, whether their future plans include college or not. “I’ve been so happy to hear that a lot of people in Life’s senior class are so motivated,” she says. “They’re getting involved in a lot of groups and applying to a lot more colleges – some to Stanford.”

“Colleges are in desperate need of more diversity,” she says. “I’m proud to tell people here at Stanford that I’m from East Oakland. I think it gives me so much more perspective, and I think it’s important for people to stand up for issues in the community where they grew up. I love that Life Academy is here in East Oakland. Oakland has a lot to give, and I’m always going to give back to Oakland, because it’s my roots.”

An earlier version of Michelle’s story appears in Life Academy’s Lifeline newsletter.

Washington, D.C. Trip Presents Monuments, Cherry Blossoms, and One Daunting Challenge

For the eleven 7th- and 8th-graders who represented Urban Promise Academy in Washington, D.C. this spring, the application process was so rigorous that it resembled applying for college. Not only did students need to carry at least a 3.0 grade-point average and write an essay, they also had to secure recommendations from their teachers and go through an interview.

“It was their first experience formally interviewing for something,” says UPA Assistant Principal and trip organizer Dennis Guikema, “and they were awesome. They came very prepared and I found out things I would have never expected. 7th-grader Maria, for example, recited from memory the entire preamble to the Constitution.”

The trip itself was monumental for the kids – and their families. “All the families took a leap of faith,” says Guikema. “This was the first time they’d been separated from their kids for that long and that distance.”

They were also incredibly excited for them, and lived vicariously through the students. “In D.C.,” recalls 8th-grader Alejandra, “my mom called me every five minutes to say, ‘Send me some pictures, I want to see what you’re doing!’”

What they did, thanks to the well-organized Close Up program, was a what’s-what of Washington, D.C.: Visits to the Arlington Cemetery, Vietnam Memorial, Holocaust Museum, Lincoln Memorial, the seasonal cherry blossoms, and more.

“Maybe I wasn’t alive while they fought,” says Alejandra of the soldiers buried in Arlington Cemetery, “but it felt like you lived through their stories and you lived through what they lived through.”

While these experiences made the students feel at home in the nation’s capital, they soon encountered a situation the typical tourist would never face.

Taking part in a mock Congress session, UPA’s exercise involved reviewing the Dream Act and deciding whether or not to amend it. “After we said we believed all immigrants who want to go to college should have the right to gain residence or citizenship,” says Alejandra, “a student from another school stood up and said that all immigrants should go back to their country because they’re stealing our jobs.”

"We were so emotional about that," recalls 7th-grader Jennifer. "One of us was crying.” After briefly venting their frustrations back in the hotel room, the kids calmly planned a measured, mature response.

“We started talking amongst each other about how it was not really fair, how they don’t know us or where we come from,” says Alejandra. “We wondered what we should do, and how we should face it.”

What ensued, says Guikema, “was really powerful. That conversation was so intense,” he recalls. “It was one of the most memorable experiences of my UPA history so far.”

“We talked as a group and told each other how we felt,” says 7th-grader Maria. “We expressed our feelings to each other.”

“We decided we wanted to talk to the coordinator of the program and let them know our experiences,” says Alejandra. “We also wrote letters to Senator John Kerry and we went to his office where we met with his senior aide. We told him that inside and outside the community these things just happen, and we don’t want these things to repeatedly happen.”

“In an unsafe situation, they didn’t act inappropriately in the moment,” Guikema says. “They came together as a group, calling in support and figuring out what to do next.”

“In all my years of working in schools,” says Guikema, “I’ve never seen students have the opportunity to speak to power so directly.”

To drive this point home, Guikema shifts his attention from the Promise reporter to address the D.C. students directly. “You had a chance to present letters to a senior-ranking senator on a really timely policy issue. A group of kids from an Oakland school who historically are marginalized in the political process, you went into the belly of the beast and made your voices heard. I’m so proud of you guys.”

In the heat of the moment, says Guikema, “I was really questioning whether we could do this trip again. But then I realized that the way they handled it just made them that much stronger.”
“You should go again,” asserts Alejandra. “And next year when you select the students, you should tell them this might happen.”

“You can help me interview them if you want!” replies Guikema. “You can explain the right way to handle a challenge like that.”

“[This experience] helped me believe that what I want to do is possible,” reflects Claudia. “[It taught us] how to be leaders, how we can be responsible and represent our school and how other kids can look up to us.”

“I’m going to miss being an UPA Warrior,” says Alejandra, “but you kind of carry that around wherever you go. The experiences you have [at UPA and in places like D.C.], no one can take that away from you and you remember them forever. We learn things you don’t see on TV or in newspapers. When younger kids ask you about D.C., you have stories to share. You have the honor to say, ‘I went there and stood in that spot.’”

"College for All" Campus Tour Tradition Continues

Urban Promise Academy added another inspiring chapter to its College for All program this winter, with 80 8th-graders visiting Cal Poly, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Santa Cruz on a three-day, two-night trip.

The tours and panels offered UPA students a wide-ranging impression of the college experience. At Santa Cruz, they got an inside look at daily student life, seeing dorm rooms and eating in the dining hall. At Santa Barbara, they took an “activist tour,” which covered different movements on the campus throughout its history, and the efforts to build diversity at the university. The kids were surprised, says Johnson, to hear so little talk about coursework. Then at Cal Poly, where most of the panelists discussed academics, the 8th-graders told Johnson, “They don’t even care about race here!”

The kids also picked up on the schools’ quirks: “They thought all the bikes at Santa Barbara were hysterical,” recalls Johnson. “Bikers just have the right-of-way everywhere.”

The kids still laugh about the preponderance of bikes. “My favorite was Santa Barbara,” recalls 8th-grader Susanna. “They have a lot of [extracurricular] clubs and I like that. But the bikes were kind of creepy.”

“A lot of the kids just felt relaxed and free,” says Johnson, “ready to have fun and see everything, just breathing everything in. They were fabulous – no drama, no issues.”

“At first I didn’t think I wanted to go to college because I thought it was too much hard work,” says Susanna. “But during our visits the college students told us it is hard, but at the same time you have fun doing it.”

“I thought they really changed their outlook,” says Johnson, “to be more like ‘Yes, I’m going to college and this is what I’m going to do.’”

“My favorite part was Santa Cruz,” says 8th-grader Denise, “because I want to go there. I don’t want to be too far from home – or too close. They showed me they want to get more diversity on campus. The students there told us, ‘We thought we couldn’t do it but we’re here,’ so I think I can do it too.”

Meet One of Our Teachers: EnCompass Academy's Mario García

During Mario García’s second year as a teacher, he had “one of those moments.”

“I taught this 3rd-grader, Salvador, I remember him to this day,” reflects García. “He started the year with no literacy skills – didn’t even know the alphabet. By June, I had taught him how to read. He was reading entire books, and I’ll never forget how that made me feel.

“I just saw a whole new world open up to him. That’s when I realized: As public school teachers, this kind of moment is our greatest payment. I catch myself saying corny things, but I have to say it: It’s priceless. That breakthrough with Salvador set the tone for the rest of my career.”

Now in his 14th year of teaching in Oakland (and sixth at EnCompass Academy), García has a wealth of inspiring moments to draw on. But his commitment to Oakland students has roots that run deeper than his teaching career. His grandfather was a teacher and administrator in the Bay Area, and his father was a Chicano Studies professor at UC Berkeley (García’s alma mater). His mother recently retired after teaching for 40 years in the Oakland Unified School District, and his brother and sister also teach. “We’re a family of teachers,” says García. “That’s a powerful foundation for me.”

So too was his parents’ dedication to social justice and equity for all of Oakland’s students. “My parents were very driven to make sure I was aware of the issues around equity and civil rights.” Along with other parents, García’s mother and father advocated for one of the Bay Area’s first bilingual preschools, Centro Infantil de la Raza – and García became one of its first students. “It was rooted in celebrating language and culture and giving everyone equal access to curriculum,” he says.

García remained immersed in this equity-minded atmosphere during elementary school at La Escuelita, the only bilingual Oakland elementary school at the time. “Looking back on it, it was just a beautiful experience,” he recalls. “Every student’s identity was very valid and celebrated. As I got older, I realized that was a pretty unique experience, and it’s very much a part of who I am to this day.”

But García was becoming aware that what “seemed so right and normal” to him was not, in fact, the norm. García started teaching largely because he “felt a deep responsibility to make sure the identity of every child is honored, and to never underestimate the power of that. As adults we tend to forget how important it is to be validated in that way at that young age. That’s something I’m very passionate about, coming from the family I come from.”

It’s no surprise that García wound up teaching at EnCompass Academy, an elementary school that embraces the “whole-child” approach he benefited from throughout his own childhood. In fact, the school’s motto perfectly echoes his upbringing: Starts with self, guided by family, engaged in community, rooted in ancestors.

“There’s a real satisfaction I get when I see students’ eyes open up about learning their own history and gaining a deeper understanding of the impact they can have in their own community and in the world.

“When I teach about African-American inventors, the pride I see in my Black students is extremely powerful,” he says. “That knowledge becomes a badge of honor that connects them to something and motivates them. It’s also empowering for my other students to have that knowledge. The key to me is connecting it all. It's an all-encompassing thing of making it relevant.

"As proud as I am of the gains my students have made academically [García's classes routinely show growth on California Standards Tests], deep inside I always want to do more in terms of cultural and historical teaching."

EnCompass is in the heart of East Oakland, where García grew up and still lives. (His house is around the corner from his parents’ first home.) “I’m from Oakland, I’m Latino, I’m bilingual. I understand what they are going through,” he explains. “That’s the power of working in the community where you grew up, and I feel like I’m fulfilling a need here. You know the saying Get in where you fit in — that's exactly what I'm doing. I feel I am right where I should be at this moment in time.”

He also feels this is the time to tackle another critical issue facing East Oakland. “We need to have a powerful focus on bringing the African-American and Latino communities together,” says García. To this end, he and an African-American childhood friend, also a teacher, have developed a project unofficially named “The Black and Brown Connection.” Their hope is to build a curriculum around it and host workshops to bring communities together. “Once we can create those connections,” says García, “so many positive things will flow out of that.”

Always teaching, always reaching, García is clearly extending his family’s legacy of community-building and social-justice education. “I feel strongly that you should inject your passion in what you teach,” he says. “The kids know I care about what I'm teaching them and they know I care about them. My kids are excited when they know Mr. García met Jesse Jackson when he was young, or that I had dinner with Dolores Huerta, or that I attended Cesar Chavez’s funeral. That’s real-life stuff I bring to the students.”

And they don't forget it. Recently, while out buying a Raiders jersey for his son, García bumped into someone he'd taught 10 years ago. "'Mr. García? she said. You were like the greatest teacher in the world!' That felt really good," he says. He also has old students frequently drop by his classroom, and every year he is invited to former students' quinceanera (15th birthday) parties.

When you hear him speak about his commitment to Oakland kids, it’s not hard to picture him teaching here as long as his mother did. “Oakland has a lot of beauty, a rich and beautiful history that not enough people know about,” says García. “I’m going to do whatever I can for these kids. They have just as much potential as anyone. As a teacher, I know that every day, the words I say have such an impact. It’s a pretty powerful burden, but also a profound gift. It’s both, and you have to be careful with it.”