Personal Statement

In an effort to give you a brief introduction to who I am and the roles I’ve played

throughout my life; son, student, teacher, husband, and father- the one role that’s

remained constant has been my cultural role as a Latino. Growing up for the first 16 years

in El Salvador gave me a first hand perspective on the resilience of the human spirit and

how ones past doesn’t determine the trajectory of ones future. This has become my

personal mantra and has served me in being a better teacher, father, and hopefully future

counselor.

My background mirrors many of the experiences of my Oak Grove students - having

a single parent, being raised by ones grandmother, poor, and living in a war zone. Today

our kids battle red vs. blue, but in El Salvador it was the guerrillas vs. the Army. I

witnessed my grandmother battle the racism, sexism, and classism that still has a

stranglehold in many Latin American countries today. Some of my earliest memories

were of these injustices and I vowed to fight against them in my life. Leaving El

Salvador I left my childhood and entered the new world of New York City where my

adulthood was shaped by its multiculturalism and emphasis on a ‘can do’ spirit.

Arriving in New York I knew only the most basic words in English. I was sent to live

with my mother from whom I’ve been separated since a toddler and who was unable to

help me learn English or navigate the New York Board of Education. I was placed in

ELD classes with other students from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua

where Math and Science courses were taught in Spanish and Social Studies and

Composition courses were taught in English. As a junior I was able to enroll in my first
elective and I chose a course for those who were interested in becoming teachers. One of

the field trips we took included visiting Hunter College where I saw Latinos attending

and thriving at the university. Seeing myself in them gave me the encouragement to apply

and seek out mentors who ended up helping me through the process. Upon graduating

from Hunter, I worked at Central Park Secondary School (CPESS) with Debbie Meyers

who helped shaped my core philosophy on how we educate our youth.

New York was a thriving place to live, work, and play and I was sad when that chapter

came to an end in my life. New York. However after only being married for three years,

we moved to California after my wife’s mother was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer.

Although I was unable to find another CPESS in San Jose, Oak Grove High School gave

me the opportunity to play an integral role in reaching out to the Latino community as

their liaison as well with the Migrant Education Program.

Working with the Oak Grove Latino Parents has been one of the primary reasons I’ve

decided to be a counselor. Part of the reason I became the liaison was due to the lack of

outreach from our existing counseling department. I realize that the counselor’s job given

the ratio of students to counselors restricts their job to one of putting out fires than of

building capacity within the various minority groups on campus. I felt that I could assist

them by doing grassroots community building and empowering the student and parent

voices at our school to take responsibility, become informed, and encourage each other to

help our students go to college. My hope is that I can continue working with this

population and ideally, once I receive my counseling credential, have a position here at

Oak Grove to continue the program’s goals.

 The masters program in counseling will allow me to work towards my professional

goals to create a model Latino Parent Outreach Program that can be duplicated

throughout the district. I know first hand how the school system needs to do more

outreach to teach parents about the A-G requirements and it is my hope to create a

program of Student Latino Ambassadors who can help their peers steer through the

system and advocate for greater ranks eligible for college. In a district where the majority

of students are Latinos it’s critical to have bilingual counselors who can relate and

respond to the needs of those in the community. I know that this program will allow me

to accomplish all of these goals and assist in creating a generation of Latinos seeking

higher education.