Speak UP’s Parent of the Month: Hilda Ávila, ‘cultivating warrior parents’

/
Speak UP’s Parent of the Month: Hilda Ávila, ‘cultivating warrior parents’

When Hilda Ávila became a mother 12 years ago, the leader inside her was born too.

A pregnancy class, followed by a parenting workshop, marked the beginning of her journey to becoming a parent leader in the community of Wilmington, in South Los Angeles.

“I started by attending classes, then became a volunteer, and I continue being involved to this day'', Hilda said about Harbor Pregnancy Help Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting mothers to continue with their pregnancies, which was the first place that fostered Hilda’s spirit of service.

Hilda immigrated to Los Angeles from Mexico City, where she completed two years of college majoring in Communication.

"I wanted to take a year off and go back to get my college degree, but I stayed here and then became a mother."

Hilda began getting involved with her son Jaziel’s education as soon as he started attending the Head Start program at age 2. That's when she began advocating for children and their parents’ rights until it turned into her passion.

“I would enroll in the same classes over and over, because I think you always learn something new, and even from other parents in the class,” Hilda said. “Children won’t stay little forever. I had to keep learning and growing as a mother along with my child”.

Hilda has been collaborating with different organizations such as CARECEN, Families In Schools, Rotary Club of Wilmington, United Way Greater Los Angeles and Speak UP, on issues related to education, immigration, public health and even the environment.

She also collaborates with the Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office and the First 5 California Best Start program, which focuses on getting Los Angeles County children ready for kindergarten and their future school.

“I don't realize everything I do because I'm just passionate about it,” says Hilda. “Helping other parents grow gives me great satisfaction.”

When her son began attending LAUSD Fries Elementary, she started volunteering at the school’s Parent Center. And in 2018, Hilda was recognized as an “LAUSD Hero in Education” by then-Superintendent Michelle King and LAUSD School Board President Richard Vladovic.

“I had been serving in the PTO for 3 years then. At first, the principal...let’s just say that he wasn’t very fond of me, but later we began to collaborate very well. It was a teacher who nominated me, so it was very nice for me,”she said. "I experienced humiliation and criticism when I started getting involved, so that recognition for me was a real achievement."

Hilda joined Speak UP’s Latino Padres Unidos earlier this year, to be part of the Digital Parent Leadership Team, which was in charge of recruiting about 200 parents, through social media, to attend a virtual town hall in August about the new LAUSD superintendent search.

“To change something at the root it has to be top down. By changing the person who heads (the district) and with the support of parents, great changes can be achieved, ”said Hilda, who thinks Latino parents must get involved in the process.

Speak UP created a petition for parents to get involved in the search process for the next superintendent asking LAUSD school board members to elect a leader who can put kids first.

Hilda is currently leading a literacy workshop in Spanish called "Mamá reads, Papá reads", to help parents pass the love of reading to their children. She teaches the workshop to 20-30 parents per 10-week session. In addition to workshops, she also offers one-to-one support to parents facing challenges with their special education children or to parents of English learners, like her. She successfully helped her son reclassify.

"There are parents who tell me that they did not know that their children were classified as English learners," she said. Hilda believes that as parents, when advocating for their children, it is OK to demand, "but when demanding you must recognize your obligations too."

She also advises parents that they must prepare before advocating, so they don’t get carried away by their emotions. "If we get carried away by sentiment, we do not advocate effectively and that is when the system wins."

Here are some tips from Hilda on parent leadership:

Read More

All Americans Should Know What Juneteeth is About

/
All Americans Should Know What Juneteeth is About

Human Slavery shamefully paved the foundation for the United States to be one of the greatest capitalistic democracies in the world. The billions generated today can be directly linked to the work of African Slaves and other minority groups in servitude. Global leadership and power have served the United States since the foundation of our country due to enslavement and mass production of cotton. There has always been a long trend of freedom fighting since the US fought for Independence and won, signifying the celebration of July 4, 1776. Slavery was legal and continued for Black and other minorities within the US after the Civil War and the 13th Amendment in 1865. Throughout the late 1790s and 1800s, slavery wasn't over, and multiple laws were put into place to hinder Black people from owning land, homes, and proper schooling. It was illegal to teach an enslaved human to read and write. The demonstrated intent to stifle Black progress was widely acceptable in violent efforts, such as the race massacres in cities like Tulsa, Oklahoma or the land stealing of specific areas within Manhattan Beach from the Bruce family.

Read More

Schools Should Fully Reopen In Person this Fall, But Protect and Create New Online Schools for Those Who Want Them

/
Schools Should Fully Reopen In Person this Fall, But Protect and Create New Online Schools for Those Who Want Them

As California lawmakers debate whether to allow districts to offer distance learning this fall, there’s no consensus from parents on what’s best for their kids. One size does not fit all when it comes to education, and families desperately need quality options -- without forcing anyone to participate in distance learning or to show up on a campus against their will.

It’s clear by now that not every school or child has handled distance learning well, and many kids have suffered tremendous learning loss as a result. Full-time in-person instruction needs to be the default this fall, an approach favored by Gov. Gavin Newsom and some key Democratic lawmakers. Forcing all schools to offer a remote option is definitely not the answer because it asks too much of schools and educators who are not experts in online teaching, and trying to do all things sacrifices quality for everyone.

Dismantling all online schooling options altogether, however, would also be a mistake. A recent NPR poll found that nearly a third of parents wanted to keep their kids learning remotely indefinitely, and the demand is highest among some Black and Latino parents. About 20% of districts around the country are creating virtual academies as a result, according to a recent Rand Report cited in The New York Times.

There’s no reason California cannot allow districts such as Los Angeles Unified to create a separate virtual academy as one of many school options parents can choose from, including themed magnets, pilots or dual language immersion schools. There should be guardrails to protect the amount and quality of instruction for kids, but a separate virtual option would not take anything away from the vast majority of kids who need to return to full-time in-person instruction this fall.

California also should protect the remote schooling options that families already have. The legislature is currently debating AB1316, a bil that would attack the funding for homeschooling and online/blended learning charter school options, at a time when demand for such options has soared. Some of these schools are experts in remote learning, and there’s no reason to remove such flexibility for families who want and need it.

We two parents want to share our reasons for supporting online learning options. One of us, Farnaz Kaufman, is an educator at a school network that includes online, hybrid and in-person learning, and the other, Roxann Nazario, is a Speak UP parent engagement coordinator, planning to exercise an online learning option this fall.

Read More

Reckoning With Our Otherness

/
Reckoning With Our Otherness

At dinner last Thursday night, my 13-year-old son asked me if we should be careful when going outside.

“Because of COVID?” I asked.

“Because we’re Asian,” he replied.

My heart sank. Could this be why he was anxious about returning to school? And how should I answer his question? As a Chinese American family in West Los Angeles, we had never grappled with this issue in our family before. We live in a racially diverse neighborhood that resembles a Benetton ad. My son went to an LA Unified dual language elementary school, a school which his 11-year-old sister still attends. There, the children learn Mandarin alongside students who are not only Asian but also white, Black, and LatinX. The families share a common desire to learn Mandarin and, by extension, to learn about Chinese people. When my daughter graduates from fifth grade this year, she will continue studying Mandarin in middle and eventually high school. That these schools are public can be seen as a testament to how Chinese language and culture have been embraced by our city. Overt racial discrimination is not something my children have experienced.

I, on the other hand, spent much of my childhood in a small town in Georgia. At school, my brother and I were accused of bombing Pearl Harbor and called names so vile they can’t be printed here. By age 6, I had come to see my race as something that could be weaponized and used to dehumanize me. I alternated between meekly keeping my head down and brazenly challenging my tormentors. Neither one stopped the bullying. When it became physical, I would fight back, but I would always be the only one who got in trouble.

Shortly after my 14th birthday, my family relocated to Singapore, where blending in eluded me still. There, it wasn’t my race that set me apart. It was my American accent. Outside of the bubble of my expat community, people would stare as soon as I opened my mouth. My experiences of discrimination continued.

Moving to Los Angeles in the mid-90s felt like coming home. Suddenly, neither my race nor my cultural identity were my most salient features. I naively allowed myself to believe that I might be living in a post-racial America -- as far as Asians were concerned. Now, years later, it’s dawning on me that I may have raised my children to also feel this way.

I have never shied away from discussing issues of race and identity with them. They have attended protests in support of women’s rights, against family separation, and in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. They are familiar with the idea that in American society, there are people treated as an “Other.” Until recently, however, they have not been forced to reckon with their own perceived Otherness. To be honest, many of us haven’t.

In the minds of many of our fellow Americans, Asian Americans occupy a space that falls somewhere between that of white and Black Americans. We are not a monolith, but we are often seen as one, a “model minority” composed of hardworking, well-educated people who have secured our place in American society by dint of our college educations, mortgages, and 401(k)s. These things allow many of us to move within spaces that have historically been reserved for white Americans. As non-white members in a country birthed on the backs of people of color, many Asian Americans believe that any approximation of whiteness is tantamount to success. We may never look white, but those of us who fit the model minority myth are able to sample some of the privileges granted to white people. We are, in a way, “passing” for white -- something Asian Americans would only aspire to do in a society built on the premise of white supremacy.

Read More

Mental Health Help Needed Now in Hard-Hit Communities, Says Aunt of Latino Student Who Lost Mom, Dad and Grandma to COVID-19

/
Mental Health Help Needed Now in Hard-Hit Communities, Says Aunt of Latino Student Who Lost Mom, Dad and Grandma to COVID-19

Ivin Dávila, a 15-year-old from Southeast Los Angeles, lost his mother, father and grandmother to COVID-19 in the span of a month this winter. Ivin, the only child of immigrants from Mexico City, is now struggling to get through his ninth grade year at LAUSD’s Maywood Center for Enriched Studies while living with his paternal aunt.

Martha Davila, who now has custody of her nephew, is calling for schools to start providing “mandatory” mental health assistance for students in communities severely impacted by the pandemic. The winter COVID surge devastated Latino communities in Los Angeles, and the emotional fallout from the trauma is just starting to become clear for survivors like her nephew, whose young life permanently and dramatically changed.

“I think he’s beginning to realize his loss. He’s beginning to act up, and showing a defensive behavior, particularly with school, not turning in his assignments, failing academically, ” Davila told Speak UP. “He’s still attending his classes online and trying to find structure to continue. I’m all about structure with my daughter, so I plan to provide him with the same sense of security and structure.”

Davila’s daughter is a senior at Paramount High School. Davila took Ivin to live with her and her family in the city of Paramount, a couple of miles south of Maywood, where he used to live with his parents. “He’s starting to experience grief as he enters this transition to his new life. We’re all adapting.”

Ivin has told his aunt he wants to return to MaCES as soon as schools can reopen. But after all the suffering the family has experienced during the pandemic, Davila will not allow her nephew or her daughter to return to in-person classes soon.

“I think there’s nothing schools can do to keep our children 100 percent safe,” she said. “And at their age, it’s very challenging for them to understand the seriousness of it or to follow rules. They are teenagers. They test limits. Some don’t follow rules at home, so what makes you think they will do it at school?”

She says she may change her mind and consider sending them back once all teachers get fully vaccinated, and she can see for herself that the vaccine is effective in diminishing the risk of infection in the coming months.

What Davila believes should not wait any longer is schools offering mental health assistance and social-emotional workshops for families in the hardest-hit communities -- not just for the students but for entire families.

Read More

How to Monitor and Address Your Child’s Mental Health During the Pandemic

/
How to Monitor and Address Your Child’s Mental Health During the Pandemic

By Ross Szabo

Taking care of kids’ mental health before this pandemic was already a massive challenge. During the pandemic, researchers have noticed even higher rates of anxiety disorders, clinical depression, loneliness, suicidal thoughts and suicides. Low-income communities of color have been particularly hard hit by COVID. In Los Angeles, death rates among Black residents are twice that of white residents, and Latinos have fared even worse. Many kids are dealing with grief from losses on top of social isolation. It’s a really difficult time for parents and caregivers to find ways to manage their own mental health and take care of their kids. Now there’s the additional stress associated with possibly sending students back to campus after more than a year away.

It’s helpful to think of the definition of mental health being similar to the definition of physical health. When we work on our physical health, we know we need to exercise, eat healthily, know our family history and take care of our bodies. When we want to work on our mental health, we have to think about the impact of our relationships and friendships, how we communicate, what our coping mechanisms are and how we take care of our minds. You don’t need to have a physical health issue to work on your physical health. It’s important for people to realize that you don’t need to wait until something is wrong to work on your mental health.

Here are some tips on supporting your kids’ mental health:

Read More

In the Battle Over L.A. Schools Reopening, Students of Color Lose Out, Again

/
In the Battle Over L.A. Schools Reopening, Students of Color Lose Out, Again

When UTLA leaders say teachers cannot return to schools because the rates of infection are too high in the communities they serve – overwhelmingly poor Black and Latino students – are they saying they’re afraid our kids will infect them? Is UTLA saying that if LAUSD served more affluent white kids it would be a whole different story, and they’d be willing to return?

As a Latina mom in Southeast L.A., I couldn't help but feel offended and outraged by Inouye’s comments. First I thought, where’s the compassion and the duty of service to these marginalized communities? Can you imagine a doctor or nurse or grocery worker saying something similar and refusing to serve low-income people of color?

With scientific consensus from the CDC that schools can and have safely reopened in places with even higher transmission rates than ours in L.A., as long as safety measures are in place, it’s time to ask why exactly UTLA is so afraid to teach Black and Latino kids.

Read More