Laura Emiko Soltis:
This sounds really obvious but like … In working with my students, I’ve just realized how much being a citizen is a part of our identities that we don’t talk about. Right? And the privileges that come with it. Obviously it’s different based on other parts of our identities, but how we can leverage that instead of feeling guilty, how we can again weaponize it or use it.

Alec Patton:
This is High Tech High Unboxed. I’m Alec Patton, and that was the voice of Laura Emiko Soltis, Executive Director of Freedom University. This episode is a live recording of the Deeper Learning Den Talk featuring Emiko and Paul Islas, CEO and founder of Camino 21. The talk was hosted by Nuvia Ruland, so her voice is what you’ll hear next. With that, let’s get into it.

Nuvia Ruland:
Thank you so much for coming to this Den Talk. We have two guests that, oddly enough, this is the first time that we’re meeting in person. We’re all meeting in person because over the last year and a half we have connected online, we have had conversations, we’ve learned about your organizations, and also finding ways to continue moving Deeper Learning work together. So this has been a great opportunity to sit down with Paul and Emiko in order to learn a little bit more about their organizations, but also kind of dig into your own thinking of some of the work in collaborating with one another, but also promoting each other’s work.
So I will start with Emiko. Emiko is the director of Freedom University out in Atlanta, and I will let you talk about some of the most recent things that your organization are doing. And maybe … How did you come to the Deeper Learning Conference?

Laura Emiko Soltis:
Great, thank you. Good morning-

Nuvia Ruland:
Yes, let’s hear it for Emiko.

Laura Emiko Soltis:
Thank you. Good morning. My name is Emiko Soltis and yes, I serve as the Executive Director of Freedom University. I shy away from the term of ED because it’s just a really fancy title from all the things that you really do, which is van driving and picking up trash and making sure everyone stays safe, is the most important work. But for those of you who don’t know, Freedom University is an underground freedom school for undocumented students in Atlanta, Georgia. And the reason why we exist, which we shouldn’t, there shouldn’t be underground schools in the 21st century. But we exist because in the State of Georgia, undocumented students are banned from equal access to public universities. And these bans in Georgia were passed in 2011, so it’s been more than a decade of modern segregation in Georgia. And sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, there’s only three states in the country that have bans against undocumented students from admission to public universities. Does anyone know those three states?

Classroom time. You didn’t think it was coming, right? It’s Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama. So only in the Deep South do we have states that actually ban undocumented students from admission. And so Freedom University started the year the bans went into place in 2011. And we are completely tuition-free school that provides college preparation but also human rights education and empowerment for undocumented youth. And we find and help them navigate pathways to welcoming private universities across the country. And so, man, it’s been a decade. And I just want to start off by saying I’m holding a microphone right now but I’m not a public speaker, I’m a teacher, and I’m a human rights educator first and foremost. And I think it’s … I flew in last night, so I apologize, I haven’t been a part of a lot of the conversation so far. But I just also want to acknowledge the immense emotional energy it takes to be an educator.

And I don’t say this to sound defeating in terms of being tired, but it’s okay to be tired. Especially … I was just telling Paul last night, we spoke accidentally for like three hours. But yeah, surviving four years under a very hostile presidency, we had an endless election cycle in Georgia. It all ended for everybody in November 2020, went another three months in Georgia, and then two years of a global pandemic, and we’re still here. So when you ask about current stuff, we’re surviving and that’s a success.

And Freedom U is also known not only for our tuition-free programs for our students, but we say that we’re a freedom school and that’s intentional. I laugh sometimes because people hear Freedom University and they think we’re a far-right wing organization because the term freedom has been co-opted in many ways. But we choose the term freedom in recognition of the Southern Freedom School tradition. And if you’re not familiar, during the summer of 1964, Freedom Summer, a lot of folks know about the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, SNCC, going down to Mississippi for voter registration drives. But what a lot of folks don’t know about the history is that these SNCC activists also started Freedom Schools with the purpose of educating directly impacted folks and they believed that education could be for action.

But Freedom University, our name also was chosen not only to honor the legacy of the Southern Freedom Schools but because we have the best school acronym of all time too, which of course is FU Georgia, right? And the joke never gets old because all of our classes, we FU Math, FU Spanish Literature, and everyone’s favorite which is FU Standardized Test Prep. And I say this because oftentimes when I say Freedom U is a school undocumented students, people’s faces look concerned. And as they should, recognizing the trauma that undocumented young people experience on a daily basis, what it means to be banned from higher ed, what it means for 98,000 high school students who are graduating without DACA from US public schools every year.

And a lot of folks when they think about undocumented students, they don’t recognize how geography very much determines pathways to higher ed. And I often feel like I am not only traveling across three hours of time zones when I come to California, but 30 years. And while undocumented students can get access to public universities in California and some financial aid in Georgia, they’re banned. The conversation isn’t even about resource centers, it’s like, “Can we apply?” And so it feels like I’m time traveling for all the wrong reasons, when I come to California, but recognizing again the diversity not only of undocumented young folks and all the different countries and regions they come from, but also once they’re in the United States, depending on what region will greatly impact their access to higher ed.

So that’s a little bit about the work that we do. And I also joke because I hope a conversation about joy has been taking place to in this space, but that’s a lot of what we’ve been focusing on over the last year is … UndocuJoy as we call it, and that being again a measure of success as well, and taking care of our mental health, both as students and educators. So I’ll leave it with that.

Nuvia Ruland:
Thank you so much Emiko for being vulnerable but also we do have to joke, we have to bring that joy. And those conversations have certainly been having … We’ve been having those, but I love the way that you bring it. And as you were talking, it reminded me of Chunky Gonzalez’s Facundo the Great story. And one of the jokes in there was, “What are we going to shorten this student’s name to,” right? During this … Always trying to shorten names of people and not calling Emiko by Emiko because maybe it doesn’t sound right. But in Facundo the Great, Chunky Gonzalez is … Really shows how incredible it is when you have a name that is spelled F-U-C-A-N-D-O, that you can’t shorten that name unless you say Fuc. So, so Facundo the Great, and it’s awesome.

So thank you so much for that introduction, but also thank you for establishing the need, that part of traveling to California, and the time travel. There’s sometimes a lot of work still happening here and we’re exhausted and we’re tired too. But then also we hope we could energize you so that you could go back and continue the incredible work that you’re doing with all your folks. So hope this is an energizing conversation for you.

Paul is the CEO of Camino Veintiuno from Mexico City. And Paul has an incredible journey too, of being transnational, having that experience of being a student in the United States, going back to Mexico, trying to establish different organizations before it became Camino Veintiuno and working with a team of people to really push education in Mexico. So I will let you share a little bit more about your story, what is Camino Veintiuno, and how did you come to Deeper Learning?

Paul Moch Islas:
Thank you so much Nuvia and thank you, thanks. Thank you everyone for coming here. I know there’s a lot of events happening at the same time, so I really appreciate you being here. And I just wanted to begin by thanking High Tech High and all the organizers of the Deeper Learning Conference. It has really been very invigorating and exhilarating three days. A lot of things have been happening, a lot of learning which is always a lot of work. Sometimes we forget about, yes, how joyful it is but how much work it takes to be in these kind of spaces and to really have this very immersive experience. And I am deeply honored to be here with Emiko, whose story and work in Freedom University is just amazing. So congratulations.

So me, I’m Mexican. I’m from Mexico City and from … Neighborhood is called Coyoacan. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, that’s where Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera are from. And a couple of years ago, literally in the midst of the pandemic, we began an organization which is called Camino Veintiuno. And what we do in Camino Veintiuno … I don’t know how familiar are you with the Latin American context? Not that much. Okay. So in Latin America, there’s many things that I would say are … Some conversations are way more advanced than here in the States, but here in the States there’s always certain topics and certain ways to approach education which are in a completely different speed and space. And so for all of you who don’t know, in Mexico and most in Latin America, students that finish a higher education degree, 75% of the companies in Latin America say that they don’t have the necessary skills and competencies to fulfill their positions.

So what happens is that in Mexico, in most Latin America, we’re very good in terms of content. So for example if you’re a lawyer, you will be very knowledgeable about the law. If you’re a physician, you will know how to perform a surgery. If you’re an engineer, you’ll know how to and what you need to build a building. But what you may not know is how to be a leader, how to be resilient, how to have creative thinking or critical thinking, or how to even dialogue with people outside of your field. So those are things that we saw were quite a huge necessity and a need in the Latin American context.

So we began by having a conversation with many people in leadership positions and professors in universities about what they were doing. And even though there’s a ton of amazing organizations focusing on students to help them reach this gap between their knowledge and skills and what the real world is expecting from them, we saw that there were only kind of band-aids on a broken system. So we asked ourselves, “What can we do? How can we work with them during the 3-4 year period that they’re actually experiencing their degrees, that they’re in school so that it could help them develop these kind of competencies?” And what we did is that … Something that might not be a shock to any of you, but we decided to help educators and teachers in those positions. Because once you close the physical doors or you create the … How do you say it? Well, in the digital space it’s always totally different, but when we close our Zoom links, that is the space that we are in control of. Right?

So we are in front of the classroom of our students and that’s where we believe that change is most possible, and where we could actually enhance these kind of experiences. So we decided to focus on educators. Our colleagues in higher ed come from a very different context than us or everyone who’s in the K to 12 space. Because all of you are professionals, all of you have done the work, have done the certifications to be in front of a classroom. But most of the folks, especially in Mexico and Latin America, they come from either being professionals or being scholars. And they are faced with having to teach. And as you know, that is something that can be very intimidating, and we call it some sort of a baptism by fire. You’re just, all of a sudden, in front of a group and you have to do something.

So what we’re trying to do in Camino Veintiuno is to, we developed the methodology that now, and thanks to our work here yesterday in the deep dive, I know that there’s a lot of parallelisms with the lesson study method. But what we’re trying to do is to help educators have … Widen their pedagogical repertoire so that they can learn there’s different ways of teaching, that lecture is just one of many possibilities. And lecture can be amazing, yes, but there’s so many other things that we know are more effective in creating learning. And not only in enhancing learning, but being very true to this constructivism of DDF, having a dialogue and constructing alongside your peers.
So just in a nutshell, I would say that the work that we’re trying to do is for educators to first and foremost unlearn when they’ve done before, so to change their mindset into knowing that even though … And here it’s a terrible example of this, because literally the forum is all pointing towards us. But for them to understand that it is not about them but about our students and about the work that they’re doing about their processes and agency as learners. So that’s something that we’re trying to do, we’re trying to do it in the most efficient way possible. And when I say efficient, it’s a horrible word because we were just speaking about this yesterday, it reminds me a lot of all the loaded terms that in a very competitive society we’re using. But we’re trying to be efficient because as we know, teachers are burnt out and we have a ton of things to do and there is a lot of expectations also as researchers in these institutions.
So we’re trying to do something that is very impactful, but that it is also going to sort of help us communicate with a lot of folks who do not come from a pedagogical background but who are scientists or researchers or that they are lawyers and accountants. So it’s difficult to have a conversation with them and you have to be very direct in the way that they understand why it is that it is, that changing their practice and reflecting about the work that they do can create better results and better learning outcomes from our students. So that’s what we’ve been doing.

Nuvia Ruland:
Wonderful. Thank you so much Paul for bringing us to the work that you are all doing. And really, I think both of you are at different ends of the education, right? Really thinking about changing the mindset of educators in Mexico and to be able to support them in that process of them being lifelong learners and continuing the work that maybe they started in a university. And sometimes it feels like it pauses as we go into our professional world, but then really invigorating them. And then I’m thinking about also the … Identifying a gap that is really damaging to our communities in Georgia and being able to address that with your organization. And listening to both of you, I’m thinking about what are part of those conversations you had last night that you found maybe bring a little bit of collaboration between your organizations or that you’re trying to like attack these issues from many different perspectives?

Laura Emiko Soltis:
Things got a little fiery in a good way.

Nuvia Ruland:
I love fire. Anybody that knows me knows, I love fire.

Laura Emiko Soltis:
Indeed. But Paul, if it’s okay that I share, one of my favorite parts of our conversation was talking about … I think where our work does intersect is that we have to think critically about borders. Right? And translating in all of the meanings of that word. And at Freedom U, before I talk about that part of our conversation I do want to clarify …

When we talk about undocumented youth or immigration, oftentimes it’s devoid of race. But to really clarify that immigrant justice is a racial justice issue and to recognize that the undocumented community is extremely diverse. Racially, ethnically, their school experiences in their home countries, time of arrival, they’re just extremely diverse. And I don’t want people to assume that LatinX and undocumented are synonymous. And just on a national level, about 80%-85% identify as LatinX, about 14% identify as Asian and that’s the fastest growing part of the undocumented population, and 5% identifies black. And so recognizing that it is an interracial conversation is critical.
And in terms of our D dialogue about borders, we got into a really great conversation about the idea of how rights are acknowledged in the United States versus around the world, and also how our work is also grounded in human rights and understanding education within that framework. And specifically … By the way, I’m a human rights professor, so reign me in. It’s hard to talk about this briefly. I don’t want to give a human rights lecture, but very clearly I think it’s important that educators understand how our work is a part of a larger human rights dialogue that is global. For those of you who may not be familiar of course, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed in 1948 and it articulates 30 rights that all people have by virtue of their humanity. Not based on their citizenship, not based on where they were born or what borders they cross, but if you are a human being you have inherent human rights. And one of them, Article 26, is the Right to Education. This was proclaimed 74 years ago and it is the basis of international law but, “Article 26 states not only that, everyone has the right to free and accessible primary/secondary school, but that access to higher education shall be based on merit.” Quote-unquote.

“Access to higher education shall be based on merit,” and yet here we are in Georgia and many parts of the United States where it is based on a social status. Whether that was race or now based on citizenship. And I swear I’m going to get to human rights in a second, but that’s a beautiful part of our conversation is talking about how, oftentimes in the US, access to education isn’t seen as a right because in the United States, when we understand rights we’re often only taught about the US Constitution and not about international law or other types of rights. And this is critical because the US Constitution primarily focuses on political and civil rights and not on economic, social, and cultural rights. Like the right to education, like the right to healthcare, like the right to housing.

And in the United States again, we are constantly expanding the idea of rights and economic and social rights but oftentimes education is seen as something that you pay for and that it is an entitlement, right? And grounding our work in that all young people have the right to education and the right to higher education based on merit was something that I was really grateful for our conversation and having transnational perspectives. And I just want to make sure that that part of the conversation is a part of this dialogue as well.

Paul Moch Islas:
Yeah, and maybe just building from there, and the fact of this being a conversation not only between you and me and because … I had privilege of having with you yesterday, but also with the rest of the people here. I know and I see some faces that I’ve had the amazing opportunity of meeting during this conference, I’m sure we can all engage in a very rich dialogue. But yeah, as you were saying, I think that one of the beauties and what I hope to bring to this space is also this perspective, someone who’s had the privilege of being here in the States but also of looking in as an outsider and of taking some steps back and admiring from a distance. But I may just add a quick anecdote.
Before being part of Camino Veintiuno, I was Deputy Director in the National Institute for Adult Education in Mexico. And I don’t know if you knew, but because there are, and it depends how we count, but around 36 million first, second, and third generation Mexicans in the States, Mexico is one of the very few countries to my knowledge, or the only one to my knowledge, that is allowed to certify different educational degrees here in the States officially. So Mexico coordinates an effort of over, I think right now, it should be around like 350 schools in the States that we do alongside the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and local NGOs here in the States. A lot of works that we’re doing are with groups of paisanos who are in this side of the borders, with a lot of churches, with other NGOs that are part of this amazing network which was created to ensure the right for education for everyone.

So in Mexico, and I think that is something that I’m really proud to say, we do acknowledge human rights as part of our law system. So for us, they are equated with the constitution, so you can always just reach out for human rights and that mechanisms that allow you to create constitutional controversies or to fight for similar rights. So here in the States, the Plazas Comunitarias Program which is … That’s the way it’s called, so Communitary Plazas, those are spaces to fight illiteracy and educational lack among anyone who wants to come to these spaces.

And a few years ago, so just after the election of 2016, the Mexican government also designed program that was called Education Without Borders, so Education Sans Frontiers. And that program was designed not only to strengthen the network of Plazas Comunitarias here in the States, but also to acknowledge the huge difficulties of many of our paisanos that were coming back to Mexico. Either because they were being deported or because they were coming back because of the fear of the Trump election.

So the reason I’m saying this is because it’s something that I want to uplift and to point, out the huge struggles that our fellow immigrants have in both sides of the border. Because also, and I’m sure the experience has been true for many of you who have come back and forth between the border, but even in Mexico sometimes people when they come back, they’re faced with a lot of resistance. Because there’s a different kind of situation and that happens with Mexicans that are returning to Mexico, because there are seen sometimes as foreigners because, “Why did you live in the first place,” right? “Why are you doing so well there?” Once that you’re back here, your Spanish doesn’t sound the same as ours anymore. And there’s this huge rift that has happened between our communities, and so what we’re trying to do with this education [inaudible 00:26:50] program was to sort of create a safer landing and a safer space for people that were coming back after, well, a very traumatic experience and the election of Donald Trump.

So all of this to say that even though human rights are protected within our constitution and they are a guiding factor for all the work that we do, there is still a lot of things to be done in both sides of the border and in particular with any kind of immigrants. We do have a huge problem in our southern border as well, and as we have been working as a shield for the American government of … I’m very cautious in the way that want to frame it, but the word that comes to here is to protect against Central Americans. And that’s not my words but that is the policy that has been determined. So there is still a lot of work to be done, even though in law these rights are recognized … The law is just a law, right? We have to make it true and we have to bring it … Make it alive and make it something that is a reality to all our people in both sides of the border and just in general with the work that we’re always doing. To keep that in mind, this is a human right and something that should not be considered an entitlement, as you were saying.

Nuvia Ruland:
Thank you so much. Both of you made me think still about space and where we’re at, and kind of building off of what you were saying, kind of this time travel, it’s really making me think of how I think it’s this year or last year was Gloria Anzaldua’s … Anniversary of her book. And so I’m thinking of [foreign language 00:28:40] and where we’re standing, right? So if you could talk a little bit about that space in between, that your students or the teachers are standing in, and maybe some of the conversations that have come up for how to address that space in between for you all.

Laura Emiko Soltis:
Great. So Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera, it’s a book that we read at Freedom U, so I’m really glad you brought that up. We didn’t plan it. But one of the many beautiful perspectives shared in her work is this idea of being neither from here nor there, of being on the borderlands not only geographically but in identity. And what you were saying too of people returning to Mexico and feeling neither from there or here. And I think in many parts of our different identities, we can identify with that. But for our students, oftentimes they feel out of place in Georgia public schools or US public schools but know that culturally they were raised here and if they were to go back home, they also know that they would feel kind of a reverse feeling of this as well. And I think what makes Freedom U so critical is it’s a space where everyone’s undocumented, and it’s a space where they can talk about these issues with people who understand, where there isn’t a sense of fear.

And this is something I don’t talk about publicly that often, but as a teacher I see the impact that … Also cautious in the language I’m choosing, but having to lie constantly to protect themselves has serious mental health consequences. And I think that it is absolutely tied with being of nowhere, in order to survive, young people having to constantly lie even if they’re deeply honest people, in order to protect themselves and their families and not knowing who to trust. But I think that that is one of … It’s not a part of our curriculum, it’s something that happens naturally when students feel safe around one another, where they don’t have to make up lies about gap years, why they’re not in college or why they can’t drive, why they don’t date because they don’t know who to trust. It impacts every single facet of their lives.

And not to go on a tangent about arts education, but that’s why our arts education is so critical. We have a Mexican Son Jarocho Ensemble where part of the tradition is writing their own lyrics and expressing themselves. And a part of that tradition is the funnier, like the more bite the better, and to know that that’s a part of the curriculum and to be funny and to express some of these things that are difficult otherwise, or in the studio arts class to express this through painting or through dance, they can explore that identity in a place where it might not feel safe in the US or in their home countries. I hope that was helpful.

Nuvia Ruland:
Very helpful.

Paul Moch Islas:
So the things that come into my mind, maybe a little bit further south to the border, and even the experience that we have in Mexico City which is kilometers away from the States. But I’m always shocked to see how intertwined our two countries are, and I know the impact might feel a bit stronger in Mexico because the US is the US, but also here. I mean, I love the possibility of understanding that borders are just completely arbitrary systems that we have decided to put a line in the map and that means something right? When I’m here, there’s a lot of Mexican or LatinX experience that I hear, but why when I’m in Mexico City, I look around and you have no idea the people who have been in Mexico City might have have seen it, but most of where science and stuff are also in English.

And I understand that there’s a component of colonialism and imperialism there, but there’s also a reality of two nations that have been interacting and dialoguing with each other throughout time, and that we have become very connected in deeper ways that have influenced our cultures in both sides of the border, right? And I do want to make an emphasis on both sides of the border, because that is something that is always very exciting to me. Even when I’m here or when I was in Boston, I will turn on the radio or listen to a tune and one out of every three, four, five were in Spanish, right? And there’s always a place that I can go and have a taco. And I know, I heard someone say, “Yeah, the most typical Californian food is like a taco.” You go to a street taco place and I mean this is just another expression of how connected we are.

So I think that idea of trans-nationalism that we have experienced and that have, for example in personal terms, created and shaped me as a person. Like I know not most but a lot of the music that I hear is in English, a lot of the literature that I’ve read are from American or English-speaking authors, and there is a lot of connections that I hope we can also leverage and recognize the huge impact of the Latin American culture that has had here in the States also. So I don’t know, just to wider, this perspective is not something that happens only at the border, although here and in San Diego in particular it is more present than ever. We have a very fluid … And I acknowledge certain people, this border is something that just does not exist. They live there, but they study here. They put their gas … They fill up their tanks in the other side of the border and then they come back. There are certain health services that are cheaper on both sides of the border. So it’s just something that we are completely bi-national cities, right? We are a community that is just completely connected and that we can both uplift the beautiful parts of our cultures.

Nuvia Ruland:
We are all here for learning and having a learning experience. And one of the aspects of sometimes coming to conferences is that we gather a lot of information but take very little action once we start going home. So what are some action steps that maybe have been at the core for you of just for you? Just like things that you are constantly thinking about of like, “Today, I need to just make sure to take this action step in order to move my work forward.” And I asked that question in hopes that maybe some of your own personal action steps are those that resonate with other people and for folks to just think about your own action steps. And I shy away from being like … That yours might be the same for me or somebody else, because I think all of us are taking these issues from different perspectives. So I hope that gave you enough thinking time. But what are some of those action steps that you … Have been at your core to move your work forward?

Paul Moch Islas:
Yeah, I can tell. So High Tech High has been a huge inspiration for me and for the work that we are doing. Because just considering that there is a different possibility of learning that doesn’t have to do with separating different subjects because we know that life is not divided by disciplines. We just encounter challenges that we are faced with and I would love if they were labeled as math problem or a physics problem or an ethics problem, but they’re not, right? They’re just situations that we encounter and that we have to cope with. And in Latin America in general, I would say that PBL is still a very new thing. I know it’s also here, but in Mexico there are literally two schools that are using PBL.

So what we wanted to do with Camino Veintiuno and alongside another organization which is called Hybrid Education, is that we decided to launch a school, a high school that has a lot of last names. It is hybrid, it is with a B-STEM perspective, so just STEM but with an entrepreneurship kind of approach to it and that was trying to resonate with a lot of young people in Mexico and Latin America who wish to learn more about these new and upcoming technologies. We are a native PBL school and that we’re trying to create in the cloud. So there’s … We’ve tried and we’ve put a lot of technology into creating what they call a next generation learning environment, sort of to leverage the possibilities of that space into what can be done in PBL and to do it more in an accessible way.

So what we’re trying to do is also, by creating this school online, was to widen the access for different folks and to lower the cost of tuition for this university. Well not university, but high school. So that’s one of the things that we’ve been doing. I would say for us, again all the work that all of you are doing here and the people who are involved in this Deeper Learning movement has been transcendental and very inspirational. So we’re hoping to continue learning from what is happening here and in other spaces and to apply it to hopefully ever-growing community of people who want and understand that education is way more than just learning what is reading in a book but actually committing and acting on those learnings. So that’s part of the things that we’ve been doing and … Yeah.

Nuvia Ruland:
Thank you so much, Paul. So again, that interaction between social-economic status and being able to access education and what are some of those obstacles that we try to remove for people to really be able to access high quality education that should be a right for everybody but it’s … We got to work towards that. So thank you for sharing about lowering the costs of education or hopefully maybe also eliminating it. Working towards that.

Paul Moch Islas:
Yes.

Laura Emiko Soltis:
Action steps. There’s so many ways to answer that. I’ll just try and be vulnerable and honest based on what I’ve learned as a light skin US citizen who’s taught only undocumented students for nine years. I’ve learned a shit ton. And that’s not bragging, just being held accountable on a daily basis. And I know we have a diversity of experiences in this space too and I’m not making any assumptions, just speaking from myself, but action steps both internal and external but deeply in terms of educating ourselves. Can I recommend a couple books, just for fun?

Nuvia Ruland:
People are busting out their chairs.

Laura Emiko Soltis:
Undocumented by Aviva Chomsky, Noam Chomsky’s daughter. She’s a white woman but speaks very honestly about the criminalization of undocumented people and it’s a response to Michelle Alexander’s book, A New Jim Crow. And reading those two books in conversation with each other really helped me understand the connections, especially across black and undocumented communities. They’re not mutually exclusive, but what they do share in common, again based on both of these women scholars, is how racism plays out without the language of race anymore, but by criminalizing people of color. Either through the war on drugs or the criminalization of immigration. And then discriminating based on that new criminal status.

So the bans in Georgia for example do not ban black, brown, and Asian students from public universities, even though 99.8% of undocumented people are people of color. So they’ve banned an entire population of young people of color. But with DACA for example, they can drive with their driver’s license to their low wage job with their temporary work permit, but be denied access to higher education and the right to vote. The US is constantly recreating populations of exploitable people and we need to understand how these communities are connected. Not the same, just connected, right?

And that’s been a lot of my learning over the last 10 years and I just encourage other educators to be aware of these things. And that’s our internal work and honestly our own education. But in terms of action steps to … Again, what I’ve learned from my students is identifying yourself. I don’t do this less at Freedom U, because everyone’s undocumented and they know who I am, but if you are working in a space where there are likely undocumented students who don’t know who to go to as a safe person. And so United We Dream, Immigrants Rising have a lot of great resources too for educators of … Sometimes symbols, oftentimes the monarch butterfly symbol are saying, “I’m an ally for undocumented youth.” It just identifies to them so they can come to you, they know who’s a safe person to talk to. Oftentimes, again hearing from my students and their experience in high school, they didn’t know who to trust.
So oftentimes teachers are like, “Why don’t they come to me?” They don’t know that you are a safe person. And I think there’s more education of how to support LGBTQ youth, and some of it translates well into supporting undocumented youth. Let them identify themselves, right? That you are never the person to out them but that you are a safe person that they can come to. And it’s okay if you don’t know how to support them, and that’s what I tell educators often. Obviously, hopefully as all teachers, we know not to … That it’s okay to say when you don’t know. And especially if a student comes to you and you don’t know your State’s policies that well on private or public universities, it’s okay. Say, “I don’t know, but I will be here with you and we can figure it out together.” From what I’ve heard from my students, that can be like the most … It’s just a source of relief.

I’m here with somebody that I can trust and they’re here to help me. And then lastly to other citizens in this space, this sounds really obvious but in working with my students I’ve just realized how much being a citizen is a part of our identities that we don’t talk about, right? And the privileges that come with it. Obviously it’s different based on other parts of our identities, but how we can leverage that instead of feeling guilty, how we can again weaponize it or use it. And for me, that’s meant driving. Also recognizing with my light skin, my interactions with police are very different. How can I weaponize that, right? When I’m driving a car, police think I’m cute. I never get tickets. It’s one of the … Again, not a lot of benefits of being a small woman of color in lots of ways, in terms of decent equitable pay, but in my interactions with police, I have a huge, huge privilege. So how do we weaponize that? For citizens with light skin, drive. Drive undocumented people as much as you can, make yourself available to a lot of community organizations that are looking for that.

And then also, again depending on all of your different levels of privileges, having these difficult conversations and normalizing it in the people that you’re around is so critical for undocumented folks. Obviously not using the term illegal, which again on the idea of criminality, criminalizing the entire person’s identity, and being really critical whenever you hear that word, right? It is a lacking of certain documents. That is what undocumented means and that term may change based on what people want to be called, but it is way more accurate than, again, falling into this idea of criminality and calling people illegal. Obviously no human being is illegal. And those are some of the things I’ve learned and I hope that can be helpful as educators. Hopefully some action steps in addition to all of the legislative things that we can do, but really as teachers I hope that’s insightful in some way.

Nuvia Ruland:
Thank you so much. I think that in listening to both of you, one, just profoundly grateful for the book that you’ve recommended because … Just the curiosity of like, “Man, I wish we had more time to ask more questions, but just makes me think about those pieces of … Sometimes it feels like we’re trying to learn how to serve and protect many of the humans that we work with from our LGTBQI folks to our folks that are undocumented to folks that are constantly, racially, being profiled. And sometimes it feels like, “What? Now I have to learn this, or maybe I have to learn this or have to learn this.” But they’re all intertwined and I think that message came through, that they’re all intertwined. So when we’re doing the work for one group, we’re really doing the work for many, but stay curious in order to expand our vocabulary and be able to learn more. And so I appreciate those messages of action steps.

We have a few minutes and I know that there’s some folks that were like, “I didn’t know you were going to be here, I’m so excited that you’re here.” So if there are any questions from the audience, and for the folks that are up there and want to give us a shout of maybe a question, just shout it out. And just yeah, any questions. Like I’m really curious now to learn more about international human rights, it’s definitely a gap in my understanding, so thank you. Thank you for bringing that … Questions.

Speaker 5:
[inaudible 00:47:48]

Nuvia Ruland:
Thank you, Summer.

Summer:
Hello. My name is Summer. So hard to talk through a mask, sorry. And I’m just curious about again, your own personal journeys, and what was maybe one pivotal part of your lives that really just disrupted your thinking and helped propel you forward in the roles that you play today?

Paul Moch Islas:
So there’s one thing that comes into my mind. So the work that we’re doing in INEE, which is the National Institute for the Education, is to fight illiteracy in Mexico. So one of the things that I had to do in the position as deputy director was to find funding to open a new Plazas Comunitiaras also in Mexico. So we did a program with the Japanese embassy in Chiapas, which is a state in the southern border. It’s one of the poorest states in Mexico. And I remember when we went there and we opened the plaza, we talked with some of the learners that were in that space, and there was a person, an 80 year old man, who approached us and said like, “Hi, my name is Chucho.” And Chucho said that he didn’t know how to read or write and that he was there to start, well, learning. Fast forward to a year later, when we came back to see how the plaza was doing, and when we encounter him again, he approached to us and say like, “Hey.” “Hi Chucho. How are you?” And so like, “Oh, no, no, no, no. I’m no longer Chucho. I’m Don Jesus now.” And it was something.

So I literally get chills because it was a very powerful thing to see that this 80 year old man had transformed the way that he understood himself from being Chucho, which is short for Jesus, to becoming a Don Jesus. Because he had now acquired the beauty of having this ability to learn, to read and write. And it was a completely transformational experience for me to see that in eight year time, someone who had lived his entire life perceiving himself as less or in an infantalized kind of position to becoming someone who has now the agency and courage to continue or to live his life in a completely different perspective and from a completely different way. So that was definitely one of many things that consolidated my wish to understand education, to continue advancing the work that we are all doing.

Laura Emiko Soltis:
That was a really great question. And I’m trying really hard to answer honestly.
I think the last couple years has given me more time, just a different head space to think and reflect in a way that I haven’t before. But I think as teachers, it’s really important to think about how we learned and who taught us. And I like to call it kind of our genealogy of knowledge. That there’s family, there’s chosen family, there’s also our teacher family. And I just want to acknowledge I’m a public school kid, and Kayleigh and I grew up in the same town together. And I had a really, really, really great public school education, and I’m really grateful for that.

But I say that I may have gotten my degrees from the University of Georgia or Emory, but actually got my political education from farm workers in South Florida. And for me to really honestly answer your question, that is when things … My thinking was disrupted in the best possible way. I don’t want to go into a Forest Gump life story, but really briefly I do want to acknowledge where I did get my education. And there’s a group called the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the CIW, based in South Florida, and they’re primarily Mexican, Guatemalan, Mayan, and Haitian farm workers. And in that space, beyond their advocacy for fair pay and an end to modern day slavery, there’s been nine cases of slavery prosecuted in Florida since 1997 involving more than 1200 farm workers. Yes, that advocacy is incredible, they’re transnational activism. But how they taught one another in an interracial space where people spoke different languages and where people were illiterate, as an aspiring teacher, I learned everything.

Think about all of those challenges for a second. You’re in a classroom where everyone speaks a different language. Where people … You can give them pamphlets to read. How do we educate and understand one another? And they often did this through popular education techniques. A lot came out of Haiti and the pro-democracy movement and teaching … Teachers were also called animators. Right? “How do we open up? How we do we engage in dialogue?” And so that’s when I was introduced more to Paolo Freire and the work of popular education, and grounding that.

And Freedom U is kind of a hybrid. Yes, we’re preparing students for college but we’re also in a very interracial space at Freedom U. All of our faculty, our students. And to me, that’s become normal. And also I’m in from a biracial family. Being in a space where every person in my family looks different, we have different faiths. I feel comfortable in that space, but I had never been in a place like this farmer community with all those challenges of education but how are you able to establish dialogue, and the ability to see ourselves in one another. And that is really what inspired, I think, the trajectory of my life after that point.
And in Immokalee in Florida, I ended up on Sundays taking care of the kids. That was my job. During the women’s meeting, I just took care of kids on Sundays, ages one through 18. And after that work, I ended up going to Freedom U where I take care of kids on Saturdays and Sundays-

Nuvia Ruland:
Thank you so much for those responses. They’re all-

Laura Emiko Soltis:
And it was actually a really beautiful transition-

Nuvia Ruland:
Any other questions before we start to wrap up?

Laura Emiko Soltis:
That transformed my knowledge but mostly my commitment.

Nuvia Ruland:
[foreign language 00:54:47] was that a …

Christian Martinez:
[inaudible 00:54:48] was a question. Hi.

Nuvia Ruland:
It didn’t seem like a, “Yo, what’s up?”

Christian Martinez:
It was a yo, what’s up, it was like a two thing here. But hello, I’m Christian Martinez. I was one of the keynote speakers here. I come from Deep East Oakland. And I think both of your stories really impacted me. What you are talking, I’m just over here, “Yes, yes.” I grew up undocumented until the age of 25. And as you transition to being an educator, what are some of the maybe coping mechanisms that you use as an educator just to kind of take a break from it? Because a lot of times you are in the trenches, in the face of doing it all the time that you also kind of forget to take care of yourself. So I’m struggling with finding this balance as a person of color, as a person who lives in a marginalized community, how do you find this balance? And I know that’s a long question but yeah, that’s where I’m at. What is the balance that you use?

Nuvia Ruland:
Thank you so much, and I think we kind of started … Right? With … And that was a point where I was curious of that mental health component when you talk about what folks are experiencing when they’re called illegal, when they’re identified … But I think those parts stay as our identity. So how do we continue to heal from those wounds from so long and do the work with folks, right? It’s like I still have to do that work, but now [foreign language 00:56:18]. So great question, how do we stay balanced, or maybe how do you stay balanced in supporting folks?

Laura Emiko Soltis:
My honest answer is I don’t. And I’m really working on it. I mean, I’m just being real. I mean, my eyes teared up when you said that. Because it’s not just people at Freedom U but all teachers, especially if you’re directly impacted in this case, you don’t stop thinking about it at 5:00. And …

And especially because … Oftentimes if you are a person that students trust, they come to you for lots of other things. So lots of calls during police stops, during domestic violence issues, or their dog got hit, “Can I go to a vet and be safe there?” Everything you can possibly think of in a beautiful way based on trust, students come to me. But drawing healthy boundaries is … I haven’t figured it out yet. Freedom U meets on Saturdays and Sundays, so imagine what it’s like to try and take weekends, they don’t exist. I try and take Fridays off, but everyone’s still coming to me on Fridays.

And so I’m learning. Every January 1st. I’m like, “This is the year,” and it always goes up in flames by January 3rd. But I’m trying really, really hard. I’m being honest, this is apparently resonating, but I haven’t figured it out. Something that has really helped though, especially after a year and a half on Zoom, has been the in-person arts classes. Like right now, we have a music class and we have art class. And not to say art is therapy, it’s so many other things, but it’s hard to really worry about tons of shit when you are thinking about chord changes or coloring things. There’s a true therapeutic component of it. And I think what’s helped me, obviously … Not obviously. Therapy’s really important for lots of reasons, I’m a huge advocate of talking to someone who has no personal stake in what you’re talking about. But something that I’ve learned is just I’m also … We know this as teachers, is students are watching us.

And something about the ways it was recently framed to me is like, “Emiko, you are also modeling, and especially to young women, what it looks like to not have any boundaries. You are enabling this,” right? “And you are actually harming the people that you’re trying to teach and to model.” And I was like, “Ugh.” Something about that finally struck me. I was like, “When I take breaks, I’m giving them permission to take breaks.” And sadly, it was through telling me about my example and thinking about others that allowed me to take better care of myself. I don’t know if that just made any sense, but I realized-

Nuvia Ruland:
Lots of sense.

Laura Emiko Soltis:
Okay. But I realized, “Oh, I’m being a terrible role model by working 24/7.” And that’s what helped me. Again, I haven’t figured it out but those are things that I’m thinking about right now.

Nuvia Ruland:
Lots of snaps, lady. They’re chorus of snaps. Thank you so much for being honest. Paul.

Paul Moch Islas:
It’s always a challenge to follow after you Emiko because everything that you said just resonated a lot with … Well, everything that we are experiencing. I would just maybe add two ideas, right? One is that I have to acknowledge that I am a workaholic and that is not okay, but I try to compensate that by providing spaces for the staff and the people working with us to create those, opportunities that I have not created for myself. So I’m very intentional about respecting working hours, not reaching out after that. Even if I continue doing the work, not going into the weekends. Being very intentional about creating as much vacation as possible. And it’s something absurd, but I don’t know if you knew, but in Mexico, we are one of … We are the country from the OCDE with the least amount of vacations per year. So legally, you are entitled to four days of vacations a year in Mexico which is insane. I know, it’s crazy. There are some long weekends, some, but it’s insane the amount of work that we do, and it’s just completely unproductive.

So if I have the opportunity to promote something different and to really create a space for them to have a mental time away from work and the things that we do, by all means I try. So yeah, I don’t know, that’s something I would do. And the other thing that I would say as an educator, and I know this is something that I’m preaching to the choir and that many people will share, but just taking the time to ask your students how they are. At the beginning of every single lesson that you do, it is just not something that will take time away from that the work that we do and that the knowledge that we want to construct together, but that it is fundamental.

So putting that in as a central access of all the work that we do and taking it seriously and really trying to construct communities of learning. And the word communities is more … I would make a larger emphasis than in learning. But I know learning is important, but the part of communities is just so much more. Especially nowadays even in online spaces, we have to be intentional in creating and promoting these kind of spaces so that we can all … I don’t know, try to promote a bit more of social, emotional learning and do go to therapy. I go to therapy. It’s been amazing. Yeah.

Nuvia Ruland:
Yes. If there’s anything, let’s take care of our brain health. Taking care of our brain health includes those walks, includes that nourishment, includes those wonderful connections and community that really fills us. And then there’s also that component of finding that professional too. So I appreciate that you have both brought that up. Sadly, we’re out of time this afternoon or morning, sorry. But one thing that I want to just kind of point out, right before we started both of them were saying, “I’m kind of not used to picking up the mic.” And so I am just really grateful that both of you are able to pause the work, and I’m sure there’s a team of folks that are holding the floor and things are not going to fully fall apart. Maybe something might fall through the cracks, but it’s going to be okay.

But you paused and you came here and you picked up the microphone this morning to share the work that you’re doing, your story, your community story, and I am absolutely grateful to each of you for having traveled so far to be here with us today. This is being recorded, so we’ll be able to share this with lots of people and be able to continue connecting you all to folks, hopefully that are curious about the work that you’re doing, or maybe needs the services that you’re providing for people. So thank you for being at Deeper Learning 2022. Let’s hear it for Emiko and Paul, thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Paul Moch Islas:
Thank you.

Nuvia Ruland:
[inaudible 01:04:08] gracias.

Alec Patton:
High Tech High Unboxed is hosted and edited by me, Alec Patton. Our theme music is by Brother Herschel. Huge thanks to Nuvia Ruland, Laura Emiko Soltis, and Paul Islas for this den talk. You can find links to Freedom University, Camino 21, and the Deeper Learning Conference in the show notes. Thanks for listening.