Los padres hispanos deben votar a favor de la educación de sus hijos

 Voting is an essential part of being involved in a child’s education. (Photo via Flickr/Theresa Thompson)

Last semester on a trip home to visit my parents, my dad told me a story that left me angry and disappointed as both a first generation Mexican-American and as the first person in my family to go to college. My father told me that an ESL teacher had come into the parent teacher conference he was having with my brother’s kindergarten teacher and told him not to speak English to my brother. Although my family lives in a different city, judging by the events that transpired in that story it does not surprise me that only a minuscule percentage of Hispanic parents vote in Oklahoma City’s School Board Elections.

The reasoning behind the teacher’s suggestion was that my father’s “heavy accent” when speaking English would confuse my brother and impair his learning. From experience, I have seen many Hispanic parents not be involved in the education of their children from not participating in the PTA or not attending parent-teacher meetings because of cultural differences, language barriers, or feeling out of place at their child’s school. Obviously I had such a hard time understanding my parents through their thick accents that I couldn’t possibly learn or do well in school, let alone attend college. The fact that my parents were heavily involved in my education from the beginning was a key factor in my success in the classroom and in life and for that I will be forever grateful. I believe that we should praise parents for playing an active role in the schooling of their kids instead of leaving them feeling ostracized by a school system that drastically needs to be fixed.