Pero no hablo Inglés, do I belong?
Photo/Roslyn Villa.
By Roslyn Villa
“Mis, eres mi tercera maestra favorita. Miss, you are my third favorite teacher.” What a compliment. I wrote this down on a sticky note. When I was a high school teacher, I turned the bulletin board on my wall into a quote wall. I called it my JA JA JA board. It’s “ha ha ha” in Spanish, and I did that because the majority of my students were non-English speakers and most of them spoke Spanish. Any time one of my students would say something ridiculous and hilarious (which was very often), I would stick it on the wall. “I had a dream I was a carbohydrate.” Yup, going on the wall. Before I knew it, the board was covered in sticky notes, both in English and in Spanish. I have all those notes to this day. I cherish moments like those, and I hold onto them for rainy days, when I need a laugh and maybe some inspiration, because although I may radiate positivity on the outside, I don’t always feel the most positive on the inside. I’m sure a lot of people can relate. Life can be hard.
When COVID-19 hit, life got especially hard. I was grateful to be given the opportunity to work from home, and my family was able to keep working as well. I felt so blessed. But as weeks turned into months—all the computer screen time, minimal social interactions, rarely leaving the house-—it all started to take a toll on my mental health. All of a sudden I was left with more time for my thoughts and worries to linger on and on; I felt like I was going insane. So I turned to the outdoors this time, and I made going on walks part of my daily routine. I was also getting the opportunity through my job to work in some outdoor projects, like pruning plants, collecting seeds, and filming educational field trips at parks. Breathing fresh air, hearing the birds chirping, and feeling the radiant sun on my skin—it brought me the tranquility and energy that I needed. As I spent more time outside, I felt better and better, and even more grateful because I knew that while most people can just step out their front door and boom they’re outside, everyone's experience of the outdoors is different, especially for different groups of people.
Growing up in Las Vegas, I spent a lot of time going to my community park with my family, but I never experienced recreational activities like camping or hiking. When I was teaching in the classroom, I knew a lot of my students spent their time outdoors playing basketball at school or at the park across the street, but rarely did I hear them talk about traveling out of state with their families or even traveling outside their neighborhood. A lot of them didn’t even know about Mount Charleston, which is less than an hour away from Las Vegas. Heck, I didn’t even know about Mount Charleston until I was in high school too. The truth is, I was just like a lot of my students growing up—my parents migrated from Mexico, my siblings and I spoke Spanish at home and learned English at school, and my parents worked full time jobs at the casinos. Whether it was because of the language barrier, my parents’ work schedule, or lack of knowledge, we just didn’t experience the outdoors beyond our local parks.
It wasn’t really until I became an adult when I began to learn more about the environment and experience all the healthful benefits that came along with outdoor experiences, and so I wanted to share that with my family. Some of those barriers that were present when I was young didn’t fully go away, but now as an adult, I was able to get around them more often. But while we were making these outdoor experiences possible for ourselves, they weren’t always pleasant ones.
A few years ago, we took a trip to a state park outside of Nevada. We were riding the shuttle on our way to the hiking trail, and I was speaking to my family in Spanish. One man sitting a few seats ahead of us was annoyed (maybe because I was being loud, who knows), but he displayed his annoyance by mocking us in Spanish, as if we didn’t understand English. His reaction made me not want to return to that park ever again, and for a long time after that, I was afraid of speaking Spanish in public.
No one wants to open themselves up to the possibility of being judged or ridiculed (hence why public speaking is a fear for a lot of people), but this fear is even more intensified for immigrants in this country, or people who may not speak English fluently, because it can perpetuate the belief that “I don’t belong here, and I am not accepted here.” A consequence of this is that people begin to exclude themselves from conversations, spaces, or experiences that they may actually want to be a part of. In the classroom, this may look like a student being quieter than they normally are, not raising their hand when they need help, or even not coming to class at all.
Just like having a safe space is a factor to the learning experience in the classroom, it’s the same for the outdoors as well. If people are not included or feel accepted, then they may not show up. This can be problematic because when people are not a part of a space that they have a right to be a part of, then they also won’t receive any of the benefits of which they are entitled. This is even more problematic when it pertains to protecting the environment. This planet doesn’t just belong to one, it belongs to everyone, and so everyone has a responsibility to take care of it. However, if people aren’t having the experiences that allow them to learn to appreciate it and value it, then they won’t know how to protect it or learn why they should protect it in the first place.
If we want to truly make a positive impact on the planet, then we need to begin with people. People need to have the opportunity to be a part of learning experiences, and everyone can play a role in making this happen for one another. Sometimes it can be something that you do that makes it possible for someone to be a part of something, or it can be something that you say that will make someone want to be a part of something. Either way, if you are able to make someone feel accepted and included in any given space, then they might just show up, learn, and be inspired to make a positive impact in their own lives or in the lives of others.
The experience I had in the classroom left an impact on me, it inspired me to want to share my students' stories to the world, and so I strive to do that whenever I can. For one of my recent educational projects, I created a skit for a pollinator puppet show, and I based the hummingbird on one of my former students. I called her Gloria and she was voiced by….my mom. A hummingbird scientist from Mexico who spoke broken English, why not? Maybe a little kindergartener out there watching is hearing an accent for the first time and now they want to learn more about them, or maybe hearing someone who speaks differently than they do at an early age teaches them to be more understanding of others as they get older, or maybe that kindergartener will not understand any of it and all the information will go over their head, that’s possible as well…
Sometimes you may not know what kind of impact you make in this world, but you do make an impact. Acknowledge people’s differences and work toward creating a sense of belonging for others, and you’ll make a difference somehow, trust me. And who knows, you might also end up becoming someone's third favorite person along the way too.
Roslyn Villa is an education coordinator at Get Outdoors Nevada. Her experience as a public school teacher in Las Vegas inspired her to embark on a journey of storytelling through writing and acting. She strives to tell the stories of those individuals who get underrepresented and undervalued in our society in order to spread awareness, understanding, and tolerance for one another.
You can see some of the educational materials she has created by visiting getoutdoorsnevada.org and by following @getoutdoorsnv on social media.
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