Matthew Ramos Story 2 for JRN 3700
“Mexican Students & Educators in America Suffer Amidst an Ongoing Pandemic”
2020 has been a very challenging and depressing year for Mexican people. Both in the country of Mexico, and in the United States of America, Mexicans saw many of their relatives and closest loved ones die because of Covid-19. In the fall of 2020, students and educators resumed school in America while the pandemic is still going strong and taking lives. Schooling has proved to be a major challenge this fall, because the severity of Covid-19 seemingly gets worse each day, and education departments make tough calls to re-close schools shortly after they reopened. Educators are just as anxious and confused as the students are during this strange time in American history.
In New York City, the Covid-19 era proved to be more challenging than ever for young Mexican-American students. Unfortunately, Mexican people in New York City were already struggling with receiving proper educations. According to The New York Times, Mexicans in New York are the ethnic group who have the highest rates of school dropouts; forty-one percent aged sixteen to nineteen. So, the post-Coronavirus world added even more challenges to students who were already suffering.
The fall 2020 semester saw many students staying home for virtual schooling, while many students returned in person for school. For many Mexican students, they have parents who work long hours, and the students are usually at home for most of the day with only their older teenage siblings to watch over them. “My mother and father work very late”, said Sofia Mendez, a senior in a Brooklyn high school, who has a sister in seventh grade. “Me and my sister both do school online. I’m a senior, so I have anxieties about finishing high school online, graduation being virtual, and what I’m going to do after high school.”
Increased anxiety regarding education is not uncommon in this era. NBC News has reported on numerous occasions that this unique time in public education has taken a massive toll on the mental health of Mexican/Hispanic students, as well as on their grades in math and reading. This is startling news, considering the New York City Department of Education reports that 40.6% of NYC students are Hispanic.
On November 19th, 2020, New York City chose to close public schools out of concerns that the Covid-19 virus would rapidly spread. In a quick turnaround, Mayor DeBlasio announced schools would reopen for elementary schools on December 7th, 2020, while middle and high school kids would not return until 2021. The NYC Mayor abandoned the three percent threshold that was formerly required for schools to shut down.
Students are not the only people who are struggling in this unprecedented era. Teachers also feel much of the same confusion that the students do. One such teacher is Melissa Rojas, who had a unique experience as a New York City educator in 2020. Rojas was a fifth-grade teacher in a Brooklyn public school when the school went fully online by mid-March. Over the summer, Rojas was hired by a public elementary school in Staten Island, to be a fourth-grade teacher. Before the November 19th shutdown, Rojas would go into the school physically, while her students remained home to be taught virtually via Zoom.
In an interview with Rojas, she expressed concern for the Mexican students in the school. Rojas said, “there is a Mexican community at my school. The neighborhood I teach in, Rosebank, has many Mexican families. I worry for some students who frequently miss assignments. When I attempt to call their parents, in many cases, it’ll be a teenage sibling answering the phone. The siblings usually stick up for the students without addressing the problems of missing work and lack of attendance. I want all students to succeed.”
Rojas is concerned about the state of the virus, as she believes schools should remain closed for public health reasons. Staten Island being labeled a hot zone for Covid-19 is extremely worrying for Rojas. She elaborated by saying, “I am worried about schools reopening. I understand for some families having their children remote is a big inconvenience, but safety is my main concern. I would hate to have kids back next week just for schools to close again because of an influx in Covid-19 cases. As a remote teacher, I make sure they are receiving an excellent education at home.”
Opinions on school shutdowns are divided. In a scathing critique of school shutdowns, Fox News Anchor Tucker Carlson said, “According to the latest numbers from the CDC, 123 Americans under the age of 18 have died from the Coronavirus. That’s 123 people out of a population of 328 million. Didn’t matter. We shut down the schools anyway, crushing millions of kids and affecting their futures in ways we can’t even understand at this point.”
While certain students, parents, pundits, and President Trump might hate the notion of school shutdowns, teachers who are actively on the frontlines of modern education vouch in favor of school shutdowns. Pedro Calixto Lucero is a teacher in Providence, Rhode Island who offered his perspective on the current state of teaching during the Covid-19 era. Lucero explained, “I work in an elementary school with multilingual learners, general education, and special education students in Providence, Rhode Island. I’m a third-grade Spanish bilingual teacher who works with 24 multilingual learners. I’m working with both in-person and virtual students in my classroom.”
On the topic of teaching Mexican students, Lucero stated, “There is a small Mexican community at my school. Currently, I have only one student in my class from Acapulco, Mexico. We are able to share many similarities with foods, traditions and common Mexican phrases. My family is from Chinantla, Puebla, Mexico.”
Lucero agrees with the sentiment that schools should be shut down until the risk of getting infected with Covid-19 is drastically reduced. “Teaching during the pandemic is happening when you have support from school building leaders and from your colleagues. However, many teachers (including myself) do not feel safe and are risking our lives going into school buildings because we have contact with many students and adults during this pandemic. Many teachers believe we should close school buildings in order to keep us safe from getting sick from the virus.”
Rhode Island is taking very cautions measures as a response to the Covid-19 outbreak. The New York Times reported that 1,346 people died of Covid-19 in Rhode Island this year. Additionally, it is important to state the reported data that 46% of Covid-19 cases in Rhode Island were of its Hispanic residents. Lucero explained Rhode Island’s safety measures when he said, “The Rhode Island Department of Health conducts contact tracing and is reaching out to anyone who has been in close contact with the persons who tested positive. Close contact is defined as being within six feet of a person who has tested positive, for a minimum of 15 minutes.”
Mexican people sadly seem to be at a very high risk of dying from Covid-19. The Los Angeles Times reported that over 90,000 people died of Covid-19 in Mexico by October 31st, 2020. Then, by November 30th, 2020, Metro US reported that the Covid-19 death toll in Mexico rapidly rose to 104,873 deaths. Salud America reports that as of November 30th, 2020, 47,038 Latino/Hispanic people have died of Covid-19 in the United States. In terms of public education, teachers agree that shutdowns are necessary to prevent the virus from spreading even more. While children may not be at the highest risk of Covid-19 fatalities, there are many adults and people with certain genetics or health conditions who can die of Covid-19. The lived experiences of Melissa Rojas and Pedro Calixto Lucero, as well as the ever-increasing rates of Mexican/Mexican-American people’s deaths from Covid-19, can attest to the fact that the war on Covid-19 is not something that should be downplayed.
