A Resurgence: Leading from my Latinidad

"Every minute, a chance to change the world."

-Dolores Huerta

I've been on deep quest for the past year, enveloping backwards in search of my Latina roots and identity. Ever since I became a Latinx Teacher fellow with Latinos For Education, a national nonprofit that is elevating, amplifying, and preparing Latino leaders to take up space, a dam burst open.

What I predisposed as a fraction of me bled into more. It was like seeing water colors on a canvas bleed into the ember lines that an artist was delicately filling in. Como una flor, how the canvas of my spirit became the recipient of watercolor stains, spilling across, creating a crystalline portrait I'd never seen before.

Without warning, my Latinidad, my Mexi-Rican roots took center stage. Not eclipsing my spirit-woman, a companion of sorts emerged. I got in the room with like-mindeds, in spaces where I wasn't the only colored woman and my heart valves began to dance open.

Phrases like: "Your Latinidad, your Latino/a identity is your superpower."

"Lead from your identity, take up space with it."

Eye swells and soul leaps gave way.

As a teacher, activist, and disruptor, I was commissioned to lead con ganas, to agitate when necessary, to rise like as Azteca Warrior and amplify not only my voice, but the voices of my people. I did away with the phrase minority, as we are the "majority minority," first off. And yet there's nothing minor about a rich, diverse, vivacious and glorious Latinidad that we are. We come from vast histories, combined with sacred traditions, the Spanish language, cuisine, and holy faiths.

So now, I ebb and flow with a new revelation. The latino population is the fastest growing population in the country. So if you invest in us, you are investing in the prosperity of our nation and democracy. I know lead from that knowing, that poder, that truth.

Stark under-representation stings my eyes, the clarion call to have more people of color at decision-making tables and in school districts across the country that represent their diverse student population and stakeholders have arrested me.

My vision, more visible.

My Latina identity, bubbling with rapture and lead compass under the prodding of my Creator.

We are enough.

We are our ancestor’s wildest dreams.

We are worthy.

We deserve to take up space.

We belong at the table.

I once preached a sermon where I coined the phrase: "Every revolution begins on the heels of resistance."

She insisted.

She persisted.

Si, se puede.

Juntos, podemos.

Dedicated to the work and heart of Latinos for Education.