Name calling: Malicious rantings seem to be the norm these days, not the exception. Accused murderer Jeremy Christian fills his speech with hateful expletives, rendering it almost impossible to publish his comments verbatim in the newspaper. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, who as president should be the model for speaking with grace and decorum, instead has the unrestrained audacity to re-name others with what he thinks are clever plays on his rivals’ real names.
I’m lucky to say I’ve had but few labels attached to me, and none that were truly hateful. But when I first came to Hood River over 40 years ago, it was shockingly commonplace to hear Spanish speaking workers and their families referred to as “Beaners” and “Wetbacks.” Today, in our local schools, much attention is given to teaching students about name-calling and bullying. Educators work to model kindness and tolerance.
In 2001, Veronica Sandoval and her family moved from Mexico to the Hood River Valley legally through the visa process. Neither she, her parents, nor any of her many siblings, spoke English. Her parents and several siblings went to work in the orchards and packing houses. The three youngest children enrolled in school. Veronica was placed in Jane Osborne’s third grade class at Mid Valley Elementary.
The only name calling that Veronica heard addressed to her in third grade was “shy.” Almost 20 years later, in that same classroom, Veronica hears her students address her with another label — “Maestra” or “Teacher.” Veronica loves this label. As for the shyness, she smiles and says, “I’m still a little shy — it’s a work in progress, I guess.”
Indeed, Veronica’s work in progress to become the teacher she is today is inspiring.
Even in elementary school, she knew she wanted to be a teacher. She played “school” with her friends, and worked hard to learn English. By middle school, her language skills were really developing and she began to feel she belonged. At Hood River Valley High School, she was labeled completely proficient in English, exiting from the language learner program in her sophomore year.
Staff at the high school thought Veronica had great potential, and urged her to consider college. Veronica says, “Coming from my background, I didn’t really see this as a possibility. My parents didn’t have the money to send me to college. I would need to get scholarships and then my shyness — was it really my place? Could I accomplish being there?” She earned her diploma, and other than one sister, was the only member of her family to graduate from high school.
The deciding point to pursue college came her junior year. Her father told her they could go back to Mexico after she graduated. Veronica had grown up here — she didn’t think she belonged back in Mexico. With the help from Carolyn Bondurant in the high school’s counseling office, Veronica began pursuing her college dreams in earnest. She applied for many scholarships, including the Ford Scholar, a generous scholarship that would pay 90 percent of schooling for four years. Veronica says, “A lot of people saw my potential when I didn’t see it. I got the letter from Ford. I opened the envelope — it was a whole family event — and saw the first word, ‘Congratulations!’ I started crying. I knew it would be a chance for me, and for my whole family.”
At Western Oregon University, she took a heavy load of classes, earning her bachelor’s degree, bilingual endorsement and ESL endorsement. “What drove me was my parents — knowing I wanted to support them.”
Veronica married after college, and worked as a teacher in the Salem area. Her dream was always to return to teach in the Hood River Valley. But she wanted to experience what she calls “the roughness of the profession,” so she and her husband stayed in Salem for four years.
“I wanted to come back to work with teachers who had seen the best of me,” she said. “I feel so grateful for the people who believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.”
She was hired this year to work at Mid Valley as a Dual Language third grade teacher, teaching in the same room where the shy third grader first began dreaming. She says, “Education — no one can ever take that away from you, the knowledge you learn. Teaching — it’s something that fills my heart.”
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