Who are the people in your neighborhood

hi

i’m marisela martinez cola don’t be

afraid of the r

it’s basically the d sound so ma

di sela i grew up

in battle creek michigan the serial

capital of the world where you will find

kellogg’s headquarters my mother

is from reynosa mexico and my father

is from donna texas i have 11 aunts and

uncles

and 47 first cousins at last count

and this is just on my mom’s side i

haven’t even tried counting on my puppy

side yet i’d be exhausted

i’m the oldest of three girls and the

first in my family to attend college

i married my best friend and we have a

son who lights up our life

every day finally i am a very

proud chicana

from michigan so i’m a michikana

now almost all of my family both sides

moved to battle creek

to this day i believe that we were

singularly responsible for the rise of

the latino population that year

aside from my family i didn’t really

have examples of latinidad

outside of my home that was until i

discovered

a remarkable tv show

sesame street i loved

sesame street grover was my favorite

which is probably why i love the color

blue

but what i loved the most about it was

the diversity of sesame street

not just the blue and green and yellow

residents but

gordon luis maria bob

and mr hooper it was the first time i

saw someone that

looked like my family on tv

i i mean i had a theo luis and maitia’s

name my aunt’s name was maria i mean

come on wow you can imagine that this

blew my little five-year-old mind

i didn’t realize how much that tv show

influenced me

until about a year later not a year

later until i got to college

yeah that’d be like six years old so

let’s fast forward to 1993

at the university of michigan it was the

first time i had a group of chicano

friends who were just like

me i was part of a multicultural club in

my residence hall

it was a very amazing and validating

time in my life

then it came time to select a major i

went to this thing

called a course catalog that listed

every course taught at the university of

michigan

i had no clue how to pick a major so i

just

circled all the classes i wanted to take

and the most circles were in psychology

and african american african studies

leave it to me the overachiever of the

family

to uh pick two not just one major

later on my friends and i were kind of

sitting around chilling

and talking about our majors when i told

them that i

that one of my majors was

african-american african studies

my more militant friends were like what

why aren’t you majoring in latino

studies why would you choose

african-american studies

you’re a latina you’re a chicana

when i told my family they said

what do you think you’re black

and this wasn’t about being anti-black

for my friends it was a matter of

demonstrating pride in my cultural

identity

and learning all the things that my k-12

education kept for me

my family thought it was a rejection of

my mexican heritage

a rejection of them and their struggle

to get to the u.s

but that wasn’t the case at all

so when i struggled to try to explain it

to them

believe it or not that old sesame street

song

popped into my head who are the people

in your neighborhood

and so i explained look i know my house

i know my culture i know it inside

and out i’ve lived in my house for 18

years

i love my house i love tamales at

christmas having rice at beans at almost

every meal

listening to the corridos hearing

stories about pancho villa

speaking spanglish i love my house

but now i want to get to know my

neighbors

so i majored in african-american

american studies and i got to know some

beautiful

amazing neighbors my classes and

incredible professors filled my heart

and mind

and spirit with black history

black art activism

and literature i received messages of

pain and brilliance and and excellence

against all

odds so i thought to myself if this is

what i discover

when i meet my black neighbors so to

speak what will i find when i meet

my other latino asian american and

native american indigenous

neighbors so i dedicated my professional

career

to multicultural affairs and began

populating my neighborhood

in my mind and heart with black latinx

asian american and indigenous art

history and literature as i learned

i saw connections beautiful

inspiring heart-wrenching connections

for example when i read the

autobiography of malcolm x

i was completely inspired

but learning about malcolm x helped me

to connect him to one of my chicano

heroes

rodolfo corki gonzalez he was called the

fists of the chicano movement

and that led me to learn about yuri

koshiyama

an amazing japanese-american activist

who actually worked alongside malcolm x

and was there with him at the time of

his death

and later i learned about mary brave

bird

a writer and a member of the american

indian movement

they all taught me to love protect

and fight for my neighborhood

reading i too am america by

by poet langston hughes made me hungry

to

read audre lorde a self-described black

lesbian mother warrior poet

and after that i learned about gloria

anzaldua whose book borderlands

made me feel seen and then there was

janice mir katani

an american japanese american poet who

taught me

that i am loved and worthy

and joy harjo a native american poet who

inspired me

to remember my history their words

helped me find my words

so finally this deep connection this

deep desire for connections

influenced my research and teaching as a

professor

now i know you can’t put an equal sign

between all of these

experiences you don’t want to do that

but there are enough similarities that

you can put the mathematical simile line

between them so i research

school desegregation most people know

about

brown versus board of education the

famous case that ended the legal

practice of separate but equal but i

studied law

and i knew there had to be cases

involving

mexican-american indigenous and

asian-american plaintiffs

sure enough after some research i found

that in 1947

seven years before brown there was

mendesby westminster

a case involving mexican-american

families fighting

for educational equality 30 years before

brown

there was alice piper in piper v big

pine

she and her family filed a lawsuit to

allow the

native american paiute children to

attend one of the local white schools

in big pine california finally

almost 70 years before brown in 1885

there was tate versus hurley a case for

a chinese-american family argued that

not allowing their daughter mimi tate to

attend the white school closest to her

home was unjust

immoral and racially prejudicial

these four brave school girls linda

brown

silvia mendes alice piper and mimi tape

gave me the privilege of sharing my

beautiful neighborhood

with others in my forthcoming book

and my students and i are working on an

interactive digital map

for social studies teachers i love the

idea of

young black latinx asian american

indigenous children clicking on this map

and seeing themselves as history makers

and hopefully i’d like to be able to

eventually have

a children’s book okay dr

mc that’s what my students call me so

what’s your point

so i’m here to ask you who are the

people

in your neighborhood here in utah it’s

very easy to say

i grew up in an all-white neighborhood i

went

to a really white school i attended a

predominantly white

church i hear this a lot from my

students

and to them i say your physical

neighborhood may not be diverse

but the neighborhood in your mind and

heart is ever growing

get to know your neighborhood and this

means

filling your life with books and

movies and art and

music and documentaries all of these

things that represent all of the

phenomenal neighbors

that you have yet to meet it’s all there

especially in this digital age y’all uh

y’all can be able to figure something

out right

first though you gotta start small right

so

if you like classical music

just google african-american composers

and the first thing that pops up is

nine black composers who change the

course of classical music

if you love reading science fiction

google latino science fiction writers

and

there you’ll see a link to five books by

latino authors that will satisfy

any sci-fi junkie they’re there i

promise you i googled them

right before this talk look there’s no

reason

to say i never knew there’s no reason to

say i never had the opportunity

even here in utah there is such

beautiful diversity here too

your neighbors are there y’all and they

are fascinating

i got to know my neighbors and i learned

that true unity comes when you are as

transformed

by your neighbors experiences as they

are

by yours thank you