Celebrating Cinco de Mayo All Year Long

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Although we plan to celebrate Cinco de Mayo at Esperanza Elementary it is important to remember that one day celebrations are not sufficient if we desire to provide a multicultural education for our students.

Therefore, the following are some of our goals:

• Half of the books in our school library will be in Spanish or be bilingual, the majority of which will be written by Hispanic authors. We will also have a multicultural section in the library with books about other cultures.


• History will be viewed from different perspectives.


• The contributions of Hispanics--and other cultures--in the areas of art, music, science, government, literature, etc. will be celebrated.


• Students will be taught and given opportunities to be involved in making a difference in the community.


• The way things are done in other cultures will be recognized. For instance, the way division is taught, the number of continents, which day is considered the first day of the week, learning styles, grammar rules, etc.


• We will involve Hispanic parents in ways that are comfortable to them rather than demanding they participate in ways prescribed by the white, middle class. To help us achieve this, the Funds of Knowledge" concept developed by Dr. Luis Moll and Dr. Norma González will be incorporated.


• Labels and signs in the school building as well as all communications will be in both English and Spanish.

While doing all these things we will avoid stereotyping. Although we will do our best to better understand and respond to the Hispanic culture, we will also recognize that each family has its own unique culture. For this reason we will make a commitment to become acquainted with each family on an individual basis.

Celebrations such as Cinco de Mayo are fun but they will be even more fun when they are "icing on the cake" rather than the cake itself.