Preview of "Teaching Spanish and Learning Latino" by Amanda Marek

The second in our series of excerpts of the stories in What Teaching Means followed by an abbreviated version of the writer’s biography. You can expect more great writing like this when we publish in April of 2012.

From Teaching Spanish and Learning Latino by Amanda Marek

By working with them, asking questions, and earning their trust and therefore honesty, I learned so much about how their cultures functioned as a subculture in Minnesota. I saw how they had adapted their Mexican, Guatemalan, and Salvadorian cultures to a general Latino culture, and how they further adapted it to mesh with what Minnesota demanded of them. And I too became part of this culturally mish-mashed community.

***

Amanda Marek teaches ninth grade English and Spanish for native speakers in Shakopee, Minnesota.