Monday marked the official launch of education advocacy group, ALL in Education, at the Arizona State Capitol.
Despite the holiday break only ending just a day prior, the room on the third floor of the capitol building was filled to the brim with teachers, legislators, students and activists eager to ensure the success of Latinx students.
The event began in Spanish with a young speaker telling their life story as an immigrant while the translator interpreted the story to English. As the story was recounted and subsequently translated in English, the audience grew increasingly uneasy about the English translator’s disrespectful tone and mis-translation of the original speaker’s life story.
It was only revealed after they left the podium that the whole incident was a theatrical vignette performed by Phoenix College theater students intending to show how crucial stories and experiences from the Latinx community are often lost in translation due to a lack of proper advocates.
Education campaign consultant for Instituto, Jeff Zetino, said ALL in Education plans to tackle issues that are caused by the muted voices of the growing Latinx community in Arizona.
“ALL in Ed has a simple mission statement and that mission statement is to do three things,” said Zetino. “To organize people, ideas and money.”
Marco Davis, president and CEO of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, also came from Washington, D.C. to relay some national statistics about the small number of education leadership positions held by Latinxs as well as Latinx students underperforming in schools.
“Because the reality is, that when it comes to Latinos, there’s no talent gap,” said Davis. “There’s no shortage of people with the brilliance, the innovation and the intelligence to achieve the impact and the outcomes we all want to see. The argument that one doesn’t know or can’t find the right Hispanic candidates for these roles is simply an indication of a broken pipeline.”
Members of the Latinx nonprofit advocacy organization UnidosUS, an affiliate of ALL in Education, shared their findings regarding Arizona statistics for Latinx education.
There were 338,735 Latinx students in Maricopa County from 2018-2019, according to numbers from the Arizona Department of Education. That means Latinx students make up more than 44% of the students within the county. UnidosUS also shared that 46% of all K-12 students in Arizona are Latinx.
UnidosUS shared that their goals are targeting additional K-12 state funding, discontinuing the sheltered English immersion model, and expanding high quality dual language programs.
Only 10% of members of the State Board of Education are Latinx, despite the fact that Latinxs are the fastest growing population in the state, ALL in Education found.
A position for ALL in Education’s executive director was opened the day of the launch event in hopes of obtaining a suitable leader passionate about the initiative.
Arizona legislative members such as Representative Geraldine Peten and District 27’s own Representative Reginald Bolding came to show their support for initiatives in education and spoke on a panel.
Founding President of ALL in Education, Luis Avila, said it only makes sense to move toward improving education for Latinx students as they currently lack the necessary resources and are quickly becoming a majority in the state.
“It will be our responsibility, each one of us, individually, to know the answer to the question, ‘What would we do when we have [the world] in our hands?,’” said Avila. “It’s sooner than we think. It’s much sooner than we think. And that’s why we started creating ALL in Education. Because we imagine a world in less than 10 years when we cannot continue to live in a world of apartheid.”
Contact the reporter at mmozee@asu.edu.
