‘This is what it’s all about’
La Mesa Elementary dedicates murals to its community
Darey Dominguez, 11, had known skin color was a terrible reason to treat a person unfairly or unkindly. But it wasn’t until he put himself in the shoes of Henry Brown, a slave who was torn apart from his family, that he truly connected with the social justice and racial inequality lessons being taught in Ana Escobar’s fifth-grade class.
The class did a film project on “Henry’s Freedom Box” — a children’s book on Brown’s journey to freedom — with La Mesa Elementary School students, including Dominguez, re-creating the powerful story.
“I connected more to it than just reading it,” he said.
The film project — part of a schoolwide “Bring a Book to Life” event — helps the students become comfortable in their own identities by reading and experiencing others’ stories, Escobar explained.
The event had a migration theme, aiming to teach kids about the historical and cultural importances of human mobility.
La Mesa is a multilingual, TitleI elementary school in the International District.
“They can feel out of place or like they don’t belong,” said Escobar.
Escobar said projects like the movie help kids acquire new skills and gain confidence.
“I learned it’s not fair to treat others differently just because they have different color skin,” 11-year-old Angelica Aguilar said. And it’s not just the fifth-graders. The whole school participated, with kindergarteners studying the migration of turtles, while the older kids studied human emigration and immigration.
In addition to films, the school hosted a mock protest, a song-and-dance performance, a poetry reading and other plays.
On a sunny Friday, students, parents and teachers came to the colorful La Mesa courtyard to see the school’s newly completed murals, collages of scenes from the books the kids read.
Among the crowd was someone who knows how important it is to translate heavy themes like immigration to children.
Author of “My Shoes and I,” René Colato Laínez traveled from California to the Albuquerque school to participate in the “Bring a Book to Life” event.
Colato Laínez said he knew he’d make the trip after receiving letters from La Mesa students announcing imagery from his book would be included in the mural.
“I think it translates because it’s about a journey of uniting families,” he said about “My Shoes and I.”
The children’s book chronicles Colato Laínez’s own story of leaving El Salvador.
At the event, APS Superintendent Raquel Reedy said, “This is what it’s all about, incorporating the arts and literature.”
La Mesa Elementary School has been doing a week of literacy in partnership with the University of New Mexico’s TECLA — Teacher Education Collaborative in Language Diversity and Arts Integration — program for several years. The goal is to incorporate art and literature into every aspect of the curriculum without sacrificing any common core learning.
The murals were dedicated to the entire La Mesa community.
“La Mesa is full of culture and language,” Principal Aura Acabel said. “We are a community school, working hard to build those relationships.”