My Family History

My family is originally from a small town in Michoacán, Mexico. My father’s parents are campesinos (peasant-farmers) and my mother’s father was a laborer for Pacific Union Railroads and also worked in the agricultural fields of central and northern California in the 1940s and 1950s.

Living in Iowa

While I’m not a homegrown Iowan and I knew very little about the state before moving here 8 years ago, I am indeed happy with my “adopted” home. Its social composition closely mirrors the milieu I grew up in northern California. People are modest, humble, and embody the tenacity and determination that characterize the working-class spirit.

My Dreams

I want to be a good teacher and help students achieve their full potential. To speak up against the prevailing injustices that beset my community and the world. To never repudiate my origins and pass on the mores and values that define me as a descendant of Mexican immigrants.

A Teacher Who Changed My Life

Rosamel Benavides, Professor of Spanish, Humboldt State University, CA.

Rosamel has been my academic advisor since I began my undergraduate career. He taught me never to feel intellectually fulfilled and to remain curious and engaged. Rosamel helped me see myself as a historical actor and use my positionality as a student (and then professor) to bring about social transformation.

My Favorite Thing

This picture of my grandmother, Rosa Calderón, epitomizes who I am. In Mexico, the campesino identity is not only a way of defining a social group. The image offers a kaleidoscope of elements that are all representative of a way of thinking and a way of living. While some people use material wealth to showcase their successes, for Rosa, the calluses on her hands, and the completion of a fruitful harvest is the true barometer of success. Her sense of determinism is what informs my academic life.

What #DIVERSITYISOURSTRENGTH means to me

To me it means celebrating the heterogeneity of our society. It also feels to me like a clarion call to invest time in understanding one’s origins.

Celebrating Our Diversity

Iowans champion education. Through this project, which focuses on Black Hawk County, Iowa, we acknowledge the state’s historical commitment to educational quality. We also urge Iowa educators to celebrate and capitalize on the rich diversity in our state and our classrooms.

The Iowa portraits above represent a few of the leaders, educators, and students in the Cedar Valley who will help guide our region and Iowa into the coming decades. We represent a sliver of Iowa’s educational diversity in Black Hawk County. Hover over each of our faces to find a short biography documenting our unique paths to Iowa, and summarizing our dreams, talents, distinctive qualities, and the teachers who changed our lives by treating us as special individuals.

Our various family stories are tied to opportunity and community. Like all Iowans who are not First Nation people, we are Iowa immigrants; some of our families arrived more than a century ago, others only recently. It’s this racial, ethnic, religious, and gender diversity, constantly changing and remixing each decade, that has made Iowa stronger, as each generation brings new traditions, enterprises, and perspectives to sustain the hundreds of communities between the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. And yet, Iowa is too often defined and celebrated exclusively in terms of its White and rural cultural mainstream. (Ask yourself or someone else to envision what an Iowan looks like.)

We cannot say we want equal educational opportunities for all children and then fight to advantage our own. -Nikole Hannah-Jones

Iowa Nice... for Everyone

When we reflected on what it means to be Iowan, the idea of “Iowa Nice” percolated through our answers – the notion that Iowans are unconditionally nonjudgmental and community-minded. Iowa is a good place. And yet, many of us featured here – who are not White or rural – have not experienced “Iowa Nice” in exactly the same way. To fully celebrate our diversity as our strength, we must also address inequality as our challenge. As we have been reminded by yet another tragic murder of an African American man by law enforcement in our nation, this is a challenge for the soul of our society in Black Hawk County, the state, and across the country. We find hope in the millions who have peacefully protested, here and around the world, and gather strength from their vision to live up to our democratic ideals.

We get enormous inspiration from Waterloo, Iowa native Nikole Hannah-Jones – a New York Times journalist, originator of the 1619 Project, and Pulitzer Prize winner. Her career as a critical commentator on race in America was shaped by her daily bus ride in the 1970s from the East Side of Waterloo to the West Side, where she attended school. She could not help but be struck by the inequality she observed riding from one end of town to the other.

Through this project, we’d like to challenge Cedar Valley/Black Hawk County residents, all Iowans, and Iowa educators specifically, to consider what Iowa Nice means to our Iowa community writ large. How can we ensure that Iowa Nice extends to all Iowans? How can we see all residents of Iowa – regardless of racial, ethnic, gender, or religious status – as embodying the kind, humble, determined spirit of Iowa Nice? The answer lies not only in understanding each of our personal histories, but also listening to each other’s dreams for the future.

Dr. Shuaib Meacham, Literacy Education, University of Northern Iowa

Dr. Bettina Fabos, Interactive Digital Studies, University of Northern Iowa

Fernando Calderon