“I tell my students how I felt when I started learning English: it was like wearing high heels, I wanted to take them off right away and be comfortable. Some of my students want to switch right back to Spanish. I understand, but they need to stick with it, practice. It’s a long journey, not months, or one year. They’ll get it!

I can see how Montgomery County had evolved as a more diverse and inclusive society. As an immigrant who came 30 years ago, people were not always patient when I was learning. My first English words were useful ones: please, help, and I don’t know. If I see someone struggling to communicate in a store, I always offer to help. I remember.

The teachers were not well paid in Peru, so I chose to study economics. Then I switched to Sacred Heart University and heard from the different professionals there and thought, I want to be a teacher, that is my path. 

In America I opened a home childcare; I also got my Master’s in Special Education from Towson University. Right after I finished I was wondering what was next, and four new children enrolled. One was my miracle baby with Joubert syndrome who learned to walk at age 3. I knew I was supposed to be there. 

Cecilia Rojas wanted me to teach English to adults at the Community Reach LOP program. I said I would volunteer and I really liked it—there was such a nice community there. After a year I said yes to a position and then COVID hit less than a month later. It was so hard during COVID; many people lost family members. We went to Zoom and I was unsure, I’m not so tech savvy. But then we went to a MCAEL workshop and you realize everyone is in the same position, we are all learning. Now we can all use it, and I can connect with family in Peru over Zoom! I’m on a MCAEL advisory group now.