Maria Casta帽on Hernandez, 58, attended Robb Elementary in 1971 in Uvalde, Texas, as a newly arrived immigrant from Mexico. She spent 15 years working as a teacher in the Uvalde school district and 15 more as a high school counselor until she retired in 2018. Her youngest daughter graduated from Uvalde High School, her alma mater, in 2014.
Two months after Uvalde was rocked by the tragedy of a mass shooting that took the lives of 19 students and two teachers at Robb, Casta帽on Hernandez reflects on how far the local schools have come since a 1970 walkout, in which students and parents demanded a better education for Mexican Americans鈥攁nd what might come next as the town works to heal from the loss.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
My parents immigrated from Mexico in 1971, which was right after the walkout. In my elementary, I can鈥檛 really pinpoint anything bad there because, of course, other kids and my friends, we were all Mexican American, because we lived a block away from Robb. We all spoke Spanish, although I don鈥檛 remember if we ever were told not to speak Spanish. Maybe it happened. Maybe it didn鈥檛, I don鈥檛 know.
I never knew about this walkout. I never learned it in school. I think I started hearing more about it when I had a friend of mine, who was in my grade, and I think we met in junior high. She was a year older than me, but we were in the same grade. And one day we touched up on why she was a year behind, you know? And she said, 鈥淥h, because I was a member of the walkout. My family was in the walkout.鈥� And I said, 鈥淲hat is that?鈥� And she said, 鈥淲e just didn鈥檛 go to school one year.鈥�
I said, 鈥淲hat? Wow, that鈥檚 neat. Why?鈥� I don鈥檛 think she even knew either. She said we were protesting something. She was young when it happened.
My parents, although they were not educated, they always impressed upon us the importance of getting an education. My dad, he would always say the one thing that you all need to do is you need to get educated. Doesn鈥檛 matter what you do, what career you choose, you just need to get an education because that is something that no one can take away.
I definitely think that students [now] are getting more motivated. I don鈥檛 know exactly when that happened. I think maybe in elementary, they鈥檙e doing a very good job of exposing them to different careers, to the things that are a possibility for them. I do see a lot of students coming to me鈥攚hen I was counseling鈥攁lready with an idea of, 鈥淚 want to do this.鈥� Or they already had a college in mind. Even though they might have no idea what it took, like I had students that said I want to be a pediatrician, but they hated math. But then at least they had an idea of what was out there and what they could study, what was a goal for them. I definitely see that and I give credit to the elementary teachers, because something they鈥檙e doing out there is giving them that insight.
Of course, we still have that minority [for whom] education is not that important. We still have a high rate of dropouts, and it鈥檚 [largely] the Hispanics. But I don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 a lack of resources now. Maybe at one point it was. But now I don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 a lack of academic resources. Maybe it鈥檚 a different kind of resource that we still haven鈥檛 tapped on.
We still have a lot of students who have parents who struggle with making ends meet, and that has a lot to do with the students not exploiting all the resources that are out there. When parents work so much for so little, there has to be a feeling of [being] let down, I guess, that is probably passed on to the kids.
I鈥檓 really grateful for all the people that had the courage to get involved in [the 1970] walkout. We鈥檝e come a long, long way. And it鈥檚 bittersweet for me to hear that [Robb Elementary] is going to be demolished because that鈥檚 part of the neighborhood where I grew up. I hope that something is going to be built there that is going to bring some joy to the neighborhood, maybe a little park or something with a memorial for those little ones who passed away and the teachers.
I feel sad that our little town鈥攏ow, we鈥檙e going to be known as another Columbine.
I sure hope that the tragedy here becomes a springboard for other people to make changes in their schools. And not just in the schools, but I really do hope that gun laws are addressed. I hope that this is going to be the beginning of seeing things differently and taking care of our kids and our teachers.
So even though I hate that it happened, it shouldn鈥檛 have happened, maybe it鈥檚 what鈥檚 going to make things change.
