Camino a mi Hogar
Camino a mi Hogar was written by the Ethnic Studies students taught by Dr. Jorge Lopez, Ms. Liliana Mendoza, Ms. Emily Parra, Ms. Dallana Jimenez Hermosillo, and Ms. Georgina Abuede at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights, CA in the Spring of 2023.
Introduction
When I was younger, my family lived in what could now be considered a studio, though I remember it more as a no-bedroom apartment on South Figueroa Street. The four of us lived on top of each other, but as a kid that didn’t matter. What I remember most are the doodles on the white front door my dad encouraged us to draw with permanent marker, the warmth and laughter from my mom, and how her cooking filled every corner of the room, and climbing up and watching TV on the cool metal bunk beds I shared with my brother. It was all I needed. It was our home.
Camino A Mi Hogar is a collection of writing from Roosevelt High School’s Ethnic Studies classes that captures the comforting and sometimes complex notion of "home" as seen through the lives of these students from Boyle Heights. Within its pages, “home” reflects the people, memories, and communities that have shaped them. These young authors offer thoughtful snapshots of their self-discovery and it is these insights that are essential in today’s world, because true community healing begins with visibility and the courage to be vulnerable.
In the Ethnic Studies Classes at Roosevelt, teachers engage their 9th-grade students with a curriculum that highlights their voices, reflects their experiences, and validates their realities. They are asked to look at their lives and really see themselves and what their community means to them— a task easier said than done. They utilize the history of Boyle Heights to allow students to understand their present and future through the lens of the past.
With this book, the students of Roosevelt High School generously and honestly pass along their motivations, aspirations, adorations, difficulties, dreams, and histories in the hopes that they find their way to someone who needs a sense of home.
Wendy Beltran
Senior Writers’ Room Program Coordinator, Roosevelt High School