Challenging Assumptions That Others Made About Me

When I was in high school, I remember a man coming in one day into homeroom and he had a list of names and he called me out.

I was sitting in the back, so it wasn't like he came over to talk to me personally, and he said, "Are you in a special English class?" And he said it really slowly as if I couldn't understand English. And I said, "Yes, I'm in honors English." And I think that he took a step backwards. He wasn't expecting that answer. He was expecting that, with the name Sonia Cortés, that I would be not fluent in English. And there's nothing wrong with that, but I think what was wrong was the assumption. And I was able to hold my head high and say, "Yes, I'm in an honors English class."

I felt really good about that because otherwise that says something about the expectations and the assumptions that this man had or that the school had and that we have to change those assumptions and those expectations.

And when a student says, "Yes, I'm in an ESL class," they should also feel really proud to say that because they are adding to their language repertoire instead of subtracting from it. So everybody should feel good answering that question and there should be no assumptions made.