My senior year of college was a memorable, yet somewhat disjointed time of great friends, late assignments, changed plans, and existential crisis. I remember thinking in the summer before my senior year that it would be a short blip on the screen, a forgettable bump on the road to the "real life" that was coming at me fast. Mentally, I had already fastforwarded to graduation. It was as if the months that lay between Summer '07 and Spring '08 were a hazy, forgettable time that I was obligated to live. What could really happen to me during my senior year in central Pennsylvania that would be of any consequence? After the whirlwind experiences off-campus in Ecuador and Philadelphia that had shaped my junior year, what was in store for me other than a few more English classes and late night conversations? Back then, I had no idea what form my struggles would take senior year: from crying on the way to an interview, lost on the outskirts of Philly to feeling like I didn't belong in my major to learning how to drive a handicapped vehicle for a fiery old woman in a wheelchair.
The theme of my senior year became learning to live in the moment. I don't know how much I actually accomplished to that end, but I was certainly aware that I was living both in the past (junior year) and the future (post graduation) and that that needed to change. I embraced the motto that my friend Nancy had carved onto a clay plaque which she sent to me for my 22nd birthday: "Wherever you are, be all there." It was a challenge that loomed over me as I fell asleep at night, reliving scenes from the past year and dreaming of future people that would come into my life, future places that I might go. Be present in the moment, Heather. Be present in these conversations. Love these amazing friends that you've been given and be grateful for this time that you have together, before your lives are scattered all over the globe. You will be nostalgic for these days, so live them while you are in them.
Though I was attempting to invest myself in the present, it was undeniable that future plans had to be made. For goodness sakes, there was a deadline: May 18, 2008. By that day, I thought, I better have a place to go that is not my parents' house. I had better have a job offer or a plane ticket. (HA!) Throughout the fall months, mass emails full of job tips and opportunities would pour into my college account from staff and advisors trying to be helpful. Check out this teaching position! This company has an opening; they are looking for recent college grads! The Mennonite Central Committee is hiring in the Northeast region! The second deadline to apply for Teach For America is approaching! Thus began my first foray into imagining my life after college. I applied to Teach For America.
Teach For America
Applying to Teach For America made more sense to the person that I was at age 13 than the person that I am at age 22. Embarrassing as it is to admit, I applied to Teach For America because I had cut their ad out of a teen magazine and pasted it in my journal when I was 13. I remember feeling overcome at the time with the sense that this was something that I was supposed to do. It was a quasi-spiritual moment. So, when I saw the email about the approaching TFA deadline, my mind remembered that moment that had transpired 9 years before and thought that maybe this was a sign from my spiritually enlightened 13 year old self. Although I had not thought about TFA at all in that 9 year time gap and though I didn't even know what it was really, clearly this was a prudent decision. Honestly, I was beginning to feel antsy. I needed to actively do something, pursue something, and feel like I had a handle on this whole business of post-graduation job search.
I applied and made it to the final interview day... the day that I was driving around desperately lost and a half an hour late on the outskirts of Philly. Throughout the ridiculously long application process, I had learned the language of Teach For America. I was both excited about and douftful of their admirable vision to lower the achievement gap between students in high and low income areas. (Why does TFA think that young college grads without education degrees are the best people to affect change in extremely challenging classroom settings? What lasting change can be made when teachers only stay for 2 years? At the same time, maybe the TFA approach affects change on an individual basis, seeing to it that students graduate highschool who might not do so otherwise...?) I was beginning to picture myself as a teacher and wonder if teaching might be my career calling. I thought that if I made it into TFA, despite my apprehensions, I could be made into a crash-course teacher and see if teaching in the inner city was something that I was cut out to do. I had had some wonderful experiences helping to teach ESL classes in West Chester and Harrisburg and some not-so-wonderful experiences teaching 10th grade English in Ecuador. Did I have what it takes to be a teacher? And more importantly, did I have what it takes to be a Teach for America teacher... the go-getter type? The amazingly organized, passionate, self-motivated, law school bound type? I certainly had my doubts, but I was also fooling myself, molding my image into the perfectly busy and ambitious person that the recruiters wanted me to be.
When I finally found out in January that I would not be a bilingual teacher in San Francisco or Philadelphia for two years, it was as much a relief as it was a disappointment. It was a definitive closed door, and as much as my ego was bruised, I could rest in the fact that it was clear that TFA was not what I was supposed to do. There were still 5 months til graduation, so what next?
Mexico
In the weeks before I heard from TFA, I could not fall asleep at night. There were too many wrenching, conflicted thoughts brewing in my head and settling in the pit of my stomach. While trying to separate and balance my passions and motivations, I felt perhaps for the first time the weighty consideration that goes into an important decision. While I should have been waiting for the news about TFA with anxious excitement, instead, I was filled with an unsettled dread. Things were not adding up. Why Teach For America... why was I heading into a two year contract that would bind me stateside when all I had ever envisioned myself doing post-college was traveling again? Was my passion to travel to Latin America selfish, impractical, or worse yet, harmful? Yet, if those things were true, then what sense could be made of all of the time and effort I had invested in learning Spanish if I were just to abandon it in the real world? The next step in my life had to include Spanish and Latino people, cierto? What if I were to end up teaching middle school English with TFA... a respectable job, but not my passion?
Here's an excerpt from one a journal entry that encapsulates my struggles, circa Dec 07/Jan 08:
"I suppose the main question is: should I stay or should I go? The time to travel is when we are young, free of obligations and not yet set in our ways. I love to travel- I know this about myself. There is something undeniably invigorating and addicting about travel. A sense of urgency and adventure when you awake every morning in a foreign country- a heightened awareness of your potential to learn from everyone you encounter. I felt justified traveling as a student in Ecuador- I was more than a tourist. I was there for cultural exhange. To learn their language, to embrace their traditions. Of course I did feel guilty at times for being a student at USFQ, for being able to study at the most expensive university in the country at my American whim. Now, as I no longer have the excuse to travel as a student, what is my title? What is my motive? I envy people who are blessed with the skills to be doctors or engineers. They can provide legitimate help to people in developing countries with poor health care opportunities or water purification systems. This is urgent, effective work.
I am a writer. Maybe a teacher. Maybe a social worker. How could I be of use abroad? Teaching English? Why would I fly to Latin America to teach Latinos my language in some twisted neo-colonial enterprise? Why would I teach English abroad when there is a world full of immigrants here desperate to learn and succeed? If I were to teach in Latin America, I know my students would love me for being a gringa. Would this not feed into the already unfortunate beauty ideal- ojos claros, white skin, light hair? Would I contribute somehow to making young girls wish they looked more European or American?
Because of the level that my Spanish is at right now, unfortunately, there is probably no other job for me in Latin America than as an English teacher. I am not fluent enough in Spanish to be effective working for a non-profit or NGO. Would I ever be fully effective working abroad, knowing that I would never speak a perfect Spanish or completely hold an understanding of the culture? Was there a reason why I was born in the States- fluent in English and American culture? To serve here? Yet, I know there's a reason why I have been overcome with a passion for Spanish and Latin America in college. The fact that this passion hit me out of nowhere makes me believe that it happened for a reason."
Shortly after penning these words and after being in conversation with a friend who was considering returning to Ecuador, I allowed myself to dream again. I let go of the terrible sense that I had that travel was purely selfish and irresponsible. I snuck onto the computer late at night and browsed the internet for programs, positions, and communities- anything that might send me back to Latin America. A friend recommended idealist.org to me, and from there I found a new crazy idea to entertain. An idea that had nothing to do with the direction that TFA would have taken my life in, an idea that seemed at once bizarrely attractive and also purely out of left field: The Chiapas Project.
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