Maritza

4/21/2016

“There was no need for a saying like ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ where I am from in Puerto Rico, because growing up surrounded by family was just a fact. Everyone lived nearby and there was always visiting back and forth. My cousins and I played together at each other's houses, and for a while when I was very small, I lived with my grandmother. She was sweet and very nurturing, and I remember on Sunday mornings how she would take a comb and some water and make long curls in my hair to get me ready for church. Such an intimate thing. Now that I have a granddaughter of my own, she is being raised in much the same way, surrounded by family: by her parents and two sets of grandparents who love her. She is truly a village child. Since she was five months old, she has spent every Friday with us, and at night I read to her, sing, and speak to her in Spanish. Those are things that only the two of us share. That little child is my light.

“My sense of family is important not only with my granddaughter but in my teaching. My students are my kids. They are my babies even beyond graduation, and they know it. Sometimes I disagree with them. Sometimes I get mad at them, and they at me, but I always let them know, ‘You are my babies and I will go with you to the end.’ My students are part of my extended family, and where family is, there is home. Memphis is home to me now."