My vocation is Love

I want to tell you a story. This is a true story. I want you to sit and think about the words I wrote. Let the voices of these children be heard.  In January, at a visit with family in Louisiana, my brother told us all about a new virus, one similar to SARS, creating an issue in China known as SARS-CoV-2 (which we, of course, now know as COVID19). I, like many of you, did not think much of this. Viruses and infections are likely to spread quickly through a densely populated city and we are literally on the other side of the world. Also, SARS didn't create a problem in the US. I just took it to be an interesting science article that I was going to give my students to read when we returned to school-which they did read.  January ended and as February started, I was starting to get a little concerned. Teachers I worked with would come to me with questions about viral spread. Students in 5th and 6th grade began to play a game they made up (similar to freeze tag) called COVID-19. I thou

I have sat and thought (and prayed) over the last several days, hell years, about what to say and how I could help without appearing to be a white savior. My story begins when I was in high school. The people I grew up with came from all different races and backgrounds. Klein Forest was 33% Hispanic, 33% Black, 21% White, 12% Asian, <1 % American Indian. Out of necessity, we were taught to get along and to embrace each other for who we are, and yes that included what we looked like. I am thankful every day that my parents chose to leave me at KF and not transfer me out to another school. I learned how to love someone for who they are and to embrace their culture as valid. College was a cultural shock for me. Not because I left home, and that was also a shock, but because TAMUG was not diverse. Let’s face it. The effort was there but nothing really came of it. Galveston is a diverse city with wonderful people who make the Island unique, but TAMUG is majority white. However, I did