‘A Teacher Here Reminds Me of Dr. King’

Schools work hard to make The Rev. Martin Luther King’s legacy meaningful for everyone, not only African Americans. JIM BLAIR spoke with students from many backgrounds at Los Angeles high schools about what they’ve learned about King. He asked who in their own communities best exemplifies King’s spirit, and what they can do to further his dreams.

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MAGGIE RAMOS

Senior, John Marshall High School

Dr. King’s position is very strong in the Latino community, [though] I don’t think it’s as strong as it is in the African American community, but that’s only natural. I feel that anyone who has fought for civil rights, whether for Latinos, Anglos or Asians, is very highly respected. I would say that the word to describe Dr. Martin Luther King in the Latino community is respect, a tremendous amount of respect.

The topic of Dr. King is brought up at school every January and in any heritage month having to do with exceptional African Americans since I was a little girl.

I know of a couple people who did or are trying to do for Latinos what Dr. King did for African Americans. One was Cesar Chavez. Another is my grandfather, who struggles against crime in my community, to keep families together, to stop the violence, graffiti and things like that.

We need to keep to learning about figures in our past like Martin Luther King so we don’t make--and keep making--the same mistakes in the future. We won’t make repeatedly what we now call mistakes [into] habits.

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PATRICIA SUH

Senior, Hollywood High

Learning about Dr. Martin Luther King starts very young--in elementary school. You have the assemblies where you dress up and have speeches. You know, “I have a dream.” I learned a great deal more in my U.S. history class. We learned about more of his actions, more of his works. I learned he was a really articulate man and he made great speeches.

For me he made the concept of getting things done in a passive way, without using violence, real. It actually happened.

There’s a teacher here who reminds me so much of Dr. Martin Luther King. I mention her because she is Asian. She fights for the rights of students. I think that’s really important, because a lot of times youth are sort of second-class citizens because of our age. She’ll take a stand for the students. She’ll encourage us to take part in government. She teaches us the proper, most effective way such as petitions or writing your congressman. Her teaching us that reminds me of him.

Little by little, I’m hoping, we’re becoming more of a melting pot. Not one ethnicity exactly--we’re just becoming Americans. We’ve come a long way since his time, it’s true; but there’s still some racism going on. So to continue his work, I think we should learn to stop violence and integrate more peacefully in the way he did. Nothing will happen with violence. I think there’s a little Martin Luther King in everybody, in every generation, in every ethnicity.

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ARIELLE JAYME

Junior, Hollywood High

In my elementary [school] we had a play about him and I had to memorize a whole section of it and give it in front of an audience. It was about his dreams that his children would be judged not on the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

When I did that play I realized that there were people who judged black people by their skin. I was just very surprised. I didn’t think much of it because most of my friends were black and Armenian and all of that. It was because of him that my mother helped to raise me as a nonjudgmental person.

I know that at school and at work they say not to judge people, but I have noticed that cleanup people are usually Hispanic and black. I think that they should hire them as cashiers and managers, because I haven’t seen that many. I think it should be done, not just written on a piece of paper.