Jessica Perla-Collibee

I was born in Los Ángeles to immigrant parents from El Salvador. My husband, Scott, and two children, Alana (19) and Isaac (21), moved to our home in San Carlos from Albany NY in 2004. I’m a professor at Menlo College teaching Spanish Language and Culture and soon to be teaching a Wine Education course. I also work for InterExchange, a cultural exchange company that offers work/school study abroad programs to teenagers and young adults. As a local cultural coordinator, I support au pairs from around the world who are working with local families.

The most important part of the Latinx cultura to me is the strong connection within our familias. Witnessing the sacrifices my single madre made to work two jobs in the pursuit of a better life has been the inspiration for my academic achievements. Despite the hardships of raising three kids, not speaking any English, and caring for her own madre she continued to instill the celebrated tenets of our cultura like dancing to música salsa and cooking delicious homemade comida. I am proud of the great pasión, strength, unity and leadership taught to me by the women in my familia. It has helped me to navigate a higher education sistema that often fails poor and underrepresented comunidades. I am proud to be part of la comunidad Latinx because no matter what happens in our daily life, we make time to celebrate it with love, dancing, friends, familia, laughter and lots of delicious comida.

I wanted to be an educator from the momento I stepped into my fourth grade classroom and met my first Latina teacher. I experienced many challenges and moments of self doubt, but there were always teachers and profesores throughout my academic career keeping me on track telling me that the teaching profesión needed me to share my cultura, my language, and my historia with future estudiantes. I attended UCSB where an amazing Latina profesora introduced me to the man who may have had the most impacto diversifying teaching in this country with his Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers programa, Kelly Wise. He recruited low income minority college students for a free summer instituto where he taught us how to present ourselves both in person and through the application process to grad schools and inspired us with guest speakers and workshops on the need for more diversidad in teaching in colleges and universidades. This programa enabled me to earn a full scholarship to Tufts University where I received my Master’s in Teaching degree. I did what no Latina in my family had done before and left mi familia to study across the country much to the dismay of many of those in my familia who didn’t agree with women leaving a home without being married. I love teaching Español and sharing my heritage with those who want to learn more about my cultura. Not having family nearby has been difficult not just for me but for my children. I was thankful to see how they flourished and celebrated the fact that they are biracial when they went to Sequoia High School. I have been so proud to see my children embrace their Salvadorian roots and Latinx cultura.