Former Chatham teacher traces her journey as Latina educator at community event

By Victoria Johnson

The year is 1991. Ecuadorian immigrant Virginia Cárdenas had been teaching Spanish at Siler City Elementary School for several years. At that point, SCE’s student body was about 55% white and 45% Black.

“I had no Latino students,” she recalled.

One day, she heard from the school nurse that a Mexican family with many school-age children had recently arrived in Siler City and needed support — but spoke only Spanish. Of all classroom teachers in SCE, however, only her mother, then teaching 2nd grade, could speak fluent Spanish.

“Because my mom was the only classroom teacher that spoke Spanish, five children from the age of 5 to 15 were all placed in my mom’s class,” she said. “My mom is a certified ESL teacher, but she was not teaching ESL. There were no ESL teachers in all of Chatham County at that point.”

Later, she added: “What started as just, like, a little group of (Latino) students became just a huge number of families. … And Chatham County was not prepared.”

That’s what Cárdenas, 56, told a small group Friday night during the last presentation of the Chatham Community Library’s four-part History of Communities of Color virtual series. Previous presentations traced African American history in Chatham, commemorated Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May, and taught viewers how to use library resources for Chatham genealogy work.

Born in Chapel Hill, Cárdenas immigrated with her family to Chatham County in 1978 when she was 14. She attended Chatham Central High School in Bear Creek and eventually started her career in education at Siler City Elementary School. After leaving Siler City in 1993, she served as the director of the magnet school assistant program in Wake County Public Schools.

She chronicled her experiences both as a student in CCS and later a CCS teacher in a time when scores of Latin American families began immigrating to Siler City, recruited by the poultry industry. She had a key role in pioneering Siler City Elementary’s — and later CCS’ — ESL curriculum, or what she calls “content-based second language.”

“Siler City Elementary became the beginning of where North Carolina started this program called science-based learning,” she said, later adding, “I can’t tell you how important that was because it served as a national model. Again, this is Chatham County, tiny at that point, Siler City Elementary serving as a model as (to) how a second language should be taught in an authentic and hands-on manner.”

Other parts of her lecture chronicle her journey as a Latina educator in Wake County. She also delves into her doctoral research, which looked into how certain policies have detrimental long-term effects for children who come from diverse backgrounds and poverty.

To listen to the full lecture, visit Chatham County Libraries’ YouTube page.