Possible Lives – Mike Rose

In the reading Possible Lives by Mike Rose, Rose talks about an education and community in Calexico, California. He started out by mentioning that Calexico is a Bicultural city where they speak two languages, the city residents is of 21,000 with majority Spanish speakers. Calexico was originally not a city but a surveying camp with the name of Mexico and California put together. It was until 1908 that it became a city and no longer a surveying camp. Rose then focus on how the schools work together to give kids higher education, dealing with bilingual education programs, and ways of teaching in Calexico that respect their local history.

According to Rose, most families in Calexico are very poor and their income are very low. Most students that graduated from high school continue to either a two or four years college. The students went on to different majors but decide to become teachers then went back to their old school so that they can give the younger generations to get better education. There are also some people who work so they go to school at night. Since the place is small, when there class going on at a certain times, it might seems like there’s no one there.

Rose introduced one girl named Evangeline where she talks about how easy it is for her to keep track of people lives because there’s not a lot. She mention about how people don’t know when they miss home until they actually left home and go back again and that it has a certain smell that only they are familiar with. When students went back to teach at their old school, people would look at them with sort of a surprised expression because time had past by to the point where the students becomes the teacher, yet the teachers who taught those kids are still there teaching and they no longer have the student-teacher relationship but co-workers. The people in Calexico tries to teach in ways that respect their history which some parents still think that it is more important for boy to go to college than girls. How back in the ‘olden days’ girls usually stay with their parents and help them out around the house, eventually be married off, and have fbabies, etc. And boys would go to work, get married, and support their wife and children. Well since time had changed, people ideas changes too, just not everyone’s idea. The people try to prove to their parents that girls need as much education as much as boy so that they would get to go to college and get a better future.

Calexico might not be the biggest city or smallest city but the big thing about this place is they have their own way of doing things that seems to work for them. Even Though they are poor, the people still work together to have a better community for themselves and for the other generations after them. It might not be as fast as lots of people in today society might think, but it’s still work little at a time.