Students of Salinas high schools hope new book will inspire change, address racial adversity

How can we begin to change the world around us? How can we begin creating an understanding of each other when acts of racism are happening every day?

A North Salinas High School teacher and his students discovered these questions can be answered by telling their stories.

The book "Our American Stories: Volume 2" was published by North Salinas, Alisal and Everett Alvarez high school students. In the all-Japanese language collection of stories, students recount the stories of their families' immigration experiences.

The book shares photos and stories of local families of all backgrounds.

Strength in numbers

NSHS junior Carl Sabado wrote the story of the financial disparity his family experienced after coming from the Philippines.

“I saw the difference between families with more money and those who didn’t have any, like mine,” Sabado said. “When I was growing up, we didn’t have the things other people did. I didn’t even want my friends to know how I was living, so I never let them come over."

Ximena Vega, another student in the NSHS Japanese class, held a photo of her parents as she recounted their journey from Mexico to the United States.

Her mother was eventually able to work and get a college education.

Vega says her father, a former farmworker, didn't make the journey without some harrowing incidents, including an escape from immigration officials.

"He just started running and he went into a stranger’s back yard. There was a little boy there,” she said. “They didn’t know each other at all but the little boy allowed him to hide in there with him until the police left. Thanks to that little boy, he became a citizen and was able to have me and my mom and my siblings.”

For Vega, the best part was hearing similar stories from fellow students, like that of Arturo Ordaz Gutierrez.

Gutierrez says his parents also immigrated from Mexico at a young age.

“They didn’t know the language. They didn’t know where to go or what to do,” he said. “I know I’m very lucky to be born here in the United States because a lot of people that go through so much just to provide for their families.”

The students said that stories like theirs are not always talked about, but they are taking steps toward understanding adversity.

“A book like this is really important right now because this really shows what different families have to go through to get where they are now,” Gutierrez said.

True stories come to light

In 2018, former NSHS Japanese teacher Yo Azama and his students published the first volume of "American Stories" to detail the experiences of Japanese Immigrants on the Central Coast.

In the book, Azama wrote: “In the midst of challenging political times, our true stories can get lost in debates.”

Following the release of the first book, Azama was awarded a Civic Innovation Grant by the Monterey County Office of Education and the Dan and Lilian King Foundation.

This allowed for a new book and to expand the project to include stories from students and teachers at other high schools in the Salinas Union High School district.

NSHS Japanese teacher Cameron Chien says the objective of the book is to teach Salinas students lessons that go beyond the classroom, such as empathy, kindness and building a sense of community and understanding.

“Their book actually means something. Their words are powerful,” Chien says. “I hope with this, they can see that they inspire others because what they’re doing here is not only for themselves.”

Chien says students learned that Salinas had once been used as a “stopping point” before Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps during World War II.

Today, Chien and his students reflect on the spike in racially motivated hate crimes across the country, including the recent mass shootings of Black community members in Buffalo, New York, and a Taiwanese Church in Southern California.

“We wrote this book beforehand, but it made us think even more that this is one of the reasons we should put our students and families’ voices out there,” Chien says. “If we can start seeing through other people’s lenses, we can hopefully cut down on these unnecessary tragedies."

The book is sold on Amazon and accessible to everyone. For more details or to purchase the book, click here. 

This article originally appeared on Salinas Californian: Salinas students publish 'Our American Stories: Volume 2'