Tell Me Your Story: Final Reflection

A Cross-Cultural Journey through Language, Identity, and Education

I was born and raised in Costa Rica, in a rural area where nature, community, and language were tightly woven into daily life. My cultural identity was shaped among banana and pineapple plantations, daily family gatherings for coffee, and everyday conversations in Spanish. From a young age, I learned that language is more than communication, it's belonging. Years later, when I immigrated to the United States as a teacher, I began a new chapter in my identity: navigating life as an English learner and teacher, and becoming a guide for students crossing their own cultural and linguistic borders.

This experience taught me empathy and resilience. Like many of my students today, I arrived with hopes and dreams but felt invisible in a system that didn’t fully see me. There were no mentors or cultural maps. I learned by making mistakes and learning from them. That’s why my classroom today isn’t just a place for learning English, it's a space where every home language and story is honored, where students feel they matter. My story as a bilingual educator is one of healing, bridging cultures, and helping others find their voices just as I found mine.

As part of this project, I interviewed my colleague Ali, an educator from Iran, whose story resonated deeply with my own. Ali arrived in the U.S. in 2011 and, like me, came with the hope of advancing his education and supporting his family. Despite early challenges, he earned a master's degree and is eventually completed his Ph.D. in education. He shared how difficult it was to understand the "unspoken" parts of American culture, things like how to reject an invitation politely, how to apologize properly, or even what plagiarism means. That struck a chord with me. I also felt unprepared in those areas when I first arrived. No one explained those cultural details, and yet, they affected everything, from school to friendships.

Ali and I both believe that teaching is more than delivering content, it’s about understanding culture, relationships, and identity. While Ali focuses on research in pragmatics and speech acts, my focus is on building community inside and outside the classroom. I lead after-school programs, meet with families, and create mentorship opportunities for newcomers. But we share the same mission: to create spaces where immigrant students feel seen, supported, and safe. When Ali said, “If you are not culturally competent, there is no way you can create a safe space for your students,” I felt like he was speaking my heart out loud.

Throughout this course, the artifacts I selected for this final project helped me connect theory with the realities I face daily as a multilingual educator. In my Module 2 blog on educational leadership, I reflected on the importance of advocating for culturally and linguistically diverse students and challenging systems that exclude them. This first blog post reminded me that leadership starts with listening and lifting up voices that are often unheard. Also it opened a door for many other posts on this blog that evolved from different assignments from this and other courses. 

My Module 6 proposal to increase evidence-based strategies allowed me to explore how research and data can support effective instruction. It also helped me think critically about how we can strategically use translanguaging and scaffolding to help newcomers develop academic language without losing their home languages or cultural identities.

Finally, my Module 9 community action plan gave me the opportunity to design a parent leadership school that empowers families to be active participants in their children's education. It was inspired by the belief that families carry wisdom that schools often overlook. That artifact grounded my vision in action, reminding me that culturally sustaining pedagogy must include the family, not just the student.

This project as a whole reminded me that my journey is far from over. Whether I'm building curriculum, organizing a family night, or interviewing international colleagues like Ali for my Tell Me Your Story podcast, my goal remains the same: to honor the stories that shape us, and to create classrooms where every student feels they belong. We come from different countries, different languages, and different struggles, but what unites us is the hope to be heard and the courage to keep learning.

Ali said it best:

“Not the system, not the salary. Kids. A teacher changed my life. I want to be that teacher for someone else.”

And so do I.