Spanish 4 has been one of my all-time favorite classes at Darlington. I have enjoyed being in this class so much because I've learned more than Spanish grammar from Mrs. Cleveland. Every day in Spanish class, I always expect to walk out of the class knowing at least one thing that probably has nothing to do with Spanish.
In honor of Black History Month, we learned about “el mestizaje” in Latin America. “El mestizaje” means mixture. We learned about Cubans and Haitians and how they identify with their African culture. Earlier in the year, we also talked about social justice. We had to make a poster about social justice and the theme of my poster was inequality.
Mrs. Cleveland then planned a trip to the Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta for us to be able to research more on our themes. In the end, we would be able to do a presentation in Spanish about our topics. I was very excited to go to the museum because I had never been there and I was ready for the experience. I didn’t expect for the trip to have an emotional impact on me the way it did.
I remember walking through one part of the museum reading about the four little black girls that were killed in 1963 when a bomb exploded during a Sunday morning service in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. Before I got to the end of the excerpt, my eyes were extremely watery and the tears started to flow. At first, I felt very embarrassed because I felt like I was the only one that was feeling all the emotions.
Looking back, I really appreciate being able to go because before visiting I would say I was a little ignorant about the other civil rights movements—and being able to visit really allowed me to learn about new things.
