{"id":339,"date":"2023-04-26T22:22:10","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T22:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/djam.biola.edu\/triunfo\/?page_id=339"},"modified":"2023-04-30T08:27:12","modified_gmt":"2023-04-30T08:27:12","slug":"profile-guadalupe-toumayan-mireles","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/djam.biola.edu\/triunfo\/index.php\/profile-guadalupe-toumayan-mireles\/","title":{"rendered":"Profile: Guadalupe Toumayan-Mireles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From the Ranch to Harvard<\/em> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Words and Photos by Monica Salazar-Jimenez<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Al final del d\u00eda, podemos soportar mucho m\u00e1s de lo que pensamos que podemos.<\/p>\nFrida Kahlo<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Guadalupe Toumayan-Mireles is a Latina with a doctorate from Harvard. She has worked\u00a0 at Santa Monica High School since 2006 as a Spanish teacher.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early Life<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Toumayan-Mireles grew up on a ranch in Atotonilco, Mexico, a one-hour drive from Guanajuato. She was the youngest daughter of five. With her dad, she would go milk the cows at dawn for breakfast. As her first job, she would carry the corn from the mill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toumayan\u2019s father joined the Bracero Program which was when the U.S. \u201cpermitted millions of Mexican men to work legally in the United States on short-term labor contracts.\u201d  Her father went to the United States and left her mom and sisters behind. There were small planes that would pass with the fertilizer and fall on all the farm workers. Her father told her that what he earned from working they would take out what he ate and his rent. The little he had left he would send to her and her sisters in Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her father passed away after three weeks of coming from the United States. Her family had to move to Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico which was the city. Toumayan describes it as having culture shock and assimilating into her own country. Since she came from living on the farmland to the capital city, she had to learn how to be accepted. She changed her accent and began to study and find that stability in her life. She had never gone to school until her sisters pushed her to always study. Then tragedy struck, again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On September 19, 1985, an earthquake happened in Mexico. It struck Mexico City and shook everyone. She remembers that they canceled classes and work for more than three months. Toumayan was sad that she was not able to go to school. Her family decided to move to the United States so that they could all learn English and become bilingual. This opened up more job and school opportunities for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toumayan and her family ran through Tijuana and were not able to speak about the things that happened at the border. All she could say was \u201cthe horrible things that happen at the border.\u201d When they arrived in the United States her older sister made sure that her only focus was education. Toumayan loved what she was doing in the United States and then decided to not go back. The way she helped was by staying here and studying and then sending money to those in Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toumayan enrolled at Santa Monica College to study English. When she enrolled in her class the professor thought that she was an idiot because she did not understand the English language. The professors always asked her for clarification but thought just because \u2018Latinos\u2019 speak Spanish that she was considered ignorant. This gave her the desire to overcome her challenges, in this case the language barrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She continued studying and transferred to California State University Northridge. She loved studying and loved education and she couldn\u2019t show it because of the language barrier.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was wrongly interpreted that she didn\u2019t want to study because of said barrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tounayan was studying for her master’s in education. She was finally able to show that she was not dumb or an idiot as others felt and her self-esteem grew.\u00a0 She said she would give presentations \u201cque hay Dios,\u201d they were the hardest ever.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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