Higher Education and Class Mobility in the State of California: “What Is to Be Done?†1

I met Gabriela Macias a few months ago in an undergraduate class in history that I teach to prospective high school teachers. A diminutive middle-aged woman, Gabriela was watchful in class and seemed indifferent to my attempts to reach through her stony silences. But a couple of weeks into the class, I made a breakthrough. We had been discussing the role of passion in education. I had started the discussion by insisting that unless teachers feel a real sense of commitment to the student body and feel passionate about empowering students with knowledge and ideas, they have no business being in the classroom. In retrospect, my statements seemed a little extreme, but it is hard to entice students to enter the teaching profession by the prospect of tests, more state-administered tests, and even more standardized examinations! When Gabriela started speaking, the class fell silent. But it was not her eloquence that silenced us; it was her accent. Her accent was impenetrable! I am troubled by this public admission and even considered omitting this sentence from this essay. As an immigrant from India, I find people often have trouble understanding the stubborn Indian cadences that litter my superficially Americanized speech. But that day we all strained to understand Gabriela.