Growing up the child of Mexican immigrants in South Los Angeles, Sandra Light statistically was not supposed to make it.
She beat the odds.
Now the Bowling Green Junior High School reading teacher wants to make sure her Latino students beat them, too.
Bowling Green Independent Schools has become one of the most diverse school districts in the state, but even second-generation immigrant children here still face struggles.
The Latino Club is trying to change that - one child at a time.
Light started the junior high school club last year to mentor her English as a Second Language students after she noticed more than half of them were failing one or more courses. But it wasn’t the language barrier that was the problem, she said; it was lack of motivation.
Light started conferencing with the kids individually, calling parents, even making home visits. She discovered something most of the kids had in common: low self-esteem.
“One of the things that happens with Latino kids is they are marginalized,” Light said. “They are growing up in two different cultures. At home, you are expected to follow the traditional Latino culture and be respectful. Your parents depend on you to make the family come through, education is everything. That’s a lot of pressure on these kids.
“Then they come here - especially the girls - and see the American culture where the kids will talk back to a teacher. They see all kinds of things on TV about how the American culture is so much more liberal,” she said. “They want to fit in, but by the same token they know they have to obey their parents. Which culture do they belong to? They’re on the margin.”
Light believes she sees a good ethnic cross-section of the community at BGJHS, which is fed by five elementary schools. “I see the haves and the have-nots,” she said, adding that she used to be one of those “have-nots.”
Like most kids in her old neighborhood, Light’s parents immigrated from Mexico, had only a sixth-grade education and did not speak English. She struggled in school as an ESL student and did not start reading until third grade. She hated school so much that by the sixth grade she had started ditching.
“I would sit in my classroom reading, ‘Jack jumped.’ It was quite embarrassing,” she said. “I hated it with a passion. I was not that ideal student. I think if I was growing up in today’s era, with the attitude and behavior I had then, I would be classified as an emotionally disturbed student. Statistically, I am not supposed to be here.”
A lot has changed for Light since then. She builds on her own experiences to reach out to her students here.
“I know when I came here from L.A. and the military, I was a little rough around the edges, but I had to be,” said Light, who has a master’s degree in education from Western Kentucky University but still feels she has to prove herself because she is a minority.
“I don’t want anybody to say I’m a Latina, so it’s expected. That is the most irritating thing I could ever hear,” she said. “These kids are second generation like me. If I can, I want to ease their pain and not have them go through what I went through.”
Armed with no money, a lot of ideas and wants, a passion for kids and a desire to change the status quo, Light started the Latino Club. Seventy-two kids showed up for the first meeting, which she moved from her classroom to the school auditorium to accommodate everyone.
After struggles with funding, students’ after-school schedules - many have younger siblings they take care of while parents work - and losing members due to transportation issues, the Latino Club was off and running. Dancing, actually.
Light teamed with BGJHS music teacher Shanna Lee to teach the kids a Mexican form of folk dancing called Folklorico. It was a hit. The club then added a communications group and a technology group. With a $600 Learn and Service grant from Community Education, the kids made a documentary about being Latino while they learned about cameras and movie-making.
“All of a sudden, the train was up and running and then it was gone whether I liked it or not,” Light said. “The kids were so excited. It was the neatest thing. They wanted to talk to the mayor, the commissioners, anyone who would listen. They wanted them to know they are good kids. You don’t have to come and arrest us.”
The funny thing was, Light said, the kids did not want to invite anyone to view the film who had to do with law enforcement. She pushed them anyway to invite law authorities, which they eventually did. Warren County Family Court Judge Katherine Rice Holderfield was one of the first to respond.
“It’s nice to see these kids get the attention and recognition they deserve,” Holderfield said. “This is a great thing she is doing because these kids need this club. It helps them become variers for the culture and gives them the confidence they need in their lives and for the future.”
Bowling Green City Commissioner Brian “Slim” Nash also attended the dance performance.
“The neat thing I observed about these students is that they are spotlighting their own heritage while they are learning the norms and culture of the community they live in,” Nash said. “This was the first positive involvement many of them had, kids that would otherwise be withdrawn or not sharing their talent. Instead, they were receiving recognition for who they believe they are. That is powerful.”
A spring presentation by the dance group ended up on Schooltube - a website for sharing classroom videos - prompting invitations for appearances at other community events.
“Before the Latino Club, many of our Latino students were not involved in anything else,” said dance coach Shanna Lee. “It has given them something to feel a part of and an after-school activity amongst people like them.”
The dancers received a standing ovation when they performed for fellow eighth-graders at school this spring.
“There was absolutely no giggling or mocking or anything like that to make fun of the kids,” Lee said. “It was just - respectful. Kids that are never seen on stage in a performance situation, would rarely be the one to stand up in class, were on stage performing and it was just awesome. This is an opportunity for them to show they are not just stereotypical and their culture - whether it’s Mexican, Colombian - is absolutely beautiful. There is so much to show artistically that maybe most people know is there but don’t see and don’t appreciate.”
Then something even more surprising happened, the teachers said: Those low grades Light noticed at the beginning of the school year started going up while disruptive behavioral referrals went down.
More than half the kids in danger of failing had made a turnaround. They all passed, and by the time the school year ended, Light said she noticed those students walking the halls with smiles on their faces.
Eighth-grade dancer Lidia Castillo is not shy about the way she feels.
“We want people to know that we are not what they say we are,” Castillo said. “We’re not dirty Mexicans.”
“We want people to know we are not lazy or drunk all the time and we don’t ride donkeys all over the place,” said Luis Martinez, a student at Bowling Green High School and a Latino Club supporter. Martinez is the eldest of five children and takes care of his little brother, Abisai Martinez, an eighth-grade club member, after school.
The club is a great thing for Bowling Green’s Latino community and kids like his little brother, Luis Martinez believes. It gives them something of their own and provides a community of after-school fun. That is important, he said, “because sometimes everything just stacks up on you.”
Dancer Ana Castillo, Lidia’s cousin and a ninth-grader, wants to see more kids get involved in the club, even kids who are not Latino.
“It helps them see what it is like to learn about other people,” she said. “People judge us because of our appearance. They don’t try to get to know us. They think because we look different we can’t do what they can.”
The girls speak Spanish to one another during lunch and at times like that, a cultural divide sometimes surfaces, said their friend, Jahel Perez, a student at BGHS.
“A lot of times when people look at Mexico, they look at the bad stuff,” she said. “They don’t look at the pretty stuff like the beach, the culture, the dance and the food.”
“Kids will say, ‘You are in America, speak English,’ ” Lidia said. “I tell them I will speak the way I want. Spanish is our first language.”
The support Light and the administration and faculty at BGJHS have given the Latino Club motivates the kids to adapt to becoming bicultural, Perez added.
“I have two cultures and I have to adapt to both,” Perez said. “I have to. That’s just how it is. You shouldn’t feel bad. You are not an alien. You are human.”
The club and the dance group have helped Gerardo Angel become a better student. “It helped me focus on my work and pushed me toward getting more involved at school,” said Angel, a ninth-grader who has joined the chess club.
Things began to change for the kids at home, too, when their parents started getting involved with the club.
Light offered her support to them as well. Like her own parents, she said, many in the community had only a minimal understanding of the educational system and what it takes for their children to successfully negotiate it in preparation for college.
The Latino Club is helping Rachel and Lidia Castillo see that they can grow up not just as accepted, productive members of society, but stay close to their own culture at the same time, said the girls’ mother, Hilda Castillo, who came to Bowling Green 17 years ago from Mexico.
Through Light’s translation, Castillo also said she hopes people will see how well the kids are integrating into American culture and the community.
When she first arrived, Castillo said she felt so out of place that she often cried and begged her husband to go back to Mexico. Her point of view has changed over the years as Bowling Green has grown more accepting of its Latino residents, she said.
But Castillo said she still feels uncomfortable at times.
“People think Mexicans are an additional burden and that we are here to take away jobs,” she said. “That is not what we are about.”
Castillo said she does not want her daughters exposed to that kind of prejudice and the Latino Club is a way for them to feel proud of who they are.
That is what teaching is all about for Light.
“I want to see these students succeed,” Light said. “I want to inspire them in that way because they have to succeed. I don’t want them to be a statistic, so I tell them if they want to pay me back I want three things in return: an invitation to your high school graduation, your college graduation and your wedding. That is all I ask for.”

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