Investing in the Teachers Who Reflect Our Communities

(8 Minute Read) — On a foggy October morning at Western Oregon University, the air outside felt still and damp while the maple trees along Monmouth Avenue glowed in deep gold. Inside the Richard Woodcock Education Center, the tone felt different. It was not festive or formal. It was reverent. Expectant. Quietly powerful. The fourth annual Coffee and Connection gathering hosted by Unitus Community Credit Union was beginning, and the room felt ready to witness possibility in motion.

Six scholars from the Unitus cohort of the Bilingual and Diverse Teacher Scholars program had taken their seats together. They arrived not as guests of honor, but as future educators already carrying the promise of what Oregon classrooms could become. Each one represented lived experience, cultural fluency, and the kind of purpose shaped not by ambition, but by responsibility.

Araceli Cruz, Assistant Vice President for Global Diversity and Inclusion at Portland State University, welcomed the scholars with language that did not simply acknowledge them, but affirmed them. She told them, “You are proof that our stories, our accents, and our identities belong in every educational space.” She spoke of what happens when educators and students connect not only through instruction, but through shared humanity — building what she called networks of care, mentorship, and wisdom that live far beyond a single classroom. Then she offered a simple truth that did not land as inspiration, but recognition. “We are our ancestors’ wildest dreams.”

Her words resonated; you could feel the quiet shift when something is named that has been deeply understood long before it was ever spoken aloud.

Her words carried a deeper resonance because this moment was not happening in isolation. Across Oregon, more than four in ten K-12 students come from ethnically or linguistically diverse backgrounds. Yet fewer than 15% of their teachers share that lived experience. For many children, the person at the front of the classroom has never once reflected their home language, their family’s story, or their cultural reality. The Bilingual Teacher Scholars program was created to change that.

Unitus chose not to simply sponsor education, but to stand inside the solution. Rather than funding broadly and hoping impact would follow, they invested intentionally in eight bilingual scholars. Students who are not only earning credentials but carrying forward the kind of representation that can transform an entire child’s sense of belonging in school.

That purpose lived clearly in the voice of scholar Evelyn Estrada. Now a senior preparing to become an elementary school teacher in Woodburn, she described the moment her own life was changed by representation. As a child, she had moved from California to Oregon after attending English only schools. In first grade, she met Ms. Moreno, a bilingual teacher who did more than help her transition academically. “Her support was everything to me,” Evelyn said. “From that experience, my goal is to make sure every student feels supported and seen.”

She was not describing ambition. She was describing memory; one so powerful it became direction.

She did not speak as someone imagining her future from a distance, but as someone shaped by what a single teacher’s belief can do. It was a reminder that the impact of a bilingual educator is not academic first. It is human. It is belonging. It is the moment a child stops feeling lost and starts recognizing themselves as someone who is meant to be here.

It is this kind of transformation that the Bilingual Teacher Scholars program was designed to protect and multiply. Unitus chose to invest not only in degrees, but in identity. In the lived power of representation. This was not a philanthropic gesture made at a distance. It was a commitment to ensure students like Evelyn are not rare exceptions, but the beginning of a new standard in Oregon classrooms — where language and culture are not barriers to overcome, but strengths to carry forward.

That shared sense of purpose echoed again through scholar Alessandra Cervantes Ramirez, a senior pursuing Spanish education for middle and high school. She shared that she moved to the United States alone at fourteen. “This scholarship is not just financial support for me,” she said. “It is an investment in my future.” It was not spoken with pride, but with gratitude. Not relief but resolve.

Unitus did not arrive at this work by accident. The decision to invest in a dedicated cohort of bilingual scholars was intentional and long term. It emerged from listening to education leaders and recognizing that real change would not come from temporary grants or symbolic sponsorships, but from standing beside students early in their journey — and staying. The commitment was not to create opportunity alone, but to ensure these scholars would be seen, supported, and never left to navigate the system in isolation.

This is why the morning felt different from a scholarship ceremony. There was no distance between the institution and the students being celebrated. The tone suggested partnership, not charity. Continuity, not transaction.

That spirit came into even clearer focus when Unitus President and CEO Steven Stapp addressed the room. He did not speak in abstraction about community impact. He spoke from lived inheritance. Reflecting on Araceli’s words, he said, “You said we are our ancestors’ wildest dreams,” before adding, “I stand here, and I am the wildest dream that my ancestors had.” He shared that his family’s story began in Spain, moved to the Hawaiian sugar cane fields, and eventually to California’s Central Valley. He carried that memory not as sentiment, but as obligation — a responsibility to make sure doors now remain open for those still coming forward.

He made clear that Unitus’ involvement in this program was not symbolic, seasonal, or optional. “We have never wavered on our support for this program,” he said. “We stand with you not just through this journey here in college, but through your education career.” It landed not as applause, but as a promise.

That idea of legacy — of one educator lighting the path for another — carried through in the voice of scholar Addison Berry. Now in her third year and pursuing language arts education with a focus on Spanish, she spoke about the teacher who first made her believe she could lead a classroom. “My seventh-grade social studies teacher, Mr. Pergoso, made every student feel like they belonged,” she said. “Students who did not even like school could not look away during his lessons.” She hopes to carry that same presence forward. “I want to have that kind of impact on my future students.”

Her words were not about instruction. They were about aliveness. About witnessing what is possible when a teacher does not demand attention but earns connection.

Listening to these scholars, it became clear that each one held a distinct vision of what it means to lead. Some spoke from memory. Others from responsibility. Some from the power of being seen. Yet the common thread in every voice was not ambition, but service. Teaching, for them, was not a profession to enter. It was a role to inhabit. A way of carrying forward the care that once made them feel possible.

For scholar Jose Contreras, that calling came from recognizing what it means to be understood. Now in his first year after transferring from Chemeketa Community College, he shared that the teacher who shaped him most did not just teach content. He shared lived experience. “I want to foster students’ cultural backgrounds,” he said. “I want to be that bridge, so students can show their true identity and feel supported.” His words did not reach toward the future. They reached back — toward students who might otherwise feel alone in a system that was not built with them in mind.

What emerged through voices like his was a quiet but unmistakable truth. These scholars were not aspiring to teach despite who they are. They were preparing to teach because of who they are. Their identities were not context to work around. They were the very source of how they would lead.

For Monce Alvarez Hernandez, currently in her third year preparing to teach early elementary students, that identity was rooted in the memory of her own first grade classroom. She remembered her teacher, Mrs. Wentzik, not for softness or ease, but for unmistakable devotion. She described her as firm at times but deeply invested in her students’ growth. What stayed with her was not instruction, but care. The kind that imprints itself on a child and remains present long after they leave the room.

Western Oregon University alumnus and Woodburn School District Superintendent Juan Larios spoke directly into what these students were preparing to carry. “You are on a journey to become an educator, a teacher, and a bilingual teacher,” he said. “You are about to impact the lives of countless students and countless generations to follow them. Because that is the power of education. It changes lives.” It did not land as encouragement. It landed as direction.

It is that kind of care — personal, rooted, and sustained — that Unitus has insisted on honoring. Their investment in these scholars was never about transactions or milestones. It was about ensuring that future educators would not have to silence parts of themselves in order to belong. That is why this program is being recognized by the Portland Business Journal for innovation in philanthropy. Not for writing a check, but for choosing to accompany. For practicing a model of support that treats identity as irreplaceable, not incidental.

As the morning came to a close, the fog outside began to lift. The light through the windows shifted from muted to clear, as if the day itself had moved forward. There was no applause. No formal conclusion. It was not needed. What had taken place in that room was not performance. It was alignment. A shared understanding that the future of education in Oregon will not be defined by who adapts best to the system, but by who is empowered to lead it as their full and unfiltered selves.

The scholars walked out not with expectation, but with authority. Authority to teach with pride. To stand in classrooms as culture keepers. To reach students not by instruction alone, but by affirmation. Because they knew now, fully and without hesitation, that they were not stepping into this work alone. They were carrying the future forward with the weight of their communities beside them. It was not simply a celebration of who they are. It was a declaration of who they are becoming — and of the generations who will rise because they did.