Madelyn Sanchez-Berra volunteering at Red Bank Dog Days in Marine Park last September. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
When the Red Bank Regional High School Board of Ed voted to kill funding for an immigrants’ advocacy group called the Dreamers last August, the student organization’s devastated leaders leapt into action.
Rallying community support, the so-called ‘Dream Four,’ a quartet of young Red Bank women, drew a large audience to the the board’s next meeting, when a second vote restored the funding.
At the Red Bank Community YMCA’s 35th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative breakfast in Long Branch last Friday, club secretary Madelyn Sanchez-Berra of Red Bank read an essay she wrote about the experience. The essay was one of two that the YMCA selected as winners of $3,000 academic scholarships.
Below is Madelyn’s essay.
The “Dream 4” – Madelyn Sanchez-Berra, Selena Martinez-Santiago, Edith Lozano Zane and Bethzy Vera Varela – accepting a proclamation honoring them for their advocacy from Mayor Billy Portman in September. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
From a young age, I had succumbed to the fact that I was different.
It was never very apparent in my elementary and middle school years because I was mostly surrounded by other fellow Latinos.
But when a white man falsely accused me, a naive eight year-old, of stealing his daughter’s bracelet and called me a “dirty Mexican thief,” it became clear that I was somehow unwanted in America, my birthplace, my home. From then on, I developed a complicated relationship with my identity and I became fully aware of the fact that my journey towards achieving my dreams would be difficult.
When I finally entered high school, I locked in to my academics and accepted every opportunity that came my way. I started volunteering at my local library and the local food pantry, I joined several clubs, I started wrestling in my junior year, and I completed two summer internships throughout high school.
I was building up an impressive academic record not only to feel accomplished of myself, but also to ultimately work towards a better future for my family and I, and prove to other people that I wasn’t a slacker or lazy or a thief, common stereotypes for Mexicans.
One club in particular made me feel most welcomed: the RBR Dreamers. In the Dreamers club, I felt safe, I was able to be myself, and my wildest dreams seemed to be at my grasp. I could make it into a selective school such as Cornell University and I could become an electrical engineer. My internal conflict with my identity disappeared whenever I walked into my room. I beamed with pride knowing that I am a Mexican-American, that we have some of the best food, that we are hard working and compassionate and take strength in our independence.
In that classroom, I waved the Mexican flag with pride and shouted ““Sí se puede!” with every fiber of my being.
Then came adversity. In the summer leading up to my last year of high school, the Dreamers club advisor, Ms. Mondaca, informed me and other officers that our club could no longer be considered a club. At a school board meeting that took place on August 16, 2023, a lone vote redefined our club’s status, and until another vote was taken at the subsequent meeting, our club was nothing, zilch, nada.
After hearing the news, I was stunned. It wasn’t like this was an unlikely situation, in fact this has happened before to the club because several parents at my school have a problem with a club that serves as a safe space for undocumented students and their allies. But I was angry because the decision reminded me of the fact that some people will never consider me as an American and therefore, I will always be viewed as something less-than. I had been doing so well, coming to have pride in my identity. And then this comes along.
But the other officers didn’t let that one vote stop us. We decided to speak at the next board meeting and tell our stories in an effort to save our club.
It was September 11, 2023, and I was anxious like never before. What if people judged me? What if the board still voted against our club? What would our members do if the club was dissolved? What would I do to mend my identity?
I stepped up to the podium and angrily read the speech I had prepared. In all honesty, I blacked out and don’t remember saying my speech, but I do remember how hot my cheeks felt as I recited my words and the applause that followed. I realized then that our club had a lot of support, and a couple of people who disagree would not trump over the majority.
When the next vote was taken, all but two people voted to let the Dreamers continue to be a club. We had done it! The RBR Dreamers were saved! The officers and I, along with our supporters, cried tears of joy. We had finally been acknowledged.
For most of my life, I have felt out of place in the world, never feeling Mexican enough or American enough. But this challenge that I was presented with strengthened my confidence in my identity as a Latina, and I feel more welcomed in the spaces I take up. I am a proud Latina who will always stand up for what is right.
Madelyn Sanchez-Berra is a senior in RBR’s Academy of Engineering; a wrestler; a member of the National Honor Society; and secretary of the RBR Dreamers. After graduation, she plans to study electrical engineering at a college she has not yet chosen.
Here’s the program from the YMCA’s event; it also includes the essay by co-winner Anika Samir Ajgaonkar, a senior at Biotechnology High School in Freehold: Red Bank YMCA MLK Program 011224
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