A native of Cuba, Lourdes Monteagudo began her career as a kindergarten teacher. As she rose through the teaching ranks, she moved to the forefront of the school reform movement. In 1983, she became the outspoken principal of Sabin Elementary Magnet School. Last year she became the city`s first deputy mayor for education, a post that soon drew her into controversy. Monteagudo, 33, who is divorced and has three children, says she approaches her job
”always from the perspective of a mom.” Recently she talked with TempoWoman writer Leigh Behrens about the influence of her immigrant roots and her commitment to reform.
I was a young child-6 years old-when I left Cuba. My parents had decided to give up their life there and come to a new land because of what had happened during the revolution and (Fidel) Castro`s regime. I saw my parents- who were comfortably settled in a society that had been very kind to them-decide, because of principles, to do something as stressful as picking up with nothing except a couple of suitcases, and leaving, to come to a country that had a different language, all kinds of unknowns, all kinds of risks.
We were four children then, and this is something that has always stayed with me as one of the reasons why I am the way I am and I do what I do: my father`s influence in believing in something enough to do whatever it took to make it happen.
I remember the day that my father made the decision, after one of Castro`s speeches. It was a moment of crisis in the neighborhood because my parents had a corner lot and everyone in the neighborhood would come to my home to listen to Castro`s speeches, so it was more like a town gathering when Castro would speak.
We children were sort of frozen to our chairs; we were aware that something was wrong. They were starting to talk about having to leave, and how that would happen, people maybe getting killed for doing it. I remember a lot of faces full of fear. And at the same time feeling we had to be very courageous and had to face it.
My father left Cuba before we did. He was a very controversial figure, speaking out against (repressive) government policies. Also, doctors and all medical people-my father was a pharmacist-were not given permission to leave, because so many wanted to go. My father thought we`d have a better chance of leaving without him with us, so he fled first.
I remember being awakened about 2 o`clock in the morning and there were soldiers around my bed, searching through the house-I remember that as if it were yesterday. That was the last I saw of my house. We were thrown out and went to a neighbor`s house and waited there until the daylight to board a plane.
We landed in Miami and waited for my father to arrive from Texas where he had been relocated as a gas station attendant. When he got to Miami, his legs were pitch black. He had gotten a fungal infection because refugees were given jobs, but not clothes or supplies or money for medical attention. Because he was a pharmacist, he knew what medicine he needed, but had no money to buy it or go to a doctor. It was almost to the point of gangrene. But in Miami, he did get some medical attention.
Then we left to go to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and he became a pharmaceutical salesman there because they would not accept his credentials from the University of Havana. My first house there was owned by a church and had been closed up. A friend gave us a television so we would have something to do, but if the lights were turned off, little mice would come to watch with us, because they`re attracted to the (TV) light. My father and mother were used to having a nice comfortable home, and here there was no furniture, no nothing.
My mother put a suitcase in the dining room, covered it with some diapers that were for my brother, and this was the new table. This was where we were eating. I saw my father cry for the first time, because of the change. Can you imagine, all of a sudden uprooted, you have to begin again, and you don`t really know how to do that?
My father has been a big influence on my life. Even though I have seen him struggle, I also saw a man who, because of what was happening, had to make some very hard choices. I saw a frustrated man, for in the rebuilding of that life he could not continue taking the same risks in speaking out that he had taken until then. We were five kids then, and he needed to worry about us. He`s a very caring man who really believed if you really wanted peace, you needed to seek justice.
After 5 1/2 years there, in 1967, my father wanted to go back to the mainland (U.S.) because he wanted us to have the opportunity to learn English and go to school there. He also wanted to be a pharmacist again. Illinois, North Dakota and South Carolina were the only three states that would allow a pharmacist from Havana to have a period of internship and then take his licensing test again. I was 12 1/2 years old when we came to Chicago. By the time we left San Juan, we had a nice little house in what would have been considered a nice little suburban community. Then we landed in this building on the North Side that again had so many mice that they would come and watch television with us.
My mom is the antithesis of my dad in many ways. She has been as much an influence on me as my dad. It`s been sort of a balance. She is very down-to-earth, very pragmatic about life. My father is the idealist. She has always been the stength behind my father, coping with the realties of life. The strength I have is probably a little bit from both. I tend to be very idealistc, and also I tend to be real pragmatic when I need to be.
My mother was a person who understood things. She understood our need (as children) to explore, to not follow rules. She was our co-conspirator. She was probably the best teacher I ever had. She always knew how to take a moment of confusion and turn it into a moment of understanding.She works now as a teacher`s aide in a special education school.
My mom would always say, ”Go to school and listen to everything, but just remember that your best teacher and your best years of learning will be in the `university of life.` Keep yourself open to that.”
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I left Puerto Rico an honor student-my father had been told that I should go into a gifted program. Then, I got here and at the end of that school year, my father was told I was retarded. I had been given an IQ test two weeks after I got here-in English which I barely understood-and I got a borderline score. My father sat me down and said ”you`ve got to forget about that stuff because they just don`t understand. You`re going to have to go through a time when you`ll have to show them that language is not really a problem.” (With the help of a teacher, she quickly learned English and was valedictorian of her high school graduating class.)
I always liked being a tutor to other kids. I had my mother`s gift of being able to take something that seemed real hard and making it easier for people to understand. Because really you never teach anything, you just help people understand. The understanding has to come from within. I saw the frustration of some of my classmates when they didn`t understand the teachers and I would sort of break it down for them, and translate it so they could understand it. It felt so good to be able to do that, that I thought maybe I would be a teacher.
I think I was tapped for my current job because the mayor (Richard M. Daley) was looking for a person who would not have politics as his or her primary concern, someone who understood education, the involvement of parents and the need for involving communities in revitalizing the schools.
He had requested that the people working as leaders of the school reform movement meet with him and I was part of that group. He asked, ”What could the mayor do for education?,” especially because he would have only two years.
I thought of what people in the neighborhoods would need, what the schools would need, and said, ”What you can give people is hope, a lot of hope that you will take the heat for some major decisions that have to be made, that people are not going to like, that you have to give official permission, that this is right, and it`s for the good of all that we do this. Then you must use the power of the mayor`s office to bring together people that usually are not together. . . . You can open doors for people that would not have access to them.”
After that he asked me if I would consider being the deputy mayor. I had already been the rabble-rouser from within. I knew the system, I was a parent, I was a teacher. And I said, ”This is something I might be able to use to help all these other parents, all these other teachers, and tell them that it`s OK to challenge the school system, and it`s OK to go in there and say what you have to say so that your child has a better chance of succeeding.”
The controversy over my daughter going to North Shore Country Day School happened when a reporter-who already knew she went there-asked me about it, which, by the way, was not a secret. Quite a few people knew. I made that decision before becoming deputy mayor, because you have to sign school contracts almost a year in advance. She wanted to go to that school because it was a small school that provided the type of adult-child relationships that I feel I would want for every student in the Chicago schools. . . . She had made the decision and it was done.
The reporter said, ”Does your daughter go to the North Shore Country Day School?” I said, ”Yes she does.” And he said, ”Well, wasn`t there any school in the city good enough for your daughter?” I said, ”She applied to some schools and did not get accepted to the schools of her choice, and this was her choice.” That statement was turned into a headline: ”No school good enough for her daughter.” But basically, that had been his question to me.
I felt that even though I understood the controversy that people tried to make around it, I am not in this office to be a cheerleader for the school system. I am a cheerleader for changing the school system.
I think that situation actually has given me more credibility in this city, and continues to do so because from it also came a whole bunch of positive feedback-people saying, ”Continue to say the things that should be said”-even though I hadn`t really said it the way that it was said that I had. I feel even stronger now that the people of the city of Chicago do not want to be given the runaround about their schools.
When the mayor asked me whether I would be the deputy mayor, I said I could do it, but my daughter`s going to a private school and it`s in Winnetka and if that`s going to be a problem, then I can`t do it because I will not change the position that we have taken as a family. He felt that was fair.
I still had two children in the Chicago schools. And that daughter had been in Chicago schools since she was 3. It`s just too bad that she could not have gotten a placement in the Chicago schools that could really serve her at that time, that she felt she could have a good experience at.
Even though this job isn`t always easy, what fuels me is the belief that the individual involvement of citizens can make a difference. This nation was built on principles of some great people who were immigrants way back then. One is that the government is of the people, by the people and for the people, and unless people get into it and and do something, things will just be the way they are.
That gives me a tremendous impetus. Basically I`m sort of taking my place in that continuum of immigrants who really would like to continue making this the greatest country in the world.
I think people don`t understand how well we`re doing with school reform because the media put it in a crisis context. But now with (the local school councils) you have more minds involved in looking at problems, building networks, being concerned. And you have tremendous creativity in how you`re going to deal with problems, and make things better for children and teachers. There have been some mistakes made . . . but when you look at the balance of it, I think the local school councils are magnificent.
Envision a popcorn machine. You have all these little kernels of corn, each a little school. The city should be expecting them to start popping. Popping from one place, popping from the other, sometimes controversial . . . but also popping with new ideas, new initiatives. That is what the city should expect.