Lea la versión en español de este artículo aquí.

Dr. Maria del Carmen Salazar is a first-generation college student born in Mexico who migrated with her family to the United States at a young age. Dr. Salazar’s family settled in North Denver, or the “Northside,” as she fondly calls her neighborhood.

As the first woman of color to be tenured and become a full professor at DU’s Morgridge College of Education, Dr. Salazar has taken on the empowering role of a trailblazer for her peers, students and family. She carries the heavy burden of being the only person in the room at times who can speak on the experiences of marginalized communities to create equitable change.

As one of seven children, Dr. Salazar is the only one of her siblings to have pursued higher education, which came with several challenges. For Dr. Salazar, the hardest aspect was navigating higher education with the limited resources she had at her disposal. 

Though she graduated 10th in her high school class, she felt unprepared for the demands that higher education required of her. For her parents, the fear of the unknown and the confusion as to why their daughter would put off working and making money to continue her schooling was hard to understand. As Dr. Salazar went on to obtain her bachelor’s, her master’s and her doctorate degrees, her parents were at every graduation and beaming with pride. 

A love of reading and learning was what motivated Dr. Salazar to reach for the stars and go to college. Though her relationship with education was not easy. In her book, “Teacher Evaluation as Cultural Practice: A Framework for Equitable and Excellent Teaching,” Dr. Salazar chronicles her own educational experiences to connect them with her research.

“In my book, Teacher Evaluation, I have my stories in there. One of those is my first-grade teacher stole my humanity… I was put in a sink-or-swim situation that was English only. I never learned about anyone who looked like me and standard English was the language that we learned. I was completely invisible in the curriculum… [which] led me to push away who I was and feel ashamed of the color of my skin, [my] culture, [my] parents and my native language. It was the erasure in the curriculum. It’s really about the white supremacy that is embedded in our school system,” Salazar said.

A struggle to come to terms with her identity in a system where she was underrepresented and invisible followed Dr. Salazar up until high school when she was able to reconnect with her culture and develop her ethnic identity. Through Advanced Placement Spanish classes and Chicano Studies, Dr. Salazar finally felt seen. 

Before high school, Dr. Salazar felt that academic excellence was the only way to feel seen and validated, yet being a top student did not give her the sense of value she yearned for. Upon embarking on her undergraduate journey, the joy that Spanish and Chicano studies had brought her was quickly replaced by the resurfacing disappointment that white supremacy continues in higher education. 

“I felt that when I got to college, my professors were going to give me this knowledge. It was so disappointing to see white supremacy reinforced in higher ed. I realized I was going to have to do it on my own, learn my language and my history,” Salazar said. 

Paulo Freire’s conceptualization of humanizing pedagogy in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, reflects Dr. Salazar’s own experience with education and has become a central aspect of her work. As a professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Teacher Education at the Morgridge College of Education at DU, she has 38 published works and has given 155 local, national and international presentations on the humanizing pedagogy. 

“The humanizing pedagogy is a way to create consciousness between the teacher and the student, so that it is mutually humanizing but ultimately results in consciousness of inequality and then action to dismantle that to create equity or equality. It’s his [Freire’s] concept, but what I’ve done is build it out, in terms of taking the idea and forming five tenants. Then showing my own stories around that and helping to put it on the ground in my own research. For me, I came to the humanizing pedagogy because I had such a dehumanizing experience in school,” Salazar said.

The humanizing pedagogy validated Dr. Salazar’s educational experience and was an accurate depiction of what she had endured. 

“I finally had the words to say this is what happened to me and to really use research and teaching that is humanizing. So that my research comes across in a way that has impact. The way I teach in higher education is also very intentional in being humanizing and incorporating that into my teaching” Salazar said. 

Amid all the injustice and hardship, Dr. Salazar can find a “silver lining” in her experiences, as it is what shaped her into the successful woman she has become and has led her to be in a position of power to better the experiences of future generations. Tupac Shakur’s, “The Rose That Grew from Concrete,” has transcended into a depiction of Salazar’s journey. 

“That was my experience growing up, there was beauty and there was harshness and it makes me who I am. It’s a source of my resiliency and power. How do we take this dehumanization and continue to humanize ourselves and see it as a source of strength… how can I use the concrete within me to do good and make an impact,” Salazar said.  

The barriers that Dr. Salazar has overcome from being a first-generation college student to becoming the first woman of color to be a tenured and full professor, the first Latina Associate Dean, a Denver Public Schools (DPS) advocate and the lead author on research about the state of the Latine community that was presented to the U.S. Congress in 2018, are a testament to her unwavering resilience, strength and courage. However, these accomplishments were not achieved easily. 

At age six, Dr. Salazar and her family experienced a devastating loss: her five-year-old brother passed away while they were playing hide and seek in Mexico. Troubles at home quickly followed, forcing Dr. Salazar to learn how to code-switch at an early age. Her American schooling emphasized individualist values, while her Mexican culture emphasized collectivism. 

Being an individualist at home came with consequences, ultimately forcing Salazar to become two different children, one at school and a different one at home. Despite the hardship, the success Dr. Salazar has achieved for herself proves a rose can indeed grow from concrete. 

“I tell my children, we cannot help but be great, we have greatness in our blood. Our ancestors are the Aztecs, the Incas and the Mayas. We were astronomers, we were healers, we were engineers, we were educators, we were teachers. Greatness is in our blood. But I had to learn that on my own,” Salazar said.

Once rejecting her ethnic identity and culture, Dr. Salazar now embraces her Mexican and Latine heritage with her work. The fond memories she has amid all the harshness are her treasures that she keeps in her mochila (backpack). Her kindergarten teacher, Mr. Lopez, was the first person to believe in her intelligence and told her she was so smart she could learn in two languages. Her treasures are not limited to memories, but also cultures that have shaped her. 

Growing up in the United States came with many opportunities, as well as added to Dr. Salazar’s identity struggle. In Mexico, she was seen as gringa (white) but in the U.S. she was constantly asked where she was from. The struggle to find a sense of belonging led Dr. Salazar to embrace the idea that she was a citizen from “nowhere.”

“I grew up feeling like I was a citizen from nowhere. But as I’ve had more international experiences and gotten to travel all over the world, it feels like I am a citizen from everywhere. So my mochila has all these treasures that include not only my Mexican culture, but the U.S. culture and global cultures. You learn to add to the treasures and they become very bright,” Salazar said. 

Now going into her 20th year at the University of Denver, Dr. Salazar reflects on the integral influence some of her teachers have had on her, and in turn her children. Salazar will have three college graduates soon- her daughter, a recent DU alumna and two sons currently studying at CU Boulder. In her current leadership positions, Salazar hopes to make equitable changes in the education system at DU, DPS and beyond. 

“Part of believing in yourself is you have to see yourself in these positions. You have to believe you are capable, you have to believe that you have earned it and you have to believe that people will support you along the way,” Salazar said.