ODESSA, Texas — As Hispanic Heritage Month rolls along, another member of our community steps into the spotlight.
Dr. Yolanda Salgado is a professor in bilingual and ESL at the University of Texas Permian Basin, a university she has been at for 21 years. A native of Pecos, she calls West Texas home.
"Mesa" means "table," and in the Mesa building at UTPB in the College of Education, you’ll find Dr. Salgado teaching students mostly from Hispanic backgrounds like hers.
“The most I enjoy here are the students," Dr. Salgado said. "You see that through assisting these students and getting them inspired and getting them to complete -- even a four-year degree -- only adds to your community. It makes your community that much stronger.”
For her background, she took the path less chosen – one of education.
“My parents didn’t go through schooling themselves," Dr. Salgado said. "So, they valued hard work, they valued family, they valued stability so those were the kind of things that we were being brought up to be. When we were growing up I worked a lot in the fields and it was hard labor, and I just would always think there’s got to be a better way to make a living.”
Dr. Salgado was the only member of her family to finish high school and she earned her master’s degree from UTPB in the College of Education that she now teaches in.
Her two children are part of Mom's direction.
“As I've created my own family...I've broken that cycle of having us become educated, having us be big contributors of a community [and] having us connect to communities," Dr. Salgado said.
Community is not just a word for the Hispanic culture.
“It’s a very close-knit community, it’s very – not that other cultures aren’t – but I feel that within our culture there [are] certain values that we’re raised with and instilled and we just don’t stray away from those, and so for me it’s that unity that is created among the culture," Dr. Salgado said.
From the fields to the classroom, everyone now has a seat at the "mesa."
“To be able to see that now how we’re becoming a part of this bigger picture that connects the whole world makes me extremely proud of what we have done over the years," Dr. Salgado said. “To be able to see that diversity reflected in my community makes me very proud, because what I see is the little ones coming up can see opportunities."