Although the project, supported in part by the national group Gente y Cuentos, has the primary objective of introducing students to South-American and Mexican literature, the results in a high school in San Francisco where the project went underway were above and beyond the original expectations.

Martha Neves, a librarian in the San Francisco Public Library (Mission District), resolved to establish the Gente y Cuentos program in various high schools with high Hispanic student populations. However, the proposition did not have the response she hoped for. “A program taught in Spanish will not benefit those students focusing on learning English,” said several high schools. An acceptance of the program came from Mission High School teacher Rodolfo Aceves, who got together with a group of students set on learning about Hispanic literature.

Gente y Cuentos provided the materials necessary for the project (the stories, notebooks appropriated for the students) and Neves offered her enthusiasm and time for reading the stories and discussing them with the students. The nationalities of the authors read were as diverse as the nationalities represented by the students in the class: Cuban, Mexican, and Columbian, among others. Authors such as Senel Paz, Isabel Allende, Juan Rulfo, Gabriel García Márquez, Tomás Rivera, were formed a part of the reading list given to the students.

Each week, Neves got together with the course’s general teacher, Aceves, and the students in the meeting room of Mission High School’s library. While she read them a story out loud, everyone listened, interjecting comments or questions inspired by the story. Such were the dynamics. Ultimately, a discussion regarding the story would begin; in such a way, the students not only learned about literature, but came to appreciate their own cultures and those of their classmates to a much greater extent. In every discussion, questions regarding culture and language came up. The students themselves were able to relate to the characters in the stories. Such characters reflected many of the students’ own experiences.

According to Neves, Gente y Cuentos’ program has other benefits than bringing South-American literature to students’ attention. “The students communicated… that it wetted their interests in reading a expanding their knowledge of vocabulary in their native languages. In addition, they enjoyed writing stories, something which they never believed they could do.”

“We master Spanish, which helps us with learning English,” said Jonathan López-Muñoz, a student who moved to the U.S. from Guatemala three years ago. Like López-Muñoz,, most of the students have not been in the U.S. very long since arriving from their native countries; for many, literature was an unknown, almost unreachable realm. Aceves agrees with López-Muñoz’s notion that the program helps students’ learning both languages: English and Spanish. Some scholars of linguistics and acquisition of language skills have found that one’s ability to read in his or her native language transfers to his or her ability in languages learned later.

Seeing the success of the program, which originally was to be comprised of reading a collection of eight stories between September and December 2004, the course has been extended until April 2005. During the final class, the students listened to a reading of a story, but this time a story composed by one of the class-members, rather than a renowned Hispanic writer. A contest was held. Dainiel, Jonathan, and Eduardo were the finalists. Each of them read his own story, and Eduardo was named victor with his work, “Los paisas.” ©

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