We fight for a democracy worthy of us all!
This is my final address to the NEA Representative Assembly, and I was able to get through it without crying.
Thank you, Becky and Princess and Kim, and my incredible Executive Committee and the NEA staff who work night and day for you – they moved mountains to bring us together in this historic virtual Representative Assembly and thank you especially to St. Teresa – the woman who makes my life possible. I could spend all this time on a roll call of people I adore. I love them so much; I’ll miss them so much as I head out the door.
This is my last report to you as your president.
And so, it’s also my last chance to also thank the other people I love who have no idea what it is I’ve been doing for the last 30 years. They just know I’m never home for dinner.
I want to thank my boys, Jeremy and Jared. Their spouses, Mike (you heard him singing the national anthem) and Tanna, and Lily Jo, my baby girl.
My Mom, Chillie Pace, is watching on her laptop. She turns 91 this summer and so let me repeat – she’s watching on HER laptop. She’s a tech goddess. And she loves coming to the RA and she wasn’t going to miss this one. She sends her love to all her dear friends out there.
And there is no way to properly thank Señor Jose Alberto Garcia Lozano – my husband. El amor de mis amores, for forgiving me all the times that we couldn’t be together.
Alberto got his Green Card this year! He’s now studying for his citizenship test – and we are studying about what democracy looks like these days in the United States of America.
I have told him for years that the NEA Representative Assembly is the largest democratic body in the world. And he has seen us in action and shouting “aye” and “no” and moving to close debate and “division” and he thinks we’re all nuts. And he’s right. Poco loco.
But he tells me when we get serious, “There is power in your people.”
And again, he’s right. The question is: What are we going to do with it? That’s why we come together. To answer that question. What are we going to do with our power?
Do you know why we chose this year’s theme: Our Democracy; Our Responsibility; Our time? Do you know how it got up there on the screen?
Because it’s all about me. Because somebody called me unpatriotic – for telling the truth. I said in an interview, “America never was America for too many Americans.” It’s from a Langston Hughes poem.
I’m a teacher in my bones. It’s my job to teach the truth. I taught my 6th graders U.S. History that wasn’t in our CONTINUE READING: We fight for a democracy worthy of us all! - Lily's Blackboard
