Jaime Escalante in 1983. Photo from the UCLA Archives.
Famed Los Angeles Teacher Jaime Escalante died today, and many people all over the world mourn him. For those who don’t know the backstory, here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia with a link to the rest:
Jaime Escalante was born in La Paz, Bolivia. While living in Bolivia he taught physics and mathematics for nine years. In 1964 he decided to move to the United States. To prepare, he began studying science and mathematics at University of Puerto Rico. Upon moving from Puerto Rico to California Escalante could not speak English and had no valid American teaching credentials. To rectify this he studied at night at Pasadena City College to earn a degree in biology. He took a day job at a computer corporation (Burroughs Corporation), while continuing his schooling at night to earn a mathematics degree at California State University, Los Angeles where he studied calculus under the noted professor Louis Leithold.
In 1974 he began teaching at Garfield High School, in East Los Angeles in Los Angeles County, California. Initially Escalante was so disheartened by the lack of preparation in his students that he called his former employer and asked for his old job back. Escalante eventually changed his mind about returning to work when he found 12 students willing to take an algebra class. (Continued)
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Our friends at Where Eagles Dare have an incredible interview with photographer (and, yes, father of Estevan) Eriberto Oriol that digs into his past, present, and future. Here’s an excerpt and the link:
Eriberto, thank-you so very much for taking the time to do this interview with us. Let’s hear some background and history behind yourself.
I was born in Indio, California but grew up in a community called Varrio Logan which is located in the city of San Diego. It was the most complex community in the state of California because of its heavy industrial waterfront. It was a community that was also split in half by a freeway and fractured by the San Diego Coronado Bay Bridge and surrounded by a military and conservative mentality with great overtones of racism. This was my real playground and which has had a great influence on my artwork to this day. I’ve lived half of my life in Los Angeles and came here to fully develop myself as an artist. I’m not a self-taught artist which I used to run as, although it sounds good, it as also a self centered ego and fake thing at the same time. We live in a world of people that are not in an isolated capsule. Our lives are influenced by many people and by our surroundings.
I have been a photo maker on and off for 30 years or so. I had an absent period for 15 years because I lost interest and wanted to just draw, paint and mess with sculpture. My son Estevan pulled me back into it because he wanted to do a father and son exhibit which took place at Shepard Fairey’s studio/gallery about 5 years ago. I resisted it at first because I didn’t want to look back at what I had shot in the past. Estevan recognized that’s where some of my strongest photos were and he was right. I was just beginning to shoot graffiti and that was becoming my main interest at that time.
