![]() “Let me give you a dollar for your story,” he told Escalante that night as a way to symbolically secure rights to make it into a fictionalized project. On the film’s origins Olmos recalled first meeting Escalante in 1982 at a NAACP banquet where they were both being honored with the Humanitarian of the Year and Educator of the Year awards, respectively.įascinated by the professor’s unorthodox teaching methods, Olmos made his interest in bringing the story to the big screen known. ‘Stand and Deliver’ photo courtesy of Warner Bros.Ī timeless staple at schools across the US, the film celebrates Bolivian teacher Jaime Escalante, who in 1982 made headlines for leading his class of low-income Latino students at East Los’ Garfield High School to pass the challenging AP Calculus test. Following the presentation, the actor engaged in an extended conversation with the audience moderated by the festival’s artistic director, Diana Sanchez. Over the course of Olmos’ career, there has never been stronger synergy between his off-screen efforts and a character he’s embodied than in the 1988 classic Stand and Deliver, written and directed by Cuban-American filmmaker Ramón Menéndez.Īttending this year’s Panama International Film Festival (IFF Panama) for a special screening of the movie, Olmos was moved to tears after watching the emotional drama for the first time in many years. He has formed various nonprofit organizations that aim to help Latinos tell their stories in the media. At 72, the living legend is not done planting seeds of opportunity for future generations. It has some rough language and it may not be appropriate for younger children, however, so please watch it with this in mind.For most of his extraordinary life, East Los Angeles’ favorite son Edward James Olmos has stood as a bastion for the advancement of Latinos in the United States. Stand and Deliver is a terrific film and I highly recommend it. ![]() It was his greatest passion, his greatest challenge, and his greatest success to help the students find it within themselves. His experience was the same story Marva Collins had told the schools did not seem to want them to succeed.īut Jaime could see the child who was not yet there. His successes were an affront to the norm. The film depicts the suspicious reactions from the organization that oversees standardized testing that followed his initial success.Īfter these amazing results, year after year, Jaime told me he was hounded out of the LA Unified School District. In one of the lowest scoring schools in California, he was able to support the largest group of AP calculus students ever to graduate from a single school. They went from basic math to Advanced Placement (AP) calculus. They gave up weekends and summers to meet his high expectations for them, which became their own expectations for themselves. He reminded his students of the achievements of their Hispanic forebearers in math and demanded that they come up higher. He was ridiculed by his peers and the administration for thinking the East LA kids could do higher math. ![]() He had the nerve to suggest that they could actually attempt calculus. Once he got into his work, he realized that his tough young students could do far more than was being asked of them. When he arrived at the school, he learned that there were no computers because of lack of funding, and he was assigned instead to teach basic math. Jaime, who originally came from Bolivia, quit a lucrative job to teach computer science in a high school in East Los Angeles. Stand and Deliver tells the story of Jaime Escalante. A brief excerpt is included at the end of this post. Public libraries often have a good selection of films, or you can rent them or even buy your favorites through. The film, which stars Edward James Olmos, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Andy Garcia, is available on Netflix and other venues. He held this vision against the odds of poverty, a broken system and gangs. Here again, no matter what the age of the students, this is the story of a man who could see and hold the vision of what his students could be and do. Film number four is a little different in that it tells the story of a high school teacher. ![]()
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