The Sosa-Carrillo House trip

The+Sosa-Carrillo+House+trip

Here at Sahuaro, we are lucky enough to have culturally relevant history and literature classes. These classes focus more on a Mexican-American or African-American point of view rather than just the white or Euro-American point of view. On Wednesday, November 13, 2019, the students from the Mexican American Literature classes when on a field trip to downtown Tucson.
The Turquoise Trail is a bright blue line many of us had probably seen on the sidewalk of downtown Tucson, but most of us didn’t know that is it a giant 2.5-mile long loop highlighting various historic spots in the area. Many of these spots are of Chicano or Mexican origin, seeing as we live in a border town this makes perfect sense. So wanting to further our students’ knowledge of Mexican Americans mark on Tucson’s history while also teaching us about the place we live and making it engaging by taking us out of the traditional classroom, Ms. Krause and her student teacher Ms. Miller, decided to take her students out on a tour of downtown Tucson.

Starting at the Sosa-Carrillo House, we learned a lot about Tucson’s history based on the short tour we got on this beautiful property. We then walked the Turquoise Trail until we reached the Presidio museum and stopped at several of the other places along the trail. Though it looked like the students of the Mexican American lit class just walked around downtown Tucson for 4 hours, the students would beg to differ.  “As we walked around we learned a lot.  We even got to talk to one of the descendants from the Carrillo family that was on our tour of the house,” says Ariullus Strictlin, junior. “We went all over downtown Tucson and I didn’t know that Mexican American culture was that deeply rooted in the Tucson culture. I mean I know that we are a border city and we are right next to Mexico but I had no idea,” said Celeste Marquez, senior.

Every trip that Sahauro students take during the school day is educational, but not all of them bring us as close to a culture that so many of us can identify with. I am lucky to be granted with this opportunity to learn from a completely separate viewpoint than traditional high schoolers and to be exposed to things in your everyday life that change how you view your culture and a culture that surrounds you is truly a moving opportunity.