Community Spotlight: La Colmena and Margarita Sanchez at Wagner College

Each newsletter, we will spotlight the changemakers in our community and this month we are excited to feature a powerful collaboration between La Colmena, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering low-wage immigrant workers in Staten Island and Margarita Sanchez, Professor of Spanish and Director of Integrated Learning at Wagner College. As a Periclean Faculty Leader, Dr. Sanchez teaches “Border Lives: The American Illusion in the XXI Century,” a course exploring humanity, identity, and voting rights through digital storytelling. Collaboratively, Wagner students create videos featuring La Colmena’s young Dreamers as they share their life experiences and how they are connected to voting rights.  After a successful launch in Fall 2023, the course is returning for Fall 2024, inviting students to continue delving into the complexities surrounding the Mexico/US border and the integral role of Latinos in shaping the future of America.

To gain further insights into the impact of her course, we interviewed Dr. Sanchez. She shared her thoughts on the transformative experience for students, the connections made within the community, and how this has informed her teaching. She describes the impact of the community collaborative project in expanding students’ perspectives: “Some of the students in this class (first year students) had very limited experiences with immigrants before going to college. They learned a lot about the experiences of Dreamers  in the United States, about their political expectations, and about their activism with other fellow immigrants in the Port Richmond Community of Staten island. By putting together this Digital Story, some were able to reflect on some of their privileges while others identified with the struggles of the protagonists of the story.” 

However, the benefit was very mutual in that the young immigrants were extremely excited to be protagonists and share their stories to a wider audience. Dr. Sanchez explains that after reading fictional pieces about , “Wagner students started the meetings with in the community, students understood the connections between these fictional pieces they read about immigrants, and the real experiences of young immigrants in New York City. The first hand interactions gave a different dimension to the class. On the other hand, the immigrant protagonists of the digital stories were very glad that college students wanted to learn from and about them.”

We are thrilled to share a video compiling the Dreamer protagonists in their digital storytelling project and their thoughts on voting. Congratulations to La Colmena and Dr. Sanchez for creating a rich learning experience for all involved, and for continuing this partnership in Fall 2024 and hopefully beyond!


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