​Maia Palmer

Celebrating Hispanic Educators in Delaware

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As an educator, I have observed over the years a lack of diversity among faculty and staff. With this project, I aim to raise awareness of this issue, while also celebrating those individual teachers and Hispanic educators that are making a difference in our community here in Delaware. Throughout these collaborative works, I was guided by several inquiries. How can I capture multiple inner perspectives of a person through portraiture? How can I best highlight the disparities between these multiple perspectives – a person’s inner self-reflection versus their outward projection? Through collaborative discourse, how will my understanding of self, their understanding of self, and our collective understanding of societal expectations and norms expand and collapse?

 

These large scale portraits are drawn on paper coated with black chalkboard paint, referencing the didactic methods of teaching used in the past. I am reminded of history lessons in high school with dates, facts, and names written on the chalkboard. Rarely, however, was information about the invisible and silenced members of our culture, such as the African American, hispanic, or other minorities, reflected in those notes. With this project however, participants hand wrote their own personal stories directly onto the chalkboard to share with our community. The latinx population is a group that is often silenced by the voices of the majority; to this end, I want to empower community members to take command of their own stories by sharing them in writing, by taking an active part in the portrait process, and participating in audio recordings. 

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The first iteration of this project was installed at the Delaware Historical Society in October 2023, where visitors could see the artwork and also scan QR codes to listen to each participant's audio recording.

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This is an ongoing project and if you are a Hispanic educator in Delaware and would like to participate, please contact me at maia.g.palmer@gmail.com.

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Click link in each image to listen to

their personal stories.