Meet Pancho Montego
Pancho Montego is a fictional character born from the heads of my students to represent their ideal presidential candidate. His life story leading up to running for president was so interesting and I thought, in light of Obama, I would share this story – cause it rocks!
Meet Pancho Montego…
Pancho Montego was born in south central Los Angeles to Maria and Juan Montego. Maria and Juan had immigrated to the United States to provide a better life for their growing family. They had two children before they moved to the U.S. and then had five more children over the course of their lives here in the states. Pancho was child number three and had a very hard time growing up on the streets of L.A. Pancho fought a lot and was expelled from his elementary school. His older sister helped homeschool him until he entered junior high school. He realized fast that he wanted a better life and the only way to do that was to focus on his grades and stay out of trouble. His involvement in gang activity was inevitable, but Pancho knew he would someday move far away and would not have to deal with the gang members again. After graduation from high school, Pancho moved to northern California and attended a community college while working full time. After two years he was accepted to Stanford University and graduated with a masters in political science.
*Of course you have to remember these are high school students who are not savvy on the whole political scene.*
Pancho Montego was first elected into office as the Mayor of Los Angeles and then as Governor of California. He then took time off to tend to his family and his ailing parents. He lost his father and then ten years later lost his mother to cancer. His children grown and his parents gone, Pancho realized it was the right time to run for president. Pancho had so many awesome views for his America and the changes he could bring. Pancho covered Global Warming, the War, Welfare, Child Care, Health Care, Immigration, family values and a few other great points in his speech to the Government class.
It was truly an awesome moment and my students presented Pancho Montego proudly. The class loved their presidential candidate and cheered for him. It was wonderful. I was very proud of them and everything they came up with. They are both Hispanic and they reflected and created Pancho Montego with what they know. They put things into Pancho’s life that are important to their life. They brought to his campaign the things that they would like to see in their own personal worlds.
It was a fun and entertaining lesson that I had an honor being a part of. Almost every candidate the class created was someone American-born but whose parents immigrated from another country. I believe the overall winner of two classes combined was of Polish decent. Another candidate was African and another was Jewish. We did have a few women and in the end it was the Polish candidate against a woman candidate. The deciding factor came when a student asked the candidates at their debate, “What is your favorite historical moment?” and the woman candidate could not answer the question at all. The students voted as if each one of them were a state and at random each student pulled a card with the state’s name and the number of electoral votes on it. When called upon the student stood, said the state name they represented, gave their deciding vote and the number of electoral votes. It was really a lot of fun!
I do hope that someday there is a real Pancho Montego presidental candidate – cause I’d vote for him!
November 16th, 2008 at 9:53 am
That was great! This election got so many young people out to vote. After the last 8 years so many people want the Country to go in a different direction. Your students want to participate in the direction of their future. You should be proud of them!!!