The Reservoir Avenue School in Providence, Rhode Island, where Socorro Gomez is currently the principle. Socorro was born in the state of Jalisco, Mexico May 14, 1951 and immigrated to the United States with her family when she was eight years old. They came to the Coachella Valley where Socorro was ridiculed as one of the only Spanish speaking students in the school. In 1969 she went on to attend California State University at San Bernadino where she became active in the Chicano student group, Movimiento Estudantil de Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA). In 1973 she began teaching in her hometown, Mecca, at the local elementary school. There Socorro joined with other teachers and parents to form the Community Committee for Alternatives in Education (CCAE), a group organized to defend students against teacher abuse and to advocate for educational reform, including bilingual education. Her criticism of the school system led to conflict with the district. In 1995, Socorro moved to Providence, Rhode Island where she became Principal of Alfred A. Lima Elementary, at the time, the only two-way, Spanish-English immersion school in the Rhode Island public school system. Although the district eventually scaled back the TWI program and moved Socorro to the Reservoir Avenue School, she remains a strong defender of bilingual education in Rhode Island.
Powerfully illustrated through the lives of three Mexican/Chicana women - Ramona Medina, Socorro Gomez-Potter, and Yolanda Almaraz-Esquivel - "Educating Change: Latina Activism and the Struggle for Educational Equity" documents a history of Mexican women's migration and activism, and considers its …
