Revere Public Schools is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with the latest installment of From Where We Come, the district’s storytelling series highlighting the cultures, experiences, and personal journeys that make up the RPS community.
This year’s Hispanic Heritage Month theme, Pioneers of Change: Shaping the Future Together, serves as the backdrop for an episode featuring four members of the RPS community: Vanessa Hogu, a social worker at Beachmont Elementary School; Mary Davies, an ELL teacher at Garfield Middle School; Jaedan Wixon, a Revere High School student; and Jacqueline Monterroso, Revere School Committee vice chair and executive director of Latinos for Education.
Together, their stories explore how Latino and Hispanic heritage is carried through family, food, language, education, and public service—and how those experiences can inspire the next generation to create change.
For Wixon, his Peruvian heritage closely connects him to family and the kitchen.
Growing up, cooking alongside his grandmother and aunt, both of whom immigrated to the United States from Peru, gave him an opportunity to learn about the traditions and foods that connect him to his roots. Those experiences helped Wixon develop a deeper understanding of his identity while also teaching him the importance of embracing the many cultures represented within the broader Latino community.
His message to others is to remain curious and open to learning about cultures beyond their own—whether Peruvian, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran, Ecuadorian, or one of the many other identities represented throughout Revere.
For Hogu, Hispanic Heritage Month is inseparable from her immigrant journey and her commitment to giving back to the community that helped raise her.
Originally from Envigado, Colombia, Hogu immigrated to the United States at age 7 with her parents and older brother. Her family settled in Revere, where she attended Revere Public Schools, eventually graduating from Revere High School.
Hogu recalled that her immigration status sometimes limited the opportunities available to her as a student, but she remained focused on her education. She eventually attended Pine Manor College, earned a degree in social and political science, and received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA—an experience that helped steer her toward a career centered on advocacy and social justice.
Her professional journey included immigration law, work as a victim-witness advocate in Suffolk County courts, and five years as a case manager with HarborCOV. Eventually, Hogu realized she wanted to return to the community where her story in America began.
That journey brought her back to RPS as a school social worker.
“My work at the schools centers around being able to give kids their voice,” Hogu said, explaining that she strives to provide students and families with the kind of support system she wishes her family had while navigating a new country.
At Garfield Middle School, Davies brings another perspective to the meaning of Hispanic heritage.
A proud Mexican-American woman and longtime educator, Davies has served as a teacher, principal, and college administrator. After briefly retiring, she decided her work was not finished and returned to the classroom to work with multilingual students.
Her philosophy is rooted in a lesson passed down through generations of her family: education is a powerful equalizer.
Davies’ grandmother earned a master’s degree in education in the 1930s and became a principal, persevering despite the prejudice she encountered as a Hispanic woman. That example became foundational to Davies’ own career and to the expectations she sets for her students today.
Davies tells multilingual learners that speaking more than one language is an asset, not a deficit. Her goal is not simply to encourage students to dream about college and careers, but to provide them with a roadmap for reaching those goals.
“Be proud of who you are. Be proud of your culture, your heritage,” Davies said, while reminding students that hard work and education can open doors to opportunities they may not yet imagine.
That connection between education and opportunity also runs through Monterroso’s story.
The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Monterroso grew up in a small farmworker community in Central Florida. She recalled rarely seeing teachers, leaders, or mentors who looked like her and experiencing discrimination because of her family’s ethnicity and use of Spanish.
Those experiences ultimately became motivation.
“If I wanted there to be a change one day for people who looked like me, I had to be part of that change,” Monterroso reflected.
She studied political science and international relations and traveled extensively before becoming a kindergarten teacher. Her experiences in the classroom—particularly working with young immigrant students who had experienced detention and family separation—convinced her that educators needed a stronger voice in shaping policy.
That realization eventually led Monterroso from the classroom into education policy and advocacy and, ultimately, to elected office on the Revere School Committee. Today, she sees that work as an opportunity to provide the kind of representative leadership she did not see growing up.
Now a mother herself, Monterroso is also thinking about what it means to pass her heritage to another generation—from cultural traditions and food to the stories and values passed down by her family.
Across all four stories, a common theme emerges: heritage is not simply about where someone comes from. It is also about what they carry forward.
Through the initiative From Where We Come, RPS continues to provide students, educators, and community members with opportunities to share their stories in their voices. During Hispanic Heritage Month, those voices demonstrate how culture and identity can become sources of strength, pride, and possibility.
As the episode concludes, the district encourages the RPS community to honor those who came before, celebrate those creating change today, and inspire those who will follow.
Unidos, Somos Más — Together, We Are More.