“Ms. Sucre, I heard you used to eat children.”
This is one of the many statements that Ms. Shanice Sucre, math coach at Kempsville High School, has jokingly gotten from students who are curious about her background. And though these statements are jokes, many people misunderstand the migrant community. Ms. Sucre’s story shows just how personally influential migrating can be, and how, yet, you can still make a difference.
Ms. Sucre was born in Trinidad and Tobago, a dual-island nation in the Caribbean. She moved to the United States when she was 16 years old. Her life has been full of adjustments, both in her personal life and her professional life.
“I just had to adjust my mindset”, Sucre said. “I had to remember that some things, the way I do some things in the Caribbean may not necessarily be how its done here.”
Another thing that Ms. Sucre has had to adjust is the way she speaks. Though her words are extremely important and inspiring, they may sometimes be difficult to understand.
“It isn’t a different language, but its a form of a language barrier to some people,” Sucre says.
Because of her life of adjustments, Ms. Sucre is an inspiration to not only every teacher and student that she interacts with, but to the migrant community in particular.
Ms. Sucre, though she pursued higher education in the U.S., has had to self teach a lot of the material that she teaches to students now. Subjects like Geometry were taught in a different way in Trinidad than it is taught here in the U.S.
“I didn’t take geometry in college, the last time I did geometry, I was still in the Caribbean” Sucre said. “ So when I taught, before I taught geometry, I had to go and learn over the American way, learn how to do this and how to explain.”
Ms. Sucre has a very humorous personality. Many times, people label her with the “crazy caribbean” stigma.
When asked about this, Sucre said, “I play into that background, honestly.”
She continued, “Some people are like,‘Oh you know, Caribbean people, they say this.’, I play into it. I’m like, ‘Yep, we’re crazy.’”
She jokes with her students by using extreme exaggeration when asked about some customs and traditions back home.
“Ms. Sucre, I heard you used to eat children.” “Yep, we used to eat kids.” I would joke with that because it helps build relationship[s].”
Ms. Sucre doesn’t see these connotations in a negative way, but rather in a way to “educate the kids” about her culture. She wants people to know that all cultures have their stigmas, and that people should be more aware of them.
Ms. Sucre is now exclusively working as the math coach at Kempsville. Along with that, she was working in the classroom as an interim math teacher.
With her new schedule, however, came plenty more adjustments.
“some days it felt like I was doing double the workload, which I kinda sorta was, but I adjusted.”, Sucre says.
But in a life of adjustments, this is only a small change for such an inspirational figure.
From migrating from Trinidad, to a slight career change, Ms. Sucre’s professional and personal life has been full of adjustments, and this has inspired others to “roll with the stride”, like she has.
