I wasn’t expecting to find hope in a high school hallway. 

Late last week, I had the honor of capturing senior portraits for the Liberty High School senior class. 

For those of you who don’t lose yourself in the deep recesses of New York State Department of Education demographics (what? doesn’t everyone?), a little background: The majority of Liberty’s student population is Hispanic, and about 15% of the students are multilingual learners.  

I studied French as a small child and again in college, and I took several years of Spanish in high school. With few opportunities to practice either in the years since, my language muscles have atrophied. What I haven’t completely forgotten has become a mishmash of the two languages. As I told one senior apologetically, “mi espanol es crappy.” 

Fortunately, many of the bilingual kids — high school seniors are still kids — stepped right into the adult role of translating my English (and butchered broken Spanish) for their peers. 

I didn’t even need to ask. There was no hesitation on their part, no needing to be convinced. They saw their skills could help their friends, so they put them to work, adeptly translating my English directions to “tilt your head to the left” and “drop your shoulders” into their Spanish versions. 

These kids were my heroes of the moment, speaking two languages to my one to help me communicate with their friends so I could better do my job.

There is plenty of science out there that can speak to all that bilingual people bring to the world with brains that have better working memory and concentration skills than the 75 percent of Americans (myself included) who are monolingual. For an employer, these are valuable skills to have.

But as child after child stepped into the role of translator, I wasn’t thinking of their employment prospects. 

I was hearing them play out their role in building community and fostering a sense of unity. 

I was watching them build a bridge between myself and children still developing their English language skills, while at the same time watching them kick open doors for those children to better access the English-speaking world. 

There in a high school hallway, I was bearing witness to a power within this next generation to build up, rather than tear down. 

That alone gives me hope.