Creating Spaces of Affirmation and Accountability with David Emmanuelle Castillo
When David Castillo conducts professional development focused on creating culturally responsive, equity-driven school experiences for Black and Brown students, he challenges educators to ask four questions about their school communities:
Are you affirming young people?
Are you building and bridging them to navigate a world that will dehumanize them at every turn?
Are you making them feel like they belong?
Are you validating them?
“You have to answer yes to all of those,” says Castillo, sharing his take from behind the wheel as he drives a mentee to a job interview. “If your school program or system is not answering yes to all of them, guess what? I know a space that is. It’s the streets.”
Castillo isn’t just speaking from his decades of experience as a teacher, community leader, and professor of education at Carthage College. His life’s work is greatly informed by his lived experience as a Chicano growing up in the barrio of Los Angeles, California. Raised in a predominately Mexican neighborhood, he found himself “waist-deep” in gang life during his early teen years as he navigated the trauma of years of separation from his father due to incarceration alongside the loss of his paternal grandmother, among other things.
Unfortunately, school brought more alienation than acceptance. Still, David would attend and succeed in the classes where he felt respected by his teachers, an early lesson that he would pass on to educators later in life. “I’m going to go where I feel seen,” Castillo reflects, “and the streets gave me a sense of community when no one else did.”
While his personal journey made a pivot in the right direction after he moved in with his older brother who was studying at University of California, Irvine, his rocky path makes him acutely aware of the humanity that people carry, regardless of current circumstance. Castillo shared, “Having navigated the streets to being on the other end and now navigating ‘the institution,’ I can honestly say I see more humanity in the eyes of those just getting by.”
Today, Castillo is a member of the We Will All Rise community, serving as Program Manager for I Can Teach in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This innovative initiative introduces young men of color ages 18-24 to careers in public education through a thoughtfully designed curriculum and outstanding mentorship that supports their social, emotional, and academic development. The young men’s professional skills are developed in a setting that fosters meaningful connections: the kindergarten classroom. Fellows work alongside experienced teachers to support the learning of 4 and 5 year olds.
Castillo is perpetually inspired by the mutual benefit gained by Fellows and their students. “There is just something about having the presence of a Black or Brown male at the kindergarten level. It means a lot to the kids. They just love our Fellows,” says Castillo, remembering a recent time when one of the young men in the program was absent from the predominantly Latino classroom where he works. “The kids kept asking, ‘Where is Amir? Where is Amir?’ Amir is a safe space for many of them.”
Out of their hands-on work developing children’s literacy and numeracy skills and serving as a relatable role model, some of the Milwaukee Fellows have chosen to pursue teaching as a career. However, Castillo and the All Rise team define success much more broadly, as even those Fellows who have opted into other fields carry transferable skills into those professions. They also take the cumulative learning of their time with Castillo, whose philosophy of mentorship is rooted in access and accountability. “I tell them, ‘I’m your guide on the side. My job is to give you access to resources and opportunities. What you do with them is up to you.’”
Castillo’s rigorous compassion is accompanied by a pride in self that he seeks to model for the youth he serves. He wants young people to be fully prepared to meet the moment in spaces where they may not have initially felt comfortable, and he wants them to know that they can show up as their authentic selves. In his late teens when he moved from Los Angeles to Irvine, Castillo faced people every day who didn’t believe in his brilliance and sought to label him based on his background. Once, as he biked to school, David was stopped and searched by a policeman who asked him to open his backpack and reveal what was inside. David unzipped the bag and, with a smile, produced a copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. This experience plays in his mind as he sends a message to his college students, speaking at events on campus absent a suit and tie, and with his tattoos on display: “You belong in these settings. Don’t let anyone make you think otherwise.”
