Jeff Matsumura has been teaching English at Roosevelt High School, where 826LA operates a Writers’ Room, for thirty years. He knows the community of Boyle Heights well, and has worked with his fellow teachers and administrators to shape goals for students’ education. 

“Kids don’t speak up,” he observes. The pandemic only exacerbated an ongoing issue. “On Zoom, no one had their cameras on. It was crickets ninety percent of the time. Public speaking, even on Zoom, didn’t happen. Writing was the one way to be able to communicate. It was how we learned more about the students and what they were going through. From a social emotional standpoint, writing became the only way to learn about their plans.”

Jeff Matsumura

This fall, 826LA worked with Mr. Matsumura and his students on a Life After High School Unit, which included a college preparatory component. Volunteers specially trained in the art of writing personal statements for the UC’s, Cal States, and private schools, coached students from the brainstorming stage through editing. 826LA also held a two-day seminar to go over all the steps of personal statement writing. But Mr. Matsumura says that the one-on-one sessions, in which volunteers met students wherever they were at in the process, were the most impactful.

“The one-on-ones were extremely helpful. 826LA was able to find bilingual volunteers. Twenty percent of my classes just exited the ELD [English Language Development] program. They were more comfortable speaking in Spanish, and volunteers could help with that.”

Student and volunteer pairings can often be serendipitous. One student had been contemplating a career in nursing, but when she was paired with a volunteer who worked as a speech pathologist, she learned more about the profession and decided it was the track for her. 

“[That] volunteer has gone above and beyond, setting up multiple meetings with the student to make sure the [application] process is completed,” Mr. Matsumura says. 

Volunteers met with students for up to five consecutive weeks. Early on, college application deadlines seemed far off. Meeting with 826LA “gave them that little extra push,” Mr. Matsumura says.

“It’s hard. A lot of ELD students work thirty hours a week.” 

But with support from 826LA volunteers, who provided a fresh perspective that parents and teachers may not be able to summon, they were able to get their statements drafted and their applications in. Ultimately, Mr. Matsumura sees writing an avenue to community involvement, empowering students to speak up and be involved in the world around them.

“We want them to be ethical leaders. We want them to be able to do something about things that they believe are unjust. ‘Do I write a letter to someone?…Do I make that phone call?’ Ultimately I hope they’ll find something they’re really happy to do.”

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