Friends of the Culture : To Preserve Hispanic Traditions and to Educate Others About What They Perceive as an Endangered Way of Life, Three O.C. Teachers Have Formed Amigas de la Cultura

When teachers Teri Duarte Rocco, Alice Rumbaugh and Sylvia Mora Krenzien asked several hundred junior high students who among them was Hispanic, only a few youngsters in the largely Hispanic assembly raised their hands. Those who did looked uncertain and embarrassed.

“It’s like they didn’t want anyone to know,” Rocco recalls.

The teachers, who were staging a weeklong Hispanic Cultural Museum at Hazard Elementary School in Santa Ana last November, then presented a workshop on the geography, people, customs, food and art of five major regions of Mexico and the countries of Spain, Argentina, Peru, Panama and Guatemala. They explained to the students that people can be Hispanic even if they don’t speak Spanish.

“We were able to tell them, ‘Here is a museum full of beautiful things from all Hispanic countries, and you are from a rich, honorable, ancient culture,” Rumbaugh says.

After the presentation, the teachers asked the students, “Now, who is Hispanic?” Almost every hand in the room went up. The teachers never forgot that day.

“The lack of awareness of our own identity was startling,” Rocco says.

Rocco, Rumbaugh and Krenzien, all teachers in the Garden Grove Unified School District, view the incident as proof that the Hispanic culture they love is in danger of being ignored or forgotten. To preserve Hispanic traditions and to educate others about an endangered way of life, they have formed Amigas de la Cultura, or Friends of the Culture.

“We’re all so busy eking out a living; the culture gets lost,” Rocco says.

Despite their own busy schedules, the teachers have spent many hours presenting workshops, lectures and exhibits of Hispanic artifacts from their personal collections. By staging cultural events throughout Orange County, they hope to educate not only students and teachers but also the entire community.

The Amigas have been welcomed at some of the county’s leading cultural institutions, including Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, the Anaheim Museum and Mission San Juan Capistrano. Among projects: a Christmas display of Mexican toys and nacimientos (Nativity sets) in the lobby of SCR for the theater’s holiday show “La Posada Magica” celebration and an exhibition of Trees of Life (symbolic folk art) for SCR’s recent Una Noche del Teatro gala. They have held exhibits of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) folk art at the Bowers and Anaheim Museum.

“At a time when there’s so much negativism [toward Hispanics], it’s nice to know we’re being well received,” Rocco says.

The trio is in great demand this fall: It is presenting through Nov. 9 lectures and exhibits on Day of the Dead at the Anaheim Museum. They participated in one-day Day of the Dead program at Mission San Juan Capistrano’s Hispanic Heritage Day in September and will do the same at the Bowers this Sunday.

“The Amigas have filled a great void,” says Genevieve Barrios Southgate, director of children’s education at the Bowers’ Kidseum. “In the schools and the community at large, there have not been enough people who can demonstrate or present Mexican traditions. The Amigas do a good job with their vast collection of artifacts and knowledge. They present a beautiful, positive image of the Mexican culture.”

In recognition of their work, the women will receive the Apple of Gold for Excellence in Teaching Award from the Orange County Hispanic Education Endowment Fund at the Hyatt Regency Irvine on Nov. 1.

“They try to educate the entire county about traditions and a way of life that is fast-changing,” says Marjorie DeMartino, chairwoman of the fund’s selection committee.

The teachers have been singled out for praise because, as DeMartino says, participants can “see, hear and touch” their exhibits. They don’t just set up a display and walk away.

“We immerse people in the culture,” Krenzien says. The three usually wear native dress, play recordings of music and serve food from the region or country they’re discussing.

“We eat, sing and dance,” Rocco says. “We even had people dancing the macarena--before the dance became popular.”

So far the Amigas’ most ambitious project has been the Hispanic Cultural Museum, which they staged for a week in Hazard’s multipurpose room. The teachers set up displays of five major regions in Mexico and five other Spanish-speaking countries. The museum was visited by about 3,000 district students, 500 instructional aides, 100 teachers and 250 parents. After a field trip to the museum, one student wrote:

“[Because] I am of Vietnamese origin, I don’t know much about the Hispanic culture, so I really learned a lot. The exhibit opened my eyes toward this culture, and I now have greater respect toward Hispanics, and I think this is the type of thing that stops racial tension.”

The teachers hope to educate non-Hispanics as well as Hispanics who are sometimes unaware of how traditions of their culture originated. Some customs are unknown even to many Hispanics because they aren’t practiced in all countries or regions.

The Amigas’ Day of the Dead exhibits give teachers an opportunity to educate people about an often misunderstood celebration.

Day of the Dead, which falls on All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1) and All Souls’ Day (Nov. 2), is a celebration reconciling the living to the passing of their loved ones, say the teachers.

People in some regions of Mexico mark the day by exchanging sugar skulls and special bread. They set up an ofrenda (offering) in memory of the deceased--especially children who have died--and decorate it with things they think the spirit will like, such as a favorite food, music or toys.

For their exhibits, the Amigas present candy skulls and usually re-create an ofrenda. They also show off their extensive collection of Day of the Dead skeleton folk art.

“The skulls and skeletons are not meant to scare,” Rocco says. “People confuse it with Halloween.”

The folk art features skeletons posing as doctors, lawyers, priests and peasants; people from all walks of life are often depicted engaged in comical behavior. There are skeleton sunbathers and women skeletons in aerobics classes. Skeleton wedding scenes with the inscription “until death do us part” are popular.

“Every behavior is made fun of. The point is, if you’re a pope or a beggar on the street, you end up a skeleton,” says Rumbaugh, who specializes in Day of the Dead artifacts.

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Although all of the teachers collect folk art, each has favorite areas of expertise. In addition to Day of the Dead, Rumbaugh collects authentic indigenous clothing. Rocco collects nacimientos and items from traditional Mexican kitchens such as hand-painted clay bean pots. Krenzien favors musical instruments and toys.

“People look at these and say, ‘Oh, my grandmother had that’ or ‘Oh, we have one of those at home,’ ” Rocco says. “Even people who are Hispanic don’t always know what the things are.”

The exhibits help people recognize that they might own a piece of history.

“Sometimes they think it’s just junk,” Krenzien says. “We’re telling them these are museum pieces.” To add to their collections, the teachers travel to Mexico and make numerous buying trips together to Tijuana, where they are known among shopkeepers who buy folk art.

“When we see something we like, we say, ‘They’d better have three of them,’ ” Rocco jokes.

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For the women, the fascination with all things Hispanic stems from their childhoods. Rocco, who has been teaching for 10 years, is a bilingual first-grade teacher at Russell Elementary School in Santa Ana. She grew up in Stanton, but her grandparents were from Zacatecas, Mexico. Her mother is a California native, and her father was born in New Mexico and raised in Chihuahua, Mexico. A student at Cal State Long Beach, Rocco took courses in Mexican American studies:

“My eyes were opened to the richness of all this. I began looking at things that belonged to my mother, and I thought, ‘Wow--these were part of my culture. They’re heirlooms.’ ”

Krenzien, who has been teaching 11 years, is a bilingual kindergarten teacher at Hazard. Her grandparents are from Coahuila, Mexico, and Texas. Her mother, who is deceased, passed on many of the Mexican customs to her daughter.

“My mother was so much a part of our home,” Krenzien says. “This helps me stay close to her.” When Krenzien set up an ofrenda for her mother, she made sure it had two things her mother loved: chocolate and Eydie Gorme records.

Although Rumbaugh is not Hispanic, she has roots in the culture. She was born in Oklahoma but grew up in Venezuela, living there until age 13. When her father, a petroleum engineer, moved the family back to the United States, Rumbaugh felt out of place:

“I didn’t even know the Pledge of Allegiance,” she says.

Today she teaches Spanish at Pacifica High School in Garden Grove.

“People who look at me see WASP. But my feelings, my outlook on life, my behavior are very Hispanic.”

Rocco and Krenzien agree.

“She has light skin but a brown heart,” says Rocco, who was Rumbaugh’s student when Rumbaugh first taught high school 32 years ago.

Amigas was formed a generation later, when Rocco’s son was a student in Rumbaugh’s class. Rumbaugh had set up a Day of the Dead exhibit for the students. Rocco visited and was impressed.

All three were already district mentors, each staging workshops to foster cultural awareness among teachers who have Hispanic students. They got together and compared their collections of folk art.

“That’s when we said, ‘Oh, my gosh, we have enough for a museum exhibit,’ ” Krenzien says.

Two years ago, they began putting on displays, workshops and exhibits within the school district.

“Then someone said, ‘You need to go out and bring this to the public,’ ” Krenzien says. Their first public display was in July 1994, for the Sisters of St. Joseph’s Latino Festival in Santa Ana.

They haven’t stopped since.

“This thing has evolved,” Rocco says. “It just grows and grows.”