Twenty-nine years ago, Montserrat Garibay left Mexico City for Texas with her mother and sister. They were undocumented. At a public middle school in Austin, Garibay learned English. Later, she and her sister founded one of the first organizations nationwide of so-called Dreamers, young immigrants pushing for U.S. citizenship. Garibay became a citizen herself in 2012. In Austin, she worked as a pre-K teacher, then as an official in the local teachers union. She then served as the first Latina secretary-treasurer of the Texas AFL-CIO, the state’s major union federation. This spring, she’s on her way to Washington, D.C., where she’ll work for Education Secretary Miguel Cardona as senior adviser for labor relations—a liaison position between unions and the Education Department that was scrapped during the Trump administration and resurrected this year under Joe Biden.
Garibay enters a fraught arena, as teachers unions around the country have fought both Republican and Democratic leaders to secure safe working conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Observer spoke with her about school reopenings, teacher diversity, and the American dream.
