JACKSON, Wyo. — On Sunday, students and chaperones from Jackson Hole High School embarked on a week long sister school trip to Tlaxcala, Mexico.
The sister school trip which is formally known as the Jackson-Tlaxcala Intercambio Ambassador program, aims to develop a greater connection between the students at Jackson Hole High School and the students at La Escuela Preparatoria de Hueyotlipan.
Student attendees are members of the Latina Leadership Club, Jackson Hole High School U.N. Club or the Dual Immersion Club. The group consists of eight girls, eight boys and three chaperones.
“We started looking at sister city programs about 10 years ago, but we just couldn’t get any traction,” said Jeff Brazil, U.S. and World History at JHHS and advisor of the U.N. Club.
As Brazil researched more, he and his colleagues learned that the first step to doing any of these types of programs was to send ambassadors back and forth to develop personal connections and to really start a meaningful dialogue on what the goals are on both sides.
“It’s about building an international community,” said Brazil.
In December 2021, the Jackson Town Council passed resolution #21-29, establishing a sister city relationship with Tlaxcala Mexico.
Prior to the group’s departure at the beginning of the week, they developed several specific goals for the program. Overall goals of the trip encompass gaining a better understanding of the cultural groups at Jackson Hole High School and improving the schooling climate.
The three key goals are the following:
- To increase the sense of identity and belonging in Students of Mexican and Tlaxcalan heritage in Jackson High School through the building of greater cultural and historical understanding and appreciation of their community.
- To increase school unity through the development of cultural understanding and appreciation of all students at Jackson High School.
- To increase the appreciation and understanding of the culture of students of Mexican and Tlaxcalan heritage in teachers at Jackson High School.
One student member of the trip, Fernanda Costilla Correa, expressed the need for this sister city program:
“As I went into high school I realized there was a huge division between the hispanic community and the non-hispanic community. Not only in clubs and sports but classes too.”
Costilla Correa is an active club member, and felt like one of very few Latinas in the clubs she participated in. Therefore, Costilla Correa encouraged her friends to become active participants in clubs and to find similarities with the rest of the JHHS student body. Doing this inspired her own attendance on the trip.
“I feel like this trip will help students find similarities,” said Costilla Correa. “You self-segregate when you don’t know or don’t try to know others’ perspectives and cultures.”
Nicole Checker, one of the trips documentarians, echoed Costilla Correa’s sentiments.
“Wherever you go outside of structured forced sitting arrangements, the students are self segregating, said Checker. ” It’s pretty strictly ethnically divided.”
In the trip’s documentary which will be presented to the school board, Checker will be filming scenes from Jackson Hole High School to bring awareness to the self-segregation and the lack of interaction that goes in inside. She was also document the trip itself and share how the trip facilities cross-cultural understanding.
On the trip, students will be given prompts and complete journals reflection each night. The program ternary consists of visiting the sister school’s campus, doing outdoor activities with the students, volunteer gardening, philanthropic work and discussions of cultural exchange over dinner and various activities. The students will also have the opportunity to tour the Aztec Ruins at Teotihuacan and take in the area’s culture.
Over fifty JHHS students applied to the sister city program and the aim is that it the relationship with the sister school will continue for years to come.
