Jose Lara’s classroom at the Santee Education Complex in downtown Los Angeles is bright and empty on this Friday afternoon. Light falls through the large windows onto shiny desks. The room, shocked once again by the silence that follows a day’s learning, echoes the slightest sound for comfort.

On the back of the door is the pencil face of a man with dark eyebrows curved into a frown. He stares into the room, an accusatory finger pointed straight ahead, and asks, “who are you calling an immigrant, pilgrim?”

Lara walks past an exhibit of student projects on “Chicano History” and takes a seat. On the wall behind him is a poster advertising “The Mexican Revolution of 1910” with clay-colored drawings of imposingly mustached men. For the kids in his class, Lara explains, having a sense of cultural pride is the fulcrum upon which aspiration and resignation are tilted.

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Despite the presence of many successful Latino figureheads in Los Angeles, including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Lara says that his students still suffer from doubts about their own potential because of their race. “Some of my brightest students have doubts that they can really achieve and really make it,” said Lara. “We have to instill self-pride in these children. Because like it or not, we’re going to be here. Regardless of your politics on immigration, we’re all going to have to share this space,”

Although immigration policy has a tangible effect on many of his students’ everyday lives, it is the wider issue of race and cultural dissonance that permeates all corners of the city.

“There is a sense here in Los Angeles that even if there is a small Latino middle class that is alive and well, still the majority of the working poor are people of color,” said Lara. “There are micro-aggressions of racism in our society that still exist today.”

Drop-out rates continue to be higher among Latino and African-American students, and according to Lara, until those figures even out, the potential for achievement will remain uneven in LA’s schools, jobs and wider economic structure. Additionally, recent events at state and district level, Lara says, will only widen the racial and economic divide. The LAUSD, which serves the majority of Latino students in Los Angeles, is being hit hard by dwindling resources. At the Santee Education Complex in South Central, where Lara teaches, more than 50 teachers received termination notices and 6 are being displaced.

“Next year, we’re going to have 113 teachers where we used to have 170,” said Lara. “We have the same amount of students we have to serve. That means there’s going to be less after school programs. [...] In my social studies class, I’m going to have to use every single chair and I might have to use some desks as chairs because that’s how many students are going to be inside my classroom.” The result of these upcoming changes to the city’s public school system, according to Lara, will mean more chaos in the lives of these already underprivileged and often neglected students.

“When you cut the schools you’re telling the children that they’re not important,” said Lara. “And what happens to a child that does not see themselves in the text book? What happens to a child when you have a society that tells them ‘your education isn’t important’? What happens to that child? I know exactly what happens to that child. They drop out of school. They turn to gangs. They turn to drugs.”

Want to hear more from Jose Lara?

Listen to “Teaching Self-Esteem and Cultural Pride” and “Talking About Race” Or, follow Jose Lara on Twitter.