What Colombia Taught Me About Leadership, Equity, and Coming Home

Welcome to The RootED Weekly

Deeply Rooted in Education and Equity
Issue 10 | 30 May 2025

A Note from Dayson

Querida comunidad,

This week’s issue looks a little different.

I recently had the chance to travel to Colombia, a trip that was long overdue and deeply needed. It wasn’t just about rest (though I finally gave myself permission to slow down). It was about reconnecting with family I hadn’t seen in over a decade, with the land that shaped my ancestors, and with parts of myself that I’ve tucked away to keep moving forward. It reminded me that rest, memory, and joy are not luxuries. They’re survival tools. They're leadership tools.

Instead of the usual format, I want to bring you along on this journey. Consider this a special dispatch, one that may become a recurring series anytime I get the chance to step away and see the world through a new lens. This time, that lens was filled with music, loud laughter, old stories, and moments of stillness that reminded me why I do this work.

This issue is about coming home, both literally and metaphorically, and what that return taught me about educational equity, community power, and the kind of leadership our schools and systems truly need. I hope something in it resonates, grounds you, or simply gives you space to pause and breathe.

Con cariño,
Dayson

A Lesson from the Mountains

There’s a rhythm to Cali that hits you as soon as your feet touch the pavement: part heat, part heartbeat, part hustle. Whether we were weaving through motos on crowded streets, climbing endless stairs in the barrio, or making our way up the winding hills just outside the city, every movement demanded presence. No autopilot. No shortcuts. Just you, your breath, and the ground in front of you.

Some views don’t just take your breath away, they give it back. A quiet reminder that the climb is part of the calling.

This trip wasn’t about a singular hike. It was the accumulation of steps, through neighborhoods rich with memory, through city blocks pulsing with energy, and up the mountains that cradle Cali from every direction. Every path, paved or improvised, came with its own kind of resistance. Some mornings, it was the humidity. Other times, the uneven terrain or the blaring horns of traffic. But every moment required attention, balance, and humility.

Education leadership, especially when you’re pushing for equity, feels like this. Constant movement. Moments of resistance. A need to be alert in systems not designed with your path in mind. You learn to walk with intention. To slow down without losing momentum. To notice who’s walking beside you and who’s being left behind.

One morning, as we climbed a steep hill outside the Terón Colorado barrio, I stopped to catch my breath and looked out. The clouds were hanging low, and the mountains rolled endlessly into the horizon. I thought about how many people make this walk every day, not for leisure, but because it's the path to work, to school, to survival. The view wasn’t just beautiful. It was a reminder that resilience often lives in the mundane.

It reminded me of the educators I’ve worked alongside, leaders who are navigating steep, unmarked paths in systems that don’t always see them. Like the hills of Cali, their leadership journeys are shaped by endurance, clarity, and community. They don’t just climb for themselves. They clear the way for others.

That’s the lesson I’m holding onto: The terrain may be rough, but the view, the kind that reminds you why you started, is always worth it.

The Asada as Curriculum

We cooked over flame the way our people always have, together, with memory in our hands and laughter in our lungs.

The asada at my tía’s wasn’t on any official itinerary, but it ended up being the heart of my trip.

There was no formal agenda, just folding chairs, chisme, smoke, and the kind of laughter that shakes the ground and echoes into the night. Someone turned up the salsa, someone else poured the drinks, and the stories started flowing. Not scripted ones, but the kind passed down in pieces, half in memory, half in feeling.

There was no assigned facilitator, no checklist of roles. But when something needed to be done, someone did it. Whether it was tending to the grill, decorating the patio, passing the plates, or refilling the drinks, nobody had to be asked. Everyone stepped up because everyone knew they were part of something shared. In the end, the outcome was collective: a full belly, sides sore from laughter, and a re-remembering of who we are and where we come from.

I realized, sitting there with my plate full of carne, papas, maduros, y yuca, that this was its own kind of classroom.

This is where culture lives. Where love is layered into food. Where history is preserved in family jokes. Where elders pass on knowledge without ever calling it “leadership development.” In that backyard, I was reminded that belonging doesn’t have to be earned, it’s offered. It’s cooked, served, and shared. And in our schools, we’d do well to remember that.

Too often, educational equity work gets caught up in frameworks and initiatives, things that can be printed, measured, or evaluated. But real equity work begins at tables like this. With people who’ve weathered loss and still find reasons to gather. With families who build joy out of what they have. With communities that carry ancestral wisdom in their bones.

Moments like this make me expand my definition of leadership. Maybe it’s not just about who leads the staff meeting, but who quietly picks up the task that needs doing, who keeps the music going, who makes sure everyone’s seen and full before they even sit down.

There’s a pedagogy to that. A rhythm of care and connection. That’s the kind of leadership our schools need more of.

Public Art, Public Power

Cali is a city that speaks through its walls.

In nearly every barrio we walked through, murals told stories long before we could ask a question. Bold colors, layered symbols, faces that looked like my mom, my cousins, my younger self. You could feel the resistance in the brushstrokes, calls for justice, for memory, for joy. And just like that, I was reminded why I chose to use storytelling in my intervention and dissertation.

Because our stories belong in public.

The public art in Cali didn’t wait for permission. It didn’t ask to be curated or approved. It just existed, loud, honest, and impossible to ignore. That’s the kind of storytelling our schools and systems need more of. Truth told boldly and without apology. Art that makes you stop, feel, and remember who the work is really for.

In my research, I will ask Latinx principals to share images from their daily lives, photos that reflect the beauty and burden of leading in spaces where they’re often the only ones like them. This trip reminded me why that matters so deeply. Because when we make our stories visible—literally, visually—we reclaim space. We shift the narrative from invisibility to presence, from tolerance to power.

Public art is more than decoration. It’s a declaration. It’s memory. It’s curriculum. It teaches us who’s valued and who’s missing. And like any good educator, it asks us: What will you do with what you’ve learned?

Snapshot

I stood in the pathway of the ossuary where my abuela now rests, surrounded by rows and rows of names etched into stone and concrete. It was quiet, so quiet that I could hear my breath echoing back to me. The last time I saw her alive was over twelve years ago. Life moved fast after that. I never had the chance to come back until now.

As I walked down that long, cool corridor, I didn’t cry. Not because I wasn’t moved, but because something deeper was happening. A kind of settling. Like the part of me that never stopped wondering if I had done enough to honor her, finally exhaled.

But when I reached her marker, when I placed a small stone beside her name and whispered the things I never got to say, I wept. Quietly. Fully. Not out of guilt or regret, but out of love. Out of relief. Out of gratitude for having made it back.

In a world where we’re told to keep grinding, to stay productive, to always be moving forward, visiting her reminded me that remembering is a form of resistance. That grief is not weakness. That honoring those who came before us is part of the work, especially when your work is about justice, equity, and belonging.

In that still moment, with one hand on her name, I felt more grounded than I have in a long time.

Soundtrack

Every trip has a soundtrack. This one was made of roots rhythms, ancestral echoes, street beats, and verses that say what I sometimes can’t. These are the songs that carried me through Colombia, not just as background noise, but as teachers, memory-keepers, and mirrors.

What I’m Bringing Back

I didn’t bring home many souvenirs. A couple of stickers and some posters from a print shop. But mostly, just dirt on my sandals, sun on my face, and something sacred I can’t quite name.

This trip gave me more than rest. It gave me perspective. And as I return to my work, as a scholar-practitioner, consultant, and advocate, there are a few things I’m carrying forward with intention:

Rest is a form of resistance.
In systems designed to grind us down, choosing to rest is revolutionary. I’m learning to honor rest not as a reward, but as a rhythm.

Belonging isn’t something you earn, it’s something we create.
Whether it was the way my name was pronounced with ease at immigration, or the way my family made space at the table without question, I was reminded that real belonging is felt, not negotiated.

Our stories deserve to be seen and told in full color.
From the murals in Cali to the testimonios in my dissertation, I’m more certain than ever that visibility is power. We can’t build equitable systems in silence.

Leadership is communal.
No one needed a title at the asada to take the lead. The best leadership I witnessed in Colombia was quiet, shared, and grounded in love. That’s the model I want to follow and lift up in schools.

More than anything, I’m bringing back clarity: about who I am, where I come from, and why this work matters. I went to Colombia to reconnect, and I came back more RootED than ever.

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