Beth Johnson’s “The Professor is a Dropout” recounts a story of Guadalupe Quintanilla, a Mexican-American immigrant who moved to America with her grandparents at the age of 12. There, she was enrolled in school where she had to take an IQ test that was entirely in English. Not knowing the language, she did poorly. She was labeled ‘Retarded’ and put into the first grade, forced to learn with children half her age. After a humiliating incident, Lupe dropped out of school and instead helped out her Grandparents around the house, and continued to read and learn in her own language. At 16, she married, and in five years’ time had three children. When her children started school they were also said to be slow learners. She knew this couldn’t be true
