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Maura Donnelly
Professor Oscar Fernandez
FRINQ: Race and Social Justice
Assignment: Community Engagement Essay
11 June 2015
Second Time BRAVO
I went to BRAVO Rosa Parks Orchestras, held here at the Portland State University
campus. This was a beautiful performance in the PSU movie theater. The event was spectacular
as usual. I was blown away at the talent of these children. I can not play an instrument to save
myself, so when I see fifth graders playing, I am impressed. This was a group of extremely
talented students who were all going places in life. I work with children; I know sometimes it is
hard to get them to put their shoes on properly. These teachers taught them how to play
wonderful music and that requires dedication and skill. Again I noticed how racially diverse the
group of students was, and noted how not diverse my own elementary school was. The audience
was beaming at the talent of these children and as racially diverse as the student body. I assumed
most of the audience was relatives of the students. I was curious if they were not family
members, what their connection was to BRAVO. I wish there were more people in the audience,
I am sure this would have been good for the kids to see. Attending this performance might have
been hard for the parents to come because the show was right in the middle of the work day. I
loved the part where the main teacher asked the audience questions and then the students

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questions and the students won. These were activities that typically underserved children do not
get do, like meeting the city mayor. BRAVO has the same ideas of a running start preschool, with
their slogan Social Change through Music.
This event connects with the theme of our FRINQ class the majority of the children are
racial minorities. It is unfortunate that is in this county people of color are at a disadvantage
because of a variety of factors. Because many of the students parents may have faced the
stigmas of oppression they might have to work multiple jobs. It is possible that parents would
have a hard time affording a music coach, after school child care and dinners. BRAVO can
provide that for this school. I am glad I went to this event because watching the performance
made me evaluate the topic of my own research paper more extensively. In my paper, I discussed
how students of color get put into special education when they do not have need for those
services. Watching this group of young talented students preform shows how ridiculous the
overrepresentation of students in special education is. The Coalition of Communities of Color
states that Native American students are underrepresented in the public schools. One parallel I
can draw is African Americans are underrepresented in orchestras in this country; orchestras are
mostly made up of white musicians. Hopefully I will live to see a day when some of these
talented kids preform in a professional orchestra.