Veda Kanamarlapudi and Aarushi Jaiswal grew up in immigrant households where grandparents and other relatives shared old Indian stories — such as the Jataka Tales that depict the life of Buddha.
That exposure to rich storytelling at a young age left a lasting impression on the Coppell High School juniors.
Their love of tales and language led the two to their latest endeavor: translating Indian stories into Spanish for elementary students.
The majority of public school students in Texas are Latino, some of whom grow up mostly speaking Spanish. But Coppell is the only school district in Texas where more than half of its students are of Asian descent, according to the most recent state data.
That’s led Coppell students to increasingly share Latino and Indian cultures through food, music, history and languages.
“I kind of grew up with the (Latino) culture along with my own because I was exposed to it every day in school,” said Jaiswal, who began learning Spanish at age 6. “From there, I guess I just kind of felt more of a deeper connection to it.”
Jaiswal was part of the district’s dual language program, which Coppell offers to students from prekindergarten to 12th grade. It’s aimed at helping students improve their English or Spanish skills.
Kanamarlapudi and Jaiswal’s first read-aloud to elementary students took place in March. Now they’re up to multiple lessons a week as they work with 11 classes and six teachers at Denton Creek and Wilson elementary schools.
It didn’t take much convincing from Kanamarlapudi to get Jaiswal — who met in Spanish class — on board with translating stories.
“She’s used to all of my eccentricities, and I just kind of forced her to go along with them,” Kanamarlapudi said with a laugh. “I don’t think I gave her a choice. I was like, we have to do this.”
Kanamarlapudi’s grandmother would read Indian folklore to her when the teen was much younger, sparking her interest in the nuances of language and the multitude of cultures that come with them. Kanamarlapudi realized that with her knowledge of the Spanish language, she could translate the same stories her grandmother shared for a new generation.
The two translate tales — including from The Panchatantra, a collection of animal and magical fables — that they gather from writings in Hindi, English and Telugu.
For Jaiswal, who’s been in the district’s dual language program since elementary school, the idea of translating something near and dear to her heart into the language that she’s learned over her life was enticing.
“When we started translating, we didn’t necessarily have a plan for what we wanted to do with it, we just thought it would be fun to translate,” she said.
The two friends began by translating a few texts from The Arabian Nights and sent it to Patricia Dawson, Coppell ISD’s dual language and bilingual program director.
In their pitch, the teens explained that the themes of the tales benefit students by exposing them to different cultures at a young age can broaden their perspectives.
Texas is now home to the second-largest Indian American population in the United States, trailing only California.
Dawson said she was eager to get the project going. Not only was it a good opportunity for Kanamarlapudi and Jaiswal to practice their Spanish, but it also shows the younger students what the possibilities of language learning are, she said.
If a cool, older high school student is teaching about the benefits of being bilingual, maybe more kids will stick with it, she said.
“It’s probably a lot more meaningful than when an adult tells them,” Dawson said with a laugh.
The main challenge with learning a second language is feeling comfortable enough to take linguistic risks, said Christine Scovill, who teaches dual language at Wilson Elementary.
The first read-aloud the teens had in Scovill’s class was a little quiet, the teacher recalled. But the second time around, her students felt more comfortable and started asking questions.
With every class, Kanamarlapudi and Jaiswal are building relationships with the students and forming a sense of community, Scovill said.
“Those two girls, you watch,” Scovill said. “I don’t know what they’re going to do as adults, but they can do anything they’d like.”
After being students most of their life, now Kanamarlapudi and Jaiswal get to flip things around and be the teacher, which they both say is a rewarding experience.
The student’s excitement for the lessons are apparent with every reading, and the teens have never been met with a silent classroom, which they appreciate.
It would be tougher if the students weren’t enthusiastic, but Kanamarlapudi said the students are open to learn and grow.
“I think anybody loves a good story,” she said.
Even with balancing their own schoolwork and studies, Jaiswal said the reading’s never feel like work but instead a nice way to start the day. They visit the elementary classrooms in the morning via Zoom before they move on to their own classes.
When they first started translating, a 12-page excerpt from Jorge Luis Borges’ The Library of Babel took about a month to finish. However, Kanamarlapudi said the two are a “machine” now and recently translated another 12- to 15-page excerpt from another Borges’ book, The Circular Ruins, in mere hours.
With about a month of school left, the two still have plenty of read-alouds on their schedule. They plan to continue the project into their senior year and, ideally, find more schools willing to participate.
“It’s just really nice to see that we’ve made an impact somehow, or at least made them a little happy in the morning before their school day,” Jaiswal said.
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, The Meadows Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University and Todd A. Williams Family Foundation. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.
