Diversity and inclusion: A young woman’s life in rural Utah

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Every rural person and place has a story. Change is part of that story.

“Rural Utah at a Crossroads” is part of the Smithsonian traveling exhibit Crossroads: Change in Rural America, which explores the changing meaning of rural life and identity. Utah Humanities is touring Crossroads to eight rural communities across Utah in 2024. As part of the tour, Utah Humanities and Utah Public Radio are partnering with exhibition hosts to interview local residents about change in their communities.

This interview with Diana Montaño took place at the Granary Arts Gallery in Ephraim, Utah.

Diana Montaño: I'm from a small town a little north from the Granary Arts Center called Moroni, Utah.

It's about a 15-minute drive if you're going over the speed limit, or 20 to 25 minutes if you're going the speed limit.

I recently got my master's up in Vancouver, British Columbia, so that is why I moved back because I finished that program a little more quickly than I thought I was going to, sadly. I really loved it over there, but now I'm back. I love being home too, so it's been great.

I am the Head of International Student Services at Snow College, and what I do is I help students prepare for when they arrive to Snow College. So that means if they need help opening up a bank account, understanding how to make payment plans for tuition, if there's an emergency and they needed to go to the hospital, that's me, and just like random things that you can't really think of that a student might need help. I'm like the cool cousin/aunt because some of them are now — they're really young — so it feels like I'm becoming a cool aunt and not so much a cool cousin anymore.

We had a few families from the Bahamas who were really nervous about sending their children to us. Which makes sense, because they're like, "Well, how can I make sure that my son is safe?" Like, they won't be racially profiled whether it be a police officer, educator, anything in between, and we were — I can't lie. I'm going to be honest, I can't promise you that they will be safe and that they won't get all this mistreatment due to the color of their skin, and we don't have the resources to help combat some of that. And so that is really heartbreaking because we could be possibly losing a student and they could be impacting our community in so many different ways. And so it's really — it's a struggle.

It was a little tricky growing up because there was a time my sixth grade — she's one of my favorite teachers, but she's, we all have our flaws — and she said I'm one of the smart Mexicans. And I was like, what do you mean? Like, x person is also smart. Maybe they're not good at taking tests, but if you tell them to do math, like, having a conversation, they can do really well. So I didn't appreciate that comment that I'm one of the smart ones.

And so it already makes the divide of like, you shouldn't hang out with this person because they'll just hold you back. And that is something that has happened repeatedly throughout my education of like, "Oh, if you hang out with them, it might not end up really good for you." And it's like well, does that mean you also don't believe in my character, that I can make my own decisions? And so stuff like that.

More and more, there's more diversity and inclusion happening around Sanpete County, so it's been beautiful to see it. It was, you know, some growing pains when I was in school, but now I'm like, it's fine. Whatever I went through, it's worth it if we're seeing more diversity and inclusion happening within our education systems. Now in Moroni, they do half of the time the kids go to teachers who only speak Spanish then the other half it's in English.

And so that's amazing because even me and my brother, while we grew up here and we speak Spanish at home and English everywhere else, our Spanish is affected. Like when we go to Mexico and our cousins are like, "Oh, you're totally like, Del Norte , like you're from the north like we can just hear it in your accent."

And so we always have to fight like, are we truly American? Are we truly Mexican? It's this kind of in-between? We're kind of over having to tell people we're enough. We're like, eh, whatever your opinion is, you can keep it. I'm pretty solid with my own opinion. So that was a struggle, but now I think I'm getting used to my own skin and my own brain and everything in between.

“Rural Utah at a Crossroads” is a collaboration between Utah Public Radio, Utah Humanities, and the community hosts of Crossroads: Change in Rural America , a Smithsonian Museum on Main Street exhibition made possible in the Beehive State by Utah Humanities.

Support for Museum on Main Street has been provided by the United States Congress.

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