Family and community members, trustees and staff joined students this week at Travis Early College High School’s annual tamalada, or tamale-making party. 

While the group worked together to assemble 1,500 to 2,000 tamales, many reflected on memories with family. 

“This is obviously a great cultural tradition in my family,” Austin ISD Board President Geronimo Rodriguez Jr. said. “I was the oldest one in the family, so I was the only one allowed to be in the kitchen. I was the taste-tester, so I learned tamales at the feet at some masters in our family.”

Others, such as student Diogo Contreras, were learning to make tamales for the first time. 

“My mom makes them at home with my sisters and my aunts, but this is my first year actually making them,” Contreras said, adding that the experience gave him a greater appreciation for the time his family members spend making tamales at home. “It’s hard. I’ve only made 20 so far and it’s hard.”

Chef and teacher Adam Phillips said he enjoyed upholding this decade-long tradition for the students and the community. 

“I can clearly see how much it means to the kids and how much it means to the parents because this is something that they do in their house around Christmastime,” Phillips said. “They just jump right and take to it like a fish to water.”

Culinary Institute Director Jayma Vaughan said that what she admired most about the event was its ability to build bridges. 

“It has been such a great community-building event,” Vaughan said. “It’s so much fun to have the parents here, to have grandparents in here working alongside the students and community members.”

Making her first ever tamal, Travis ECHS Principal Christina Steele Hantgin said she admired the community spirit and cultural significance that the students bring to the event.

“So often, we worry what they’ve learned in school but don’t take the time to think about what they’re bringing into our campus and all of the great things they have to share,” Hantgin said. 

Superintendent Paul Cruz rolled up his sleeves alongside the students and began pressing the masa into a corn husk, adding the filling and rolling the tamal. 

“It represents who we are,” Cruz said of the tamalada. “We learn about each other’s backgrounds and experiences and that just makes us stronger.”