20 FACULTY
Peggy falagan MORE than an art history teacher Many Miami Palmetto Senior High students are familiar with Margarita Falagan, better known to some as Peggy Falagan. Falagan adopted the nickname Peggy after her fifth grade teacher “relabeled” her; this nickname made her feel more like she belonged in America, her new home. As the school’s AP Art History teacher, she has taught thousands of students over the past 27 years. While students know of her wisdom, humor and openness, most do not know everything she has been through to get where she is today. Born in Cuba in 1954, Falagan came to the United States at seven years old as a political exile fleeing the rise of the infamous Fidel Castro’s new corrupt government. Her family settled in Miami, where she immediately faced discrimination. “I was [at Everglades Elementary] for a year, and luckily my parents took me out when they realized I was made to walk home because I was not allowed to eat with the rest of the children,” Falagan said. “The little girl that sat next to me…took her pencil and made a line on the table… she said that I could not go past that line. This was in second grade. Yet somehow, in my own mind, I just looked at her and said DESIGN BY GEMMA TORRAS
that somebody taught this little girl to do this. You’re not born with evil…I forgave her, just as I don’t find it in me to be evil like that.” As Falagan grew up in Westchester, which was culturally segregated at a time when the rest of Miami-Dade County had a very small number of Cubans, her parents did their best to remain optimistic in a difficult situation. “In spite of the fact that we had no money, my brother and I [were] never made aware of our unfortunate status as political exiles. My parents always had Christmas gifts for us. We always had everything that we wanted,” Falagan said. “My parents always hid the fact that we had nothing and that we were dirt poor.” Despite the hardships she faced in childhood, Falagan went on to pursue a career in teaching later in her life, she originally was a ceramics teacher at the Jewish Community Center, or JCC. As part of a teaching internship, she was sent back to Everglades Elementary, the same school where she faced discrimination from students and faculty as a child. When she confronted a former teacher of hers, she received a cold, yet honest response.
“I explained to her the ordeal that I went through in her second grade, and all she could say to me was, ‘Well, you survived, didn’t you?’ She walked away with no remorse, and that’s all she had to say,” Falagan said. “I didn’t hold it against her because she was right. I survived.” Besides teaching, Falagan took up art as a hobby in her spare time. She describes herself as an etcher, painter and ceramist. She channels her emotions into her art, especially when facing adversity, such as when both her parents died of cancer within five years of each other; both died at the age of 47. Although she felt overwhelmed with sadness for a long time, she recovered her spirit when she met her husband, Jose Martin. Eventually, he inspired her to become an art history teacher after coming across one of her works. “One day, [my husband] came home and there was a painting done, and he said, ‘Where did this come from?’ I said that I did it, and he couldn’t believe that I’m an artist because I never showed my work,” Falagan said. “He said, ‘You have to do something with your talent,’ so I went back to school, and that’s why [I became an art history teacher].”
