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Stamp honoring famed East LA teacher Jaime Escalante is unveiled

Sarah Favot | July 14, 2016


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Forever stamp honoring famed East Los Angeles teacher Jaime Escalante. (courtesy).

Forever stamp honoring East Los Angeles teacher Jaime Escalante.

Garfield High School will forever remember its revered math teacher Jaime Escalante and now so will the U.S. post office.

The U.S. Postal Service on Thursday unveiled its new forever stamp honoring the late East Los Angeles math teacher.

A Bolivian immigrant, Escalante taught calculus at Garfield High from 1974 to 1991. He was recognized for building a high-level math program at the school.

He earned national attention in 1982, when a testing service accused his 14 students who passed the AP calculus exam of cheating. Escalante accused the testing service of singling out his students because they were Mexican-American immigrants from a low-income area of Los Angeles.

Twelve the 14 students took another test and all passed.

The event became the subject of the 1988 movie “Stand and Deliver,” starring Edward James Olmos as Escalante.

Olmos attended the stamp dedication ceremony that was held during the League of United Latin American Citizens’ 87th annual convention in Washington, D.C. U.S. Education Secretary John King Jr., LULAC National President Roger Rocha Jr. and Escalante’s son, Jaime Escalante II, also attended the event, according to the USPS.

The stamp depicts Escalante in his signature flat cap in front of a chalk board on which calculus symbols are visible.

Read more: Garfield High opens doors to new Jaime Escalante Auditorium and Winding path to teaching leads Garfield teacher to Yale award

In 1999, Escalante was inducted into the National Teachers Hall of Fame.

A special dedication ceremony will also be held on Saturday at Garfield High, according to USPS.

Customers can purchase the stamp online at usps.com/stamps, by calling 800-STAMP24 (800-782-6724) or at post office locations nationwide.

 

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