How does the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) help teachers and students foster cultural memory? In this article, the author underscores three areas of NCTE that have facilitated the integration of his experiences and cultural background into his teaching mission. First, NCTE has published groundbreaking research in this area: most notably, Victor Villanueva Jr.'s "Bootstraps: From an American Academic of Color." Second, NCTE has created standards that allow groundbreaking research to enter the classroom. Third, NCTE has supported caucuses committed to enlivening, recovering, and re-interpreting the diverse cultural memories that constitute the nation. For many students of color, the invitation to summon cultural memory is essential to this human encounter with language and, even more importantly, to becoming fully human through language. (Contains 1 note.)