Kate, the Princess of Wales, has finished chemotherapy and will return to limited public duties

LONDON (AP) — Kate, the Princess of Wales, has completed chemotherapy and will make some public appearances in the coming months, bolstering Britain’s royal family after it was rocked by the twin cancer diagnoses of the princess and King Charles III.

The 42-year-old wife of Prince William released a video Monday in which she appeared alongside her husband and children as she described how difficult the past nine months have been for her family and expressed “relief” at completing her course of treatment.

“Life as you know it can change in an instant, and we have had to find a way to navigate the stormy waters and road unknown,’’ she said in the video, which was shot in a woodland near the family’s summer home in Norfolk. “The cancer journey is complex, scary and unpredictable for everyone, especially those closest to you. With humility, it also brings you face to face with your own vulnerabilities in a way you have never considered before, and with that, a new perspective on everything.”

The royal family has been buffeted by health concerns this year, beginning with the announcement in January that the king would receive treatment for an enlarged prostate and Kate would undergo abdominal surgery. In February, Buckingham Palace announced Charles was receiving treatment for an undisclosed type of cancer. Six weeks later, Kate said she, too, was undergoing treatment for cancer, quieting the relentless speculation about her condition that had circulated on social media since her surgery.

While the announcements triggered an outpouring of good wishes for the ailing royals, they also put the royal family under tremendous pressure. Queen Camilla and Princess Anne, the king’s sister, took on additional duties to cover the seemingly endless list of public events that make up the daily routine of the House of Windsor. William also took time off to support his wife and their three young children.

Charles began his return to public duties in late April when he visited a cancer treatment center in London. He is scheduled to make the first long-haul trip since his diagnosis when he travels to Australia and Samoa in the fall.

Kate said Monday that while she had completed her chemotherapy treatment, the path to full recovery would be long and she would “take each day as it comes.”

“William and I are so grateful for the support we have received and have drawn great strength from all those who are helping us at this time,” she said. “Everyone’s kindness, empathy and compassion has been truly humbling.”

In June, the princess acknowledged that she had good days and bad days while undergoing treatment.

While she stepped away from most public duties during her treatment, Kate has made two appearances this year. First, during the king’s birthday parade in June, known as Trooping the Colour, and most recently during the men’s final at Wimbledon in July, where she received a standing ovation.

“To all those who are continuing their own cancer journey — I remain with you, side by side, hand in hand,” Kate said Monday.

“Out of darkness, can come light, so let that light shine bright.”

Associated Press writers Jill Lawless and Brian Melley contributed to this report.

FILE - Britain's Kate, Princess of Wales smiles as she speaks to a woman during her visit to Sebby's Corner in north London on Nov. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, Pool, File)

This photo provided by Kensington Palace on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, shows Kate, Princess of Wales. (Will Warr/Kensington Palace via AP)

This photo provided by Kensington Palace on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, shows Kate, Princess of Wales and Prince William with their children Prince George, right, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, left. (Will Warr/Kensington Palace via AP)

FILE - Britain's Prince William and Kate, Princess of Wales arrive for the Royal Ascot horse racing meeting, at Ascot Racecourse in Ascot, England, June 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)

FILE - Britain's Kate, Princess of Wales waits to present the trophy to Carlos Alcaraz of Spain after he defeated Novak Djokovic of Serbia in the men's singles final at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, July 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)

In the second half of the 20th century, Mexican and Mexican-American children in Marfa, Texas, were educated in an adobe-style building in classrooms that alumni describe as barracks.

They received secondhand textbooks and were paddled for speaking Spanish instead of English in a school where Latino students were segregated from Anglos by law and practice, just as whites and Blacks were separated in the South. But the principal of the Blackwell School also created an interscholastic league specifically for “Mexican schools," and alumni remembered their friends, shared laughs, and kind teachers when they gathered in Marfa on Saturday, at the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, to celebrate the Blackwell School becoming the newest national park.

At a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony for the newest national site dedicated to modern Latino history, former Blackwell students, neighbors, friends and politicians visited the original schoolhouse and a smaller building that served as the band hall. Inside, photographs, memorabilia and interpretive panels featuring quotes from former students and teachers show the imprint left by a school that once stood as an example of the racially divided education system that defined de-facto segregation in the country from 1889 to 1965.

At the ceremony, a mariachi band played exactly as the ribbon was cut. The 100 people in attendance also enjoyed a ballet folklórico performance and traditional border music of the Chihuahuan desert played by the band Primo y Beebe. Alumni also had the opportunity to write on a whiteboard what the Blackwell School meant to them.

“I am glad that it wasn't torn down,” Betty Nuñez Aguirre, a former alumni and director of the Blackwell School Alliance said. “It will show the next generation that it was not always easy for their parents or grandparents to get educated.”

Many alumni see Blackwell — first built in 1909 and closed 11 years after the landmark 1954 court decision, Brown v. Board of Education — as more than just a symbol of America's history of racial inequality. It's a symbol of Latinos triumphant over adversity.

In 2006, Joe Cabezuela, 80, was at a local restaurant celebrating the reunion of the 1960 Blackwell class. That's when he learned the Marfa Independent School District would demolish the Blackwell school. Cabezuela said he knew immediately that something had to be done to stop the demolitions, so he went straight to the superintendent’s office.

“That is not going to happen,” Cabezuela told the superintendent. “It’s part of Hispanic heritage, a history that we need to save.”

The superintendent then invited Cabezuela, founder and former president of the Blackwell School Alliance, to give a presentation to the school board on why the building needs to be preserved. Cabezuela and other alumni eventually allied and worked with a local artist on a sketch of what the preserved school should look like.

Soon after, the Marfa school board agreed to a century-long, $1 building lease to the Blackwell School Alliance, under the condition that the building would be demolished if the building's preservation stalled for more than 25 years.

Small fundraisers were started every year to pay the electricity bill, keep the water on and repair damages.

Authorized by the Blackwell School National Historic Site Act, which President Biden signed into law in October 2022, the school became an official part of the National Park system in July.

“This site is a powerful reminder of our nation’s diverse and often complex journey toward equality and justice. By honoring the legacy of Blackwell School, we recognize the resilience and contributions of the Latino community in our shared history,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said in July, when the site was formally established.

Out of 429 National Park sites, only two recounted modern Latino history before Blackwell: the Cesar Chavez National Monument in California and the Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso.

Tony Cano, a member of the Blackwell School Alliance, attended the Blackwell School for three years starting in the fall of 1952. During his time there, he remembers the teachers making students write Spanish words on paper, place those papers in mini coffins out of hats or cigar boxes and bury “Mr. Spanish” in a symbolic funeral in front of the school’s flagpole.

“They were trying to get us to speak English only on campus and in the classroom,” Cano said. “A lot of kids rebelled. Once you rebelled they spanked you three times with the paddle.”

Cano said he remembers one girl who was spanked went home with bruises and did not come back to school for three days. Cano said that now that he is older he realizes, no matter what they did to them back then, “they can’t take my heritage away from me.”

From 1920 to 1947, Principal Jesse Blackwell, who is Anglo, transformed the school by creating an interscholastic league specifically for “Mexican schools,” where kids in the region could compete against each other, said historian Cristobal Lopez. For his contributions, the school first known as the Ward or Mexican School was named after Blackwell when he retired.

“He took the fundamentals and elevated that to the next level to ensure that the students, even though they were in a segregated school house, received the proper education that they needed,” said Lopez, who is a Texas field representative with the National Parks Conservation Association.

“Mexican schools, and when you look at segregated education, some of the things that stick out — the physical abuse, the emotional abuse — that did happen at Blackwell," Lopez said. "But the alumni really came together and changed the narrative and really made it into a story of resiliency, perseverance, success.”

Despite the negative associations with “Mexican schools” discouraging the Spanish language, alumni have held on to memories of teachers, their friends, small gestures and laughter.

“I think at Blackwell, they just cared so much for us,” Cano said, “even though some of us were tough to handle.”

In fifth grade, Cabezuela recalls, he and his classmates received new playground equipment when then-principal Henry Ward showed up with a duffel bag full of brand-new baseball bats. Cabezuela said it was one of his best memories while at the school.

Cabezuela said he is happy and proud that the school was able to be preserved but the best part of having the Blackwell school named a national park site is that those who walk through it are going to see their grandparents and learn more about their history.

Now, he said, “our grandkids, great-grandkids will go through that building. Even when I am gone, they’ll go there and they’ll probably see something about me and they’ll say look at granddaddy.”

The Associated Press receives financial support from the Sony Global Social Justice Fund to expand certain coverage areas. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

A Mariachi band performs during the ribbon-cutting ceremony to inaugurate Blackwell School as the newest National Historic Site in Marfa, Texas, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

The playground of Blackwell School is pictured during its inauguration as the newest National Historic Site in Marfa, Texas, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

A folkloric dance group performs during the inauguration of Blackwell School as the newest National Historic Site in Marfa, Texas, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

Alumni Lionel Salgado walks the Blackwell school grounds with help from his grand daughter Sarah Madero during its inauguration as the newest National Historic Site in Marfa, Texas, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, right, congratulates alumni Betty Nuñez Aguirre, center, and Tony Cano during the inauguration of Blackwell School as the newest National Historic Site in Marfa, Texas, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

A display with photos of the 1957 class of the Blackwell School decorates the classroom during the inauguration day of the school as the newest National Historic Site in Marfa, Texas, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

An old book rests on a desk of the Blackwell School classroom pictured during the school inauguration as the newest National Historic Site in Marfa, Texas, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

The Blackwell School classroom is pictured during the school inauguration as the newest National Historic Site in Marfa, Texas, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

From left, alumni Betty Nuñez Aguirre, musician Remigio "Primo" Carrasco, alumni Ismael Vasquez, his wife Elisa Vasquez and Gretel Enck, former president of the Blackwell School Alliance, sit at the school entrance during its inauguration as the newest National Historic Site in Marfa, Texas, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, center left, Blackwell School alumni Joe Cabezuela, center right, National Park Service Director Chuck Sams, second from left, and NPS Intermountain Regional Director Kate Hammond, second from right, react after cutting the ribbon to inaugurate Blackwell School as the newest National Historic Site in Marfa, Texas, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

A Border Patrol color guard conducts the presentation of colors during the inauguration of Blackwell School as the newest National Historic Site in Marfa, Texas, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)