What is your hometown? Pomona, CA
What colleges did you attend? Degrees earned? Cal Poly Pomona B.A. Political Science & Minor in Gender, Ethnicity, and Multicultural Studies with emphasis in Chicanx Studies
University of Southern California - M.S.W Master's in Social Work
What motivated you to go to college? I'll be honest, people like me didn't go to college. I was not highly motivated to go to college. What I did not want to do was work labor-intensive type of work, nor did I want to continue selling dope and breaking my mother's heart. In high school, I was part of the AVID Program, and my AVID teacher, Mr. Mariles (who is still a mentor and good friend of mine), saw something in me and asked that I trust him as he walked me through the process of applying to college. He shared with me that as a poor student from a single-mother household, I would most likely qualify for free money that I could use to support my mother. He sold me on the idea of college as a way to get free income into my home without me having to do labor-intensive work or without me having to make money illegally.
Describe your college experience as first-generation. My first 2 and a half years in college are a blur. I do not remember much. I can't recall the classes I took or the connections I made. I would go to class and then head back to my neighborhood, never spending time on campus. I was part of EOP, and my EOP Counselor at the time would mention different places and organizations on campus that I should look into but I never paid them any attention. In class, I was unable to relate to my professors or classmates in part because I was sheltered and unaware of how to engage with folks who didn't look like me. My high school was 95% Latino. Cal Poly, although it's a "Hispanic Serving Institute", was a bit more diverse than I was used to. It wasn't until I took an Ethnicity and Women's Studies (EWS) class that I grew more interested in the college environment. I was introduced to the Chavez Center on campus and to organizations such as MEChA and Hermanos Unidos. I gained the confidence to join these organizations and engage with the Chavez Center. The following 2 and a half years were amazing at Cal Poly. I met and surrounded myself with peers with shared experiences where I learned about myself and how to positively represent my community.
What unique challenges did you face? It took a while for me to engage in the campus spirit. Not only am I a first-generation college student but I was the first person from my whole family to pursue higher education. I was unable to connect, vent, or tap into my family for support. It wasn't that they didn't want to support me, they just didn't know how. And I didn't know how to ask for that support from them.
How did you overcome those challenges? Once I became active in the campus community and joined Hermanos Unidos, MEChA, and the Chavez Center, I was able to learn more about myself and how to better communicate with my family. We hosted events aimed at our families and I was able to invite my mother, siblings, and stepfather to campus and have them see what it was that I was doing. That family engagement forever changed my life. My family understood the importance of my education and learned how to be my moral support.
What did you advise other first-generation students? “Hay veces que el pato nada y hay veces que ni agua bebe” and “los caminos de la vida no son como yo pensaba” are two classic song lyrics that have guided me and have really helped me put things in perspective. These lyrics have helped me learn how to celebrate my achievements and learn from my mistakes. If you need help translating or understanding the lyrics, don’t hesitate to reach out and I can walk you through it.
I’ll leave you with one more advice that I actually recently learned (it was shared with me by another student from her favorite author), “For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again” – F. Scott Fitzgerald.
