Today, Explained - Planting dreams

Episode Date: June 11, 2019

Erica Alfaro just got her master’s degree. But underneath the cap and gown is the story of migrant farm workers, a teen pregnancy, and domestic abuse. Wil Del Pilar explains why it’s time for colleges to do more to cater to first-generation college students like Erica and himself. (Daniel Alarcón of Radio Ambulante guest hosts.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

MailChimp's all-in-one marketing platform allows you to manage more of your marketing activities from one place so you can market smarter and grow faster. It's powered by a marketing CRM, and I used to know what that stood for. So you can collect, organize, understand, and act on all your audience data. Learn more at MailChimp.com. By the end of the show, I'll know what a CRM is, I promise. Erica Alfaro rarely uses social media. She doesn't have much time. She spent most of the last few years working, raising her son, and getting a degree. I receive a master's degree in education with the concentration in counseling from San Diego State University. But when she did use social media to post her graduation photos, she became an overnight online celebrity.

Erica Alfaro posed with her mom and dad in these graduation photos that have gone viral. She's standing with them in her cap and gown in the middle of fruit fields. Erica Alfaro, de origen mexicano, decidió celebrarlo junto a sus papás en el mismo campo. Alfaro dropped out of school after getting pregnant at the age of 15. Alfaro credits her farm-working parents for inspiring her to get a degree. The photo caption said this. I want to dedicate my master's degree to my parents. Their sacrifices to come to this country to give us a better life were worth it.

So that means that I want to dedicate my master's degree to my parents. Your sacrifices of coming to this country were well worth it. And how did you have the idea to take this photo? Well, the idea started the morning that I showed my mom my cap and gown. I wanted to surprise her. So I showed her my cap and gown and she started crying. She started saying, I'm so proud of you. I can't believe that you're going to graduate.

All those sacrifices of working long hours in the fields were well worth it. And I told myself I need to do something for them. And that's when the idea came of taking the picture in the strawberry fields where they have work. I mean, your achievement is incredible. And your parents standing next to you, they're really kind of the stars of the picture as well. Do you want to tell us a little bit about their life and their story? Well, my parents, both of them, they are farm workers. They are immigrants.

They don't have any formal education. They don't know how to read or write. They came to this country in 1987. They got married in Fresno, California. And my dad, he was able to get his residence with a law that was passed for farm workers. But when he married my mom, in order for my mom to get her residence, she had to go back and wait over there in Mexico. And that's why we all moved back to Tijuana. And the reason why they decided to come back to this country is because they wanted a better life for us. They wanted to make

sure that we got a good education. And I read that you grew up in Tijuana, but crossed the border every day to come to school in California. Yeah. When I was 12 years old, my parents enrolled my sister, my brother, and I in a middle school in San Isidro. So for a year and a half, that's when we had to cross the border every day. But before that, we were only in Tijuana. Can you tell me what that feels like to cross the border every day, to go to school? Yeah, it was hard because we had to wake up at 4 a.m. every morning. And it used to take two to three hours. And we had to cross the border by 6 a.m.

because my parents, they had to be at work by 6, 6.30 a.m. So I remember that as soon as we cross the border, they will drop us off with the family member that live in San Isidro. And they'll just leave to work. And tell me about your parents' work. My mom, she works in the fields picking berries. So her job consists of bending down from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Saturday or sometimes Monday to Sunday.

It's a hard job that my mom has to do and also my dad. Literally backbreaking labor. Yes. So you were waking up at the crack of dawn with your parents to cross the border to go to school in San Isidro. Were you the only kid doing this? I'll say that at least 70% of my classmates, they had to cross the border every day I remember because most of them came to this to this country at around the same age and they were also U.S. citizens and somehow they uh their parents live in Tijuana and they and they had to go to school in San Isidro and I

remember that my parents sometimes sometimes we used to cross the border walking. We had to walk instead of being in the car because it was getting late. And I will see a lot of my classmates also waiting to cross the border. I've never heard of a class where 70% of the students are crossing an international border just to get an education. Yes. And that is because we were in a program where all the students didn't know how to speak English. They were all students that came from Tijuana or other places. Everyone had that similar story. Was it just understood this was a sacrifice you had to make or was it something that like normal teenage angst where you're like, hi, mommy, you know,

like, I don't want to, I don't want to do this. Hi, puppy. Come on. Yeah. I remember my mom had to struggle with this, especially with me because I didn't like school. So I remember that she, like, we will, we will complain, but we, we got used to it to a point that we don't longer complain. It was just a routine. We had to do it. Do you remember what it was like in those first period class, like trying to concentrate when you'd already been awake for three hours and having done a journey like that? Yeah, I remember that I used to get extremely sleepy in my classrooms and I was always tired. I didn't like school.

It was really hard for me to go to school, and I always wanted to go home. I never saw the importance of going to school, especially being in a classroom where we had the same teacher all day, and we used to just watch movies. And I never felt that I was learning or doing something that I was interested in. And my grades were not good. So I used to think that school was just not for me. So then how did the rest of your school years go?

I was 15 years old when I dropped out of high school. And I was 15 years old when I dropped out of high school. And I was 15 years old when I found out that I was pregnant. I moved to Fresno with my baby's father. And I lived under domestic abuse for many years. One day I tried to leave the relationship and I couldn't make it far. So as a punishment, he forced me to sleep outside the house with my baby. And I remember that that night I was feeling extremely hopeless and I was feeling like a victim. But then a memory came to my mind, and that was when I was 13 years old.

That was when my mom took me to work with her in the tomato fields. And when I told her that I was tired, she said, this is our life. The only people that have a good life are the ones that have a good education. And that was the reason why I decided to go back to school. Even thinking about high school, for me, it was like, it was a big dream. And it was a little bit unrealistic because at that time I didn't know how to speak English. But even like that, I just decided to keep going. And then in high school, I met a teacher that encouraged me to go to community college and in community college I met a school counselor that encouraged me to go to undergrad school and then another professor encouraged me to go to graduate

school and somehow I made it all the way to to a master's degree. So you're 29 years old the percent of teen mothers who finish college before 30, it's like 2%. So it's like super rare. And then you even went on to get your master's. How did you balance being a parent and a student? It was hard to balance. I had to work full-time while being a full-time student. And I just dedicated my Sundays to my son.

But even like that, I was always busy. It was really hard to balance. And now my son is 13 years old and he doesn't require much of my attention. But sometimes it does hurt to know that I missed so many years with him because of school and work. His father was never in the picture. So I had to do it on my own. And the reason why I did it, it was because of him, because I want to give him a better life. And I knew that it was going to require a lot of sacrifices. And I am very grateful that he appreciates everything that I did for him. It still hurts me that I wasn't able to spend enough time with him.

What was the hardest moment of your journey? And what was the most joyous? One of the hardest moments was in 2012. When I started undergrad school, my son was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. And because of depression, I neglected my grades. And I was academically disqualified from Cal State San Marcos in 2013. That was one of the hardest moments, because I thought that that was the end of everything. But then one morning when my son asked me if I had a career already, and that every night I used to tell him that one day I was going to have a career

and that we were going to have a house and a dog. That's when I decided to go back to school. And that's when I told myself that I was not going to make any excuses anymore to the point that my grades were much better than in the past. And I was selected to be the commencement speaker for my graduation ceremony. That was one of the best moments in my academic journey. And that's when I decided that I did belong. And I just stopped comparing myself. Do the struggles that you've overcome, have they played a part in your career decision and what you want to do now that you've graduated?

Yes. I think that the reason why I want to be a school counselor that was a Latina because I was able to see myself in her. And I was able to believe that it was possible because of her. And throughout my educational journey, every time that I saw someone that looked like me and that I was in a higher position, I felt more encouraged. And I always wanted a role model when I was younger, and I never had a role model. So I told myself, okay, you never had a role model, but now it's your time to become a role model to others. When you were in college or grad school, and you mentioned you were sometimes like the only Mexican,

Mexican-American student in the class, did you have a hard time sort of telling your story to other students? Did they have a hard time understanding where you were coming from and the challenges that you were going through? First of all, I never share my story with no one. I never wanted no one to know that I went through domestic violence or that I struggle. But now that you're mentioning that, I remember the first time that I shared my story, it was during the last semester of Cal State San Marcos in 2017. And the reason why I had to share

my story, it was because it was part of a final assignment. We had to share in a 25-minute presentation the story or the reason why we decided to pursue a higher education. And at first, I was just going to mention something general, but the night before that presentation, I couldn't sleep because I couldn't stop thinking about the girl that was outside her house crying and feeling hopeless and how she wanted to know if it was even possible for her to dream bigger. And I just thought about that girl. Maybe if I share my story, maybe someone could relate to me. I remember that I asked my teacher to turn off the lights because I was scared of being vulnerable. And after I finished sharing my presentation, that was the first time that I saw

that reaction of all my classmates. And that's when they told me, we wouldn't even thought that you went through so many things. And they started crying. They all gave me a hug. And a lot of people told me that they also went through something similar. And that was when I realized how powerful a story can be. Erica Alfaro's story is extraordinary, but it's not the only one of its kind. Next, the struggles that immigrant and first-generation college students face that people and schools don't even think about. This is Today Explained.

I'm Daniel Alarcon filling in for Sean Ramosfirm while he's on vacation. I've never run a business before, but I imagine if I had one, I would want it to grow. And if you want to grow your business, Mailchimp's all-in-one marketing platform has some solutions for you. For example, it allows you to manage more of your marketing activities from one place so you can market smarter and grow faster. MailChimp eliminates the need for multiple tools by giving you everything you need to create, publish, manage, and measure multi-channel campaigns. Deal with it. It's Thank you. use that in my life just like at a birthday party probably the complete marketing platform has everything you need to start marketing your business today and MailChimp will be there to help you as your business grows and needs new capabilities let MailChimp help you market smarter learn more at the Education Trust.

We are a national and state advocacy organization for low-income students and students of color from early childhood education all the way through higher education. And he'll tell you, if being a college student is hard, then being a first generation college student from a low income family is even harder. So we know that approximately 46% of undergraduates are the first person in their family to go to college. And so if you think about what that means in terms of over the 19.9 million students in higher ed, we're looking at well over 9 million students who are first-generation students. If you think about the statistics or the likelihood of being first-generation and Latino, it's really high. Almost 61% of students in higher ed are first-generation Latino students. That's extraordinary. And can you talk a bit about what challenges students like that might

face that are sort of unique to their backgrounds? Well, there's a lot of, I think, challenges that come with being first generation, being an immigrant first generation student. Forty-eight percent of first generation students start at community college. They provide wonderful, I think, opportunities for access, but they have less resources. The average student loses around 43 percent of their credits upon transferring, and they have the lowest graduation rates. And so there are significant challenges around choice and then I think around navigating the financial aid process, which can often be complex and very confusing for low-income students and first-generation students. So I understand this was your experience as well, right? That's the

absolute truth. And so I was trying to figure it out by myself. I sat down, I filled out the FAFSA form on my own, but I didn't know the difference between, for example, a grant and a loan. They're called award letters. You think everything's an award. And so I'd share this story with students when I went to graduate from my undergraduate institution, the first time I realized I had borrowed $24,000 was when I went to my exit interview for student loan counseling. And I almost cried because I had borrowed $24,000 and I was making $28,000 in my first job. It sounds to me like the institutions bear some responsibility here in the sense that the counselors need to be able to break down the realities of these kinds of costs and these challenges to students in a much clearer and more direct way? Or maybe they're

not even recognizing the problem? Well, I think that the assumption is that most students know. The assumption is that we're dealing with first-time, full-time students who were traditionally white middle class. And the model has changed significantly. You got to think 37% of students are 25 or older. 42% of students are students of color. 49% are financially independent. And so students have changed, but the models that we're using to serve students hasn't changed. So, Will, I feel like this is one of the tropes we know about immigrant kids is like,

from a very young age, we translate for our parents. And so there's this assumption that immigrant kids are super savvy, you know, like know how to navigate all this stuff. So are they kind of expected to just figure out college? I think that's absolutely the case. When you look at the experience, especially of immigrant students, they're navigating maybe healthcare for their parents. They're navigating the school system. So I'll give you an example. When I was an undergrad at Chapman University, I could find anywhere that there was free food. I can, you know, identify where there was an event happening. I would go at the end and they would say, oh, we have leftover food. Come in and like, you know, enjoy. And, you know, I was grateful for

that. I learned how to navigate the institution in terms of being able to get into a class that was full. I would show up to the faculties, office hours. I would be able to then, you know, have a conversation with them, get them to add me to a class. And so while we have navigational capital, you have to know which structures to navigate and which are the correct structures. And so I think structurally they're so siloed that they have to go to 10 places to get the information they need in order to be successful. It struck me when I was speaking with Erica how little margin of error there is for students in her circumstances. You know, like a missed class,

you know, a babysitter is out, car breaks down, any number of things that are small and surmountable on their own for a student like Erica and for the thousands and thousands of students who are in her position, they can really knock that student off their academic track in a major way. How do you help students in her position or in positions like that not lose their way, not lose their path? Yeah. The margin for error is smaller because if you make a mistake, you're dependent upon financial aid to help you pay for education. One of the things we see institutions doing is creating these emergency grant programs. So they're called just-in-time grants at some institutions.

And so they provide the resources students need. I was at an institution in Tennessee, went to go visit, and the average grant was $77. So that means that $77 was the difference between a student being able to stay in college or a student having to drop out of college. And so a lot of times it's not like huge amounts of money, but there's small things that institutions can do to help students overcome those obstacles. We've had a lot of numbers in this conversation, but I was wondering if you talk about the psychological toll, because it seems to me that this is a kind of pressure that sits on top of academic pressure. You feel pressure, and so you feel that your identity is divided into several

parts. You have a home identity, you have a school identity, a work identity, you have all of these different pressures that come in terms of maybe working, helping family. If you have younger siblings, you're the role model or the example that you have to, helping family. If you have younger siblings, you're the role model or the example that you have to give to them. If you're the translator for the family, you feel the pressure to do that. And so I think it does take a huge, you know, a psychological toll on people to have to be sometimes, you know, all of these things to all of these people in order to be successful. And so it does create, I think, a significant amount of pressure. You know, I think about my own experience and I did feel like if I don't come home and help and then, you know, what's going to happen to my

younger siblings? Are they going to be as successful? And so you can't be equally invested everywhere. And so sometimes I think things begin to suffer. And when you think about I'm Latino, first generation student, to me, family is really important. And so am I going to ignore family or am I not going to do schoolwork? And I think it does begin to take pressure, especially when you think about some of the other pressures that first generation students feel. Like when you think about imposter syndrome, you know, you think you don't belong there. Students face a lot of pressure today. So, Will, I wanted to sort of end where we started. You know, on the top of the show, we talked with Erica. And I was wondering if you got to see her, the photo that went viral. I did. What did you feel?

I was proud. You know, as a Latino, you know, first-generation student myself, to see her in the field with her parents, not forgetting where she came from, to me, like, I'm impressed by that. And so I was really proud that she was able to overcome all of those obstacles, and those obstacles have now become strengths for her. Will Del Pilar is the vice president of higher education policy and practice at the Education Trust, and he knows a lot about the experiences of first generation college students because of his work and because he was one. This is Today Explained. I'm Daniel Alarcon filling in for Sean Ramos' firm while he's on vacation. Management System so you can collect and organize and understand and act on all of your audience data. You can learn more right now at MailChimp.com.