Years ago, I applied to a bunch of colleges. Most were on the east coast. My mom indulged my fanciful idea of an eastern college experience because she didn’t have to pay the application fees and because she had no idea that they actually admitted kids from poor, immigrant families. Well, they did.
The day after I got in, she took the “certificate” announcing my admission to the class of 1992 to her ESL class in Bell Gardens. She showed it to the teacher, who asked questions like “Where did you get this?” “Is this real?” and “Do you know what this means?”
My mother didn’t.
So, when I got home from school that day, she asked me “en que me has metido.” Translated, “kid, what have you gotten me into?” I explained that it was a pretty good school. She pulled out a map and asked me to point out where it was.
“California is here,” I said, “Boston is here.”
She sat there quietly and tried to figure out how that distance related to the distance from California to the town she had left in Mexico 20 years earlier.
“Are you sure you want to go that far?” she asked.
“I figure, you left your country when you were my age, at least I’m not doing that,” I laughed.
My decision at 18 years of age exposed me to some of the smartest, funniest, most talented, and creative people I’ve ever met. They are, to this day, the ones who most readily inspire me and who most consistently remind me of how fearless I have been.
A lot of schools sent out their admissions letters (or e-mails) this week. I’m glad that at least one student from the neighborhood where I grew up got into my alma mater.
His parents are, no doubt, in for some new experiences. But, if his four years turn out to be anything like mine, he’ll come out really believing that he can make every door in the world open for him and, hopefully, figure out ways to make sure that they stay open for those who follow.
© Laura Genao 2007
Financial aid is kind of amusing. Even though we were on welfare, UCLA wouldn’t give me any out and out free money to go there. My out of pocket would have been a couple of grand a year, plus loans, and I would have had to live at home. Harvard gave me a little less in loans, only wanted $700 a year, and let me go away for a couple of years. So yeah, I went to Harvard because it was like “la 99″–pretty cheap, had stuff I needed, stuff I liked, and some stuff I was just curious about.
Southeast LA representing in Cambridge? That’s cool. I couldn’t afford to go to grad school there and was strongly dissuaded from it by a good friend who did his M.Ed. there. It didn’t help that I really liked that friend. Oh well.
At 17, I knew very well how I dealt with stress and needed to be close to my parents. I didn’t even apply to out of state schools for that reason. I’ve never regretted my decision. I’m a product of California public education all the way… and it shows sometimes. Heh.