|
Life is hard, but success is sweet for Manatee’s migrant graduates
By RICHARD DYMOND
BRADENTON — She only wanted a friend, someone to like her.
But it was nearly impossible for then-8-year-old Vanesa Robledo to
establish a real friendship because her parents, who are migrant
workers, constantly moved. She just never had time to work on her
English.
Vanesa and her two sisters once changed houses and schools three times
in one month.
“I was mad,” Robledo, one of 23 graduates, told a crowd of about 200 at
the 23rd annual Migrant Education Awards Ceremony at the Bradenton
Municipal Auditorium on Monday. “I was committing social suicide. I
decided I would wait up until my father came home one night and tell him
he needed to change jobs. Then I saw him walk into our house. His
clothes were filled with dirt. His fingernails were broken. His skin was
caked with sweat and mud. He could barely sit at the kitchen table. I
ran to the bedroom and cried. And I decided right there I wasn’t going
to be a problem because my parents were working as hard as they could
for us.”
A decade later, everything has worked out for Robledo. She received the
honor of being selected with her mother, Juana Dominguez, to give
parent/student speeches at Monday’s event, which recognizes students who
have participated in the Manatee County school district’s English for
Speakers of Other Languages and migrant academic programs.
Not only have Robledo’s parents settled in Bradenton, she now speaks
English with poise and power and has too many friends to count at
Southeast High School. She’s also carrying a 3.9 grade point average, is
set to graduate in the top four percent of her class this spring and has
gone from social suicide to social butterfly.
“My friends often tell me now that I’m loud and that I talk all the
time,” Robledo said. “But I’m taking advantage of finally having
friends.”
Robledo’s oldest sister Ana Robledo added, “The way she has conquered
obstacles while remaining kind to everyone is what impresses me most
about her. She is very hard-working.”
Robledo’s mother, Juana, worked in Mexico most of her life, coming to
America in 1998. She said she had dreams of becoming a doctor.
“There are no words to describe how I feel seeing my daughter tonight,”
Juana Dominguez said in Spanish, her words translated by Ana. “This is a
very great emotion. Vanesa is my third daughter to graduate from the
program. Of my daughters, she is the one who reminds me the most of
myself.”
Robledo said she plans to attend MCC next year and study nursing. She is
also interested in training at Manatee Technical Institute to become an
optometry assistant. But law school, Broadway and even U.S. President
aren’t out of reach, she said.
Robledo credits much of her success to Jacquelin Houston, her
fourth-grade teacher at Daughtrey Elementary School. “She helped me
write a speech in English and Spanish that I read before the whole
school,” Robledo said. “She was always pushing me to believe in myself.
That speech made a huge difference in my life.”
|