by Anisha Bhat

Isabel Garcia is on track for success. A senior Sociology and Chicano Studies double major at Pomona College in Claremont, California, she currently has her sights set on graduate school, with plans to be a professor someday. Garcia’s parents immigrated to Joliet, Illinois from Jalisco, Mexico shortly after their marriage. Garcia recalls that her parents always urged her to pursue education, even though their Spanish-language background prevented them from assisting her with her schoolwork.

As a result, Garcia threw herself into her schooling and was soon recognized as an outstanding student. She succeeded in spite of the many difficulties, often associated with language barriers. Garcia grew up in the part of Joliet known as “Little Mexico”, or the “barrio”, a predominantly low-income Latino community. Garcia recalls painful memories from kindergarten when she and her Latino peers were policed and punished for speaking Spanish in school. She says, “I was intimidated by the teachers. I didn’t want to be there, I was so scared to raise my hand, to even go to the restroom.”

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Despite such experiences, Garcia never wavered in her determination to excel in school and eventually attend college. She was aware of the financial constraints—as the second child of five children, she knew that her father couldn’t afford to send all of his kids to college. As a result, she spent every Friday, beginning her freshman year of high school, applying for scholarships. By her senior year, she had received 17 different private scholarships amounting to $60,000 total.

Garcia also inherited from her parents a strong work ethic and a desire to be financially independent and self-sufficient. She started working at 15, as a secretary for her family’s landscaping business. “We were five kids, and it was really hard for my parents to buy extra stuff… So I started working for myself.”

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Upon arriving at college, Garcia was responsible for all of her own expenses. This included living expenses, car payments, phone bill, school tuition and fees, and textbooks. She worked multiple jobs, always holding more than one job at any given time. In fact, she secured her very first job as a telemarketer for the school’s annual fund before even stepping foot on campus.

In addition to her telemarketing job, Garcia also worked various jobs through the college’s community outreach center. Some of these jobs included helping underprivileged high school students with their college admissions process, coordinating a program that provided weekly empowerment activities for local high school students, and an Executive Board position for the Students of Color Association. Off campus, she tutored local children and teenagers in the community.

Never content to remain idle, Garcia also spent her summer vacations working. She spent two summers working at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, and two summers in California conducting research for professors at Pomona College.

Currently, Garcia works as a Resident Adviser at Pomona College. Garcia was attracted by the leadership position and the importance of the job to the functioning of the college. Though her true passions lie in community service work, Garcia acknowledges that she takes pleasure and pride in her work as an R.A., specifically in the relationships she builds with her residents. She notes, “I do enjoy it…I interact a lot with residents. Even when I’m at my desk hours, just sitting there, people are always coming in asking for something…Or even when I’m in my room and I’m not on call, they’ll come. I try to keep my door open when I’m there, so people know just to walk in. ”

Ten years from now, Garcia hopes to be working as a professor, on tenure track, in a college or university. For her future children, she hopes to instill the same hardworking values that she embodied throughout her life. She remarks, “I would make them work. I have this idea that work makes you learn the value of the dollar. You need to work because it’s the way of living…”

Ultimately, though, Garcia views education as the greatest and most powerful influence in her life. When raising children, she plans to emphasize the transformational power of education, just as her parents did for her.

Indeed, reflecting on her life, and on her bright future, Garcia concludes,”I think education, just in general, is what is really marking the difference. The educational difference between my parent’s generation and my siblings and I. Education is doing what it’s supposed to, it’s supposed to socialize us to live in America.”

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