By: Kaitlin Garza
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (UATV) – First generation college students are often trailblazers for the generations of their families that are to come after them. On the University of Arkansas campus, first gen students account for nearly 23% of undergraduates currently enrolled in classes.
Registrar for the university, Gary Gunderman said that about 860 of the undergraduates graduating this spring will be first generation students.
As the state population of Hispanic/Latino’s grew from 3.2% to 8.5% between the 2010 and 2020 U.S. Census, many first generation Latino’s attending the university are also in-state students.
Nationally, Hispanic/Latino students are more likely to be first gen college graduates than any other racial or ethnic group.
Meaning some of those students obtaining bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees this May, will be the first in their family to do so.
Roots in business
For International business major, Miguel Angel Marin Ponce, being the first person in his family to get a college degree is achieving a lifetime goal of both him and his parents.
Ponce’s parents moved their family of seven to Northwest Arkansas from Michoacán, Mexico, when he was 12 years old in hopes of securing a better life for all of them. The sacrifices Ponce saw his parent’s make during that move are what he said motivates him to have a successful career as a businessman.
“I like to think of my family as if I was born and raised in an entrepreneurial family,” Ponce said. “Both my grandparents and my parents had their own businesses back in Mexico.”
His favorite childhood memories, he said, are of being inside his grandparents restaurant and in his parents ice cream shop, where he spent nearly all his time.
“Most of my memories are in that ice cream shop,” Ponce said. “Sweeping, cleaning, moping, at 6 or 7 years old so I understood the hustle.”
Working at his family businesses for most of his life inspired Ponce to not only pursue an education in business, but to also aspire to one day open his own restaurant in NWA.
With free education also being an aspect that drew Ponce’s parents to bring his family to America, the value of education was always emphasized to Ponce and his siblings.
“Neither of my parents were able to finish high school and they went through rough times so of course they didn’t want us to go through those experiences,” Ponce said, “So they were always pushing us to pursue higher education.”
What was once the role of his parents, Ponce said, has now become his biggest motivator being a first gen student, “I just want to provide my parents and family with a better life.”
Empowerment
In 2017 Wendy Echeverria received her bachelor’s degree from the UA in broadcast journalism making her the first person in her family to graduate from college.
After graduating she worked for a local news station and then for the university’s electrical engineering department doing public relations work until deciding to return to school in 2020.
Deciding to get her masters degree was setting a new academic standard in Echeverria’s family that hadn’t been done before.
“It’s about having that degree and knowing that no one will ever take that away from me,” Echeverria said. “Anything can be taken away from me except those degrees that I’ve received.”
Echeverria said obtaining her masters degree is a way to empower herself as a Latina and get her foot in the door towards better opportunities, which hasn’t always been easy as a first generation student.
“My mom tried to help me navigate through the academic system but it was difficult,” Echeverria said. “Like most first generation students I sometimes had to navigate it by myself,”
Although the process of entering higher education was sometimes daunting, Echeverria said she was able to push through it and the doubts it oftentimes brought her.
Primarily, Echeverria credits this to her mom, who has always been her biggest motivator.
“She’s always wanted a degree but has never had the opportunity to get one,” Echeverria said. “But now that I have the opportunity I’m able to do this for myself but also for her.”
Echeverria’s mother left El Salvador when she was 16 year-old and was unable to bring her first born daughter with her to Los Angeles, California, where Echeverria was later born.
The strength of her mom, as a young girl Echeverria said, is what inspired her the most to pursue a higher degree and focus her master’s thesis on the empowerment of Latina’s everywhere.
“We go through so much, but we still overcome,” Echeverria said.
Trailblazing
Ramon Balderas was the first person in his family to graduate from college, receive a master’s degree, and will soon become the first to receive a doctorate.
With his graduate focus being higher education Balderas said he plans to open his own consulting firm after graduation that helps first generation Latinos and other students of color gain better access to higher education.
Being a first gen student, the access to higher education wasn’t exactly easy for Balderas to obtain.
“Coming here from Mexico and trying to navigate the college system really inspired me to see how I can help others,” Balderas said.
As a young boy, Balderas and his family moved from their small ranch with no running water or electricity in Guanajuato, Mexico, to Southwest Arkansas simply looking for a better life.
“It was the best gift they could have ever given me, because education wasn’t really celebrated there,” Balderas said.
Balderas said education in Mexico can be limiting for most people due to tuition fees and the fact college graduates in smaller regions of the country oftentimes are stuck working jobs that pay the same as most manual labor jobs.
As a result Balderas said a large stigma around higher education was always present in his family, with labor intensive jobs being more valued at times.
“My dad told me, son, don’t go to college,” Balderas said. “But to him that was his way of protecting me and doing what was best for me.”
However, Balderas said that through him getting not only his bachelors, masters, and now doctorate degree, was his father able to advise his younger siblings to follow in his footsteps.
“It’s the idea of being a trailblazer right,” Balderas said. “The idea of being able to create a path that nobody else has gone through,”
This idea of a trailblazer is what Balderas said falls as a responsibility to first gen students, which for him is a rewarding one.
“One of the coolest things to me is that one of my nieces goes to the U of A now,” Balderas said.
Being able to share help and guide his niece through college Balderas said is a beautiful thing and motivates him even more to continue helping future first gen graduates after completing his doctorate in May.