A Walk in My Shoes: First Generation College Students
> AMANDA MORALES: Being a first generation student is, um, the most exciting and liberating yet scary experience a young person probably will have.
DINA BENNETT: I think we always want to know what's going to happen. You know, what's ahead of us, what are we getting into. And when we don't know that, we become uncertain. I think that immediately gives them some fear about the unknown.
> STEVEN DANDANEAU: First generation students often don't have that parental support. It may be a little bit based on just fear and not knowing. People just don't know what role they should play, how much support they should offer, how involved should they be. They're not aware. That was my own experience. My family didn't know what to do to help me. They wanted to but they just weren't prepared to.
> PAT BOSCO: My one concern for parents is the cost of going to school. It trumps everything. It trumps where a student's going to live, whether they get their book on time, whether they'll have food on the table, whether they are be able to continue next semester or not.
KIRK SCHULZ: I think there's a myth out there that I'm not sure I'm smart enough to go to school. I'm not sure my son or daughter, grandson or daughters are smart enough. I'll say you know what – I have yet to encounter a student that wasn't smart enough to be successful. The difference is a motivational level, what they want do, are they ready for college. And I believe work ethic and the ability to get in their good time management skills are far more important than overt intelligence. If you really want and you're going to work hard you'll be successful.
> HELENE NGUYEN: Growing up I went to school with a lot of Hispanic students, Chinese, Vietnamese, but hardly any white students. We were aware that we were different race, but it was never a problem. So it was a good atmosphere to learn English because everyone was learning English. So we all kind of learned as a community.
Education-wise, it might not have been the best school or the best books, or the best teachers, but I believe it was a really good atmosphere. I was one of the only kids who knew fluent Vietnamese and fluent English. Most kids either learned English and forgot Vietnamese or didn't know English well enough. So at school they would call me out of class to go translate so I thought it was a ton of fun because I'd be getting called out of class three or four time as week to translate. It was a chance for me to learn both different terms in English and Vietnamese I didn't know before.
We didn't really have toys and stuff so all the kids would play on the jungle gym for hours after school. You would see kids playing in the streets all the time, playing with sticks – just whatever we could find.
I didn't feel like I was poor. We were a really big community, so everyone was friends. Most of our parents were either working multiple jobs or working throughout the night. Even though my parents didn't get a high school degree or any education in Vietnam, my mom was really good with numbers.
She would sit me down whenever she had free time when she came home to go over math homework with me, which was great. My parents did own a store that they ran full time. They would sleep there even. They had beds there. So basically my brothers raised me.
> QUOC HO CHI NGUYEN, HELENE’S BROTHER: We helped out some. She was a hard working girl. She did a lot of the stuff herself. You know, she also helped out a lot with her younger brother about getting him to go to college.
> HELENE NGUYEN: That was our every day life. They would just educate me, and everything. It was definitely a change going from the rowdy, crazy streets of Los Angeles to quiet suburbia in Johnson County. There weren't many minorities in Johnson County, so I definitely felt that difference. Everyone looked at me weird, or I would hear them say things at school because I was one of the few Asian students there.
I always thought my culture was something good about me so when I finally came here I felt like people couldn't see past me being Asian or my culture to see who I was. It's something my mom always tells me about education is this is an opportunity that they never had and she just wants me to get a much out of it as possible.
> SON THI VO, HELENE’S MOTHER: [speaking Vietnamese] What I really wanted for Helene, when we got to Kansas, was for her to pursue her education. I was so happy I cried the first year she was gone. Her older brothers tried to go to school, but because of the circumstances of our family, they weren’t able to. It saddened me, but I was happy that Helene could get an education.
> HELENE NGUYEN: I really didn't expect to go to college. I just expected to start working at the nail salon part time, eventually get my nail license, you know, start work within my family, and all that. But they were like, no. We want you to have a better life. We don't want you touching people's feet for a living. We want you, um, to get an education and get further than we have so that your children get further than you have.
I do feel like I'm a bridge because my younger brother, he never thought he was going to go to college. He always thought he was just going to pick up some minimum wage job and work up to be a manager or something. And I was determined to make him go to college. He finally has realized that education is fun so I’m finally glad to see him enjoy education because education is something you should enjoy.
And then my mom just a few years ago when I told her I was going to be an English teacher in ESL, she thought that was amazing. She really was inspired, I guess, so she started taking night classes to learn English. She can actually hold a conversation, which is nice now.
The worst hurdle for me, which is probably not as bad a hurdle as any of the others, I could not take being away from my family. I was so home sick. It was like, so empty without having my family there because we've all lived together, all my brother and I, and my mom, since I was 11. I drove home every weekend, almost. I was used to being babied by my brothers.
I did my paperwork by myself and all that, but I didn't have them there to support me, which was really scary. I would just stay up at night and think did I make the right choice, should I call them and ask them if I should take this class or not, and they just thought it was ridiculous that I couldn't make these choices by myself yet. It was it wasn't until the advisers at the College of Education helped me and I finally thought, so I really can do anything I want. That's when I start taking more liberty and freedom with my classes and my education.
As a kid, I had so many people who weren't ESL tell me I wouldn't succeed, I wouldn't learn English. I was already reading Harry Potter in second grade and I loved it. But everybody thought because I was an ESL student and I was in these lower classes that I couldn't get into the advanced English class. My family had to step in and say no, she should be taken out of ESL finally and that's when they tested me to have them realize that I had potential. So I thought that as an ESL major I can make this change in students and if they weren't determined to learn I would make them determined to learn because it's not an opportunity they should miss.
LISA MEAD: My name is Lisa Mead, I am from Effingham, Kansas and I am a first generation college student. When I first started elementary school I lived near Nortonville, Kansas, in between Nortonville and Cummings, and then when I got out of high school, I now live in Effingham, Kansas, which is, like, 10 minutes from where I used to live.
One of the things I used to really want to do was be an archaeologist. I don't like bugs, I don't really like dirt, I don't like working in the heat and I was like, that's probably not a good idea. But I had always loved history, so I was like what profession could I do something that has to do with history.
As I got older and into high school, I started baby sitting and I found out I love working with kids. I would love to be able to teach kids about history and I want to see if I can make them realize that history is a fun topic. All my favorite teachers were history teachers.
My sophomore year and my senior year I had the same teacher. Her name was Ms. Hanson and she was great. She was very dedicated to her work. She would be there to help you and she was that teacher who if I was having a bad day, she would let me talk to her. She could tell when something was wrong.
Like, I want to be that person where if you need to talk about something, if it's just you're having the worst day of your life and you don't think it's ever going to get better and you just need to vent, I want to be that teacher where my door is open. I want you to be able to come in and feel comfortable talking to me. The kids that quote unquote nobody wants are the kids that I have the soft spot for.
> BETTY ENGLE, LISA’S GREAT AUNT: Ever since she was small, she was always for the under dog. She's always wanted to help everybody. And I think that will help her. I do.
> LISA MEAD: The kids that have the more troubled past, the more troubled background, especially if it's a family problem. I understand where they're coming from a little bit, and so I know that to them it's a big deal. Having somebody to accept you or having a place where you feel okay and accepted is one of the greatest things you possibly give somebody.
In one word I feel like my childhood was kind of very tragic, at the beginning especially. I moved around a lot after my mom passed away.
> BETTY ENGLE: Her mother was killed. And that was when she was four. So of course I was the one that had to go pick her up from the day care after we got word of her mother's accident, and bring her back to my house. So then she was with me for about almost another month before her dad moved her out then and took her out on her own.
> LISA MEAD: But, um, my father was not a very good person or a very good parent. When I was eight, a lot of stuff happened and I almost drowned. My dad decided well, fine, we're going to put you up for adoption and so he gave my maternal grandmother first chance and if she would have said no I would have just been sent to the Oregon foster care system. So my grandma adopted me legally when I was eight and it kind of felt like a lonely childhood, I think, for me.
It was better. There was lot less physical abuse, but it was still really hard emotionally because she wasn't out rightly loving. And so I just got to the point where I would come home from school, I would stay in my room, all day.
Well, I didn't really have a lot of help getting to college. The family that I babysat for my sophomore year all the way up to the summer after my freshman year of college, they helped me with how to find the applications to the schools and apply.
> JOEL MCNERNY, FAMILY FRIEND: I was asking her if she had done any scholarships, if she had she applied to college yet, and she didn't really know how to go about doing that.
> LISA MEAD: When I got in, I was so excited and I, like, ran to tell everybody.
> JOEL MCNERNY: She was very excited and thrilled and bouncing all over the place.
> LISA MEAD: It wasn't only I got into my dream school, but it was I can leave here and go somewhere else. And do what I want to do. And be myself. And so it was great overall, it was just a really great day when I got that letter. My mom was going to be a teacher before she had to drop out.
> BETTY ENGLE: I think trying to do what she thought her mother would have wanted her to do was part of her dream.
> LISA MEAD: When I was younger I felt guilty. You know, why am I here, and my mom is not. So part of it kind of grew out f that. But it became I want to live a life that my mom would be happy. To know that's her daughter.
As I was growing up just knowing that I had somebody to talk to, even if it was one teacher and it was like once every three week that I actually managed to get in a word in with that teacher. That kept me going. A lot of times just knowing that somebody cared.
KRIS BAILEY: I was one of those kids that, uh, not to toot my own horn, but I was kind of a popular kid. I had lots of friends. Always had, like, a little trail of kids that was always following me around.
It was always a fun childhood, always out running around all over the city, at the time you could do that kind of stuff, run around in the city without having to be worried about getting picked up in a car or something like that.
When I was raised with my grandparents, they were old, you know, and so when I would come home from school, things like that, they weren't, maybe not because they weren't interested in my education, but maybe they were at an age where they weren't really, they couldn't be interested. They had health issues, they had to take care of the home. I had two cousins that lived with me too. So when I came home from school, there wasn't anybody that was monitoring me you know, as far as let me check your homework, what did you learn in school, things like that. I was kind of on my own, and then when I came to school, it was left to the teachers and they did a pretty good job of that. Otherwise I wouldn't be in this position right now, so.
After my grandma died I went back to live with my mom in Kansas City. And Manhattan is totally different than Kansas City. It's just more of an urban environment and so when I went there, I was looked as, you know, like a nerdy kid. They said I talked white and I was like what, talk white, what are you talking about? So, I had to deal with that, kids kind of messed with me a little about that and, um, that was a little different. So my popularity went completely out the window. It didn't bother me to a point where it messed with my academics or anything like that, but it was definitely different.