How were you able to succeed? I was able to succeed because of my family.

Evelyn, who came to this class back when she was in middle school, is asked how she felt when she was in this class. She’s asked how she was able to manage her work and how she was able to succeed and successfully go to college.

She was able to make her parents happy and proud. She succeeded because of her family because she knew her parents couldn’t afford her college tuition until they raised enough money so that she was able to go to college.

She was one of the first students to go to that class and to enter the school in 2011. Evelyn then proceeded and go to college to study writing.

Transcript:

Hebert Ramirez: When you went to college after high school how did you feel?

Evelyn Ramirez: Like what do you mean?

HR: Like how did you feel after leaving high school and middle school and going into college?

ER: Happy.

HR: What gave you the passion to go for writing?

ER: Writing?

HR: Yea.

ER:  Oh easy. I never, never really liked to talk to people that much. I never liked to express myself with people, I always kept it inside.

HR: Oh.

ER: But from there I mean, like ever since I was small like everybody would always tell me I’m good at writing. Like how I had these feelings that I showed through my writing skills even though I was bad at grammar. But still it was the only way I could express myself. Cause sometimes when you talk to people it’s hard you know.

HR: Mhm.

ER: Like you can say the wrong thing and they’ll take it the wrong way.

HR: Ok so, you told me you took journalism in middle school which is the same thing in this class, what did you do in this class, what did you talk about?

ER: Well, when I was in your grade and in your level I was actually an opinion editor. So pretty much my job was to have my crew or whoever wanted to do the opinion. I’d see their stories and I’ll write my own too but I’ll be the one that says if it’s good or the title or if you need to put more into it. Pretty much just check if their work is good enough or people who care even the opinion thing.

HR: What gave you a good passion in this class, like what gave you confidence that you can do this?

ER: Well since I was little I was a big [bleep] nerd. Like you can ask anyone and they’ll tell you I was a big nerd. But I really like investigating, being able to look through people’s perspectives and I also liked how Finer taught us – it was really fun and how he let us make our own space and share our ideas.

HR: How was it like being one of the first students in that class?

ER: It was nervous because we were so young and nervous, you know we were one of the first students to be there, like we thought maybe nobody will care or what’s the point of having this if not everyone is gonna care cause we were so young and so scared. Like nobody is gonna care and that they’re gonna throw it away. 

Like were just wasting our time and effort for nothing and it was so nerve racking, but I don’t know how we got the courage to do it. If people like it that’s good but if they don’t thats fine because we put all our time and effort into it. We put in a lot of investigations into it. Some moved on, they got their stuff done right. Cause we were still young when you guys were still babies and we were the first generation and the first class to do this. So its scary – nobody new if it was gonna go on for next year, or what will happen to it but it was fun. We did a lot more online and we saw people actually like our stuff.

HR: What is something that you did that helped you boost your self confidence?

ER: What do you mean?

HR: So what did you tell yourself to make yourself succeed?

ER: Well, for me I guess it’s always been my parents, my parents have always struggled since we were small.

HR: Even before I was born?

ER: Yea, even before you were born, um mom and dad, back then from elementary school would drop us off at 6 am in the morning and we’ll be there by ourselves for an hour until the gates open. Even in middle school mom and dad would drop us off at 6 am in the morning and the gates wouldn’t open. I think it was only the security guards who would be there at that time and they will let us in and be in the lobby until somebody came in and we can be outside, so it was like scary.

But from all those struggles I saw from my mom and dad like sometimes they had work, sometimes they couldn’t afford to pay rent. Like they couldn’t buy us everything like they do for you and like from that that became my motivation to succeed in life and anything I’ve done. Like if I knew I couldn’t do it or I didn’t believe in myself it felt like my parents wouldn’t be proud of me like I was failing them. Cause they work so hard, they immigrated from Mexico to come here to give me and my brothers a new life. 

HR: Yeah, dad came from walking right, he liked traveled walking?

ER: Yea, well both of them immigrated differently, they had to pay coyotes which means coyotes which are people who are pretty much they illegally bring people into the states and they were bad people. 

Mom and Dad, like if you were to ever talk about the story they’ll tell you about how horrible they were and how mean they were sometimes they wouldn’t even provide for these people. Or like nothing and some of them would rape the women and that was a scary deal mom and dad had to go through. So like when I think of like like I’m having a bad day or I think like oh this is hard I always think of how mom and dad had it worse you know. They went through all this crap all this bad stuff, you know dad, dad had to leave Mexico to support his three children after his wife died.

Mom came here because Grandpa didn’t want her to be there as much, he didn’t even want her to work, he wanted her to be a woman which means that oh she had to have children and support her husband. But mom didn’t want that, she wanted nice things, she wanted to work.  She wanted to have her own life that wasn’t based on Grandpa. So she came here but even with that she was able to become whoever she wanted to.

HR: So your parents and family all of that was the reason you were able to succeed?

ER: Yea, I mean everything I owe is thanks to my family and parents. So when I went to college mom and dad told me not to get loans. You know so they came up with nine hundred dollars. But when I went to college they barely lost their job again. 

HR: Yeah, that’s right they got fired-

ER: Yea they remember got fired.

HR: Yea.

ER: And I don’t know how they were able to give me nine hundred dollars for two semesters so that’s one thousand eight hundred of money that they came up with I don’t know how they came up with for what they did and what they’ve done. So yea I would say my parents and my family are the reasons I was able to succeed with things. I’m not gonna say I’m successful yet but I’m getting there.