Santa Clara University

Vanessa Vallejo

TWO PERSPECTIVES: ONE YEAR, YEAR FOUR

Year One: Learning What it Means to Be Me
by Vanessa Vallejo

I am female, 18, and Mexican. I am confident, ambitious, and critical. I am talented, loud, and empathetic. I tend to think that the glass is half-empty, yet I have countless dreams for the world and all of its inhabitants. My mom grew up in Jalisco, Mexico with two parents and 11 brothers and sisters. At the age of 15 she moved to the United States, where she was abruptly immersed into a completely new dialect and way of life. She did not finish her senior year of high school because of the difficulties she had with language barriers in addition to the new burden of responsibilities bestowed upon her (which included laboring in the fields and taking care of her younger siblings). After some time, my mom took courses in English at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, and a few years before I was born, she opened up her own retail business. My father was born in Texas but he spent most of his childhood in and out of schools because of his family's occupation as field workers. He moved around a great deal with his parents, four sisters, and four brothers, bound by the seasons of harvest for their income. His father and one of his sisters passed away at an early age due to alcoholism. My dad completed high school at the age of 18, and then went on to complete four years of service for the navy. Afterwards, he worked for Firestone for 15 years and then as a county deputy in Salinas.

My mom and I have a great relationship-she has always placed a great amount of trust in me-and at a young age I came to realize that I could confide in her for almost any matter. My father was a decent dad to me but a failure to my mom as a husband. As an alcoholic he was abusive, unfaithful, and stubborn. Although both of my parents fit into traditional Hispanic roles, my mother falls into the tasks of the wife and mom especially. Her altruism and devotion to my sisters and me is evident in the many sacrifices she has made to provide her children with the best lives possible. Running a business takes a great deal of sacrifice and my mom could not have set a better example of integrity and hard work. I, in turn, adopted her work ethic, which entitled giving my very best or not giving anything at all. I pride myself on being a hard worker, not only because my mom is, but also because my dad is the complete opposite.

Knowing that the 80-plus hours my mom works every week are being sacrificed for me really affects my values and desires. The lesson I inherited from my mom's experiences is the importance of self-sufficiency. My parents should have divorced 20 years ago, but my mom remained a married woman so that she could provide her daughters with the opportunity to live in a nice part of town and attend private schools. I have learned from seeing my mom suffer, because of her reliance on my dad for many things, never to depend on anyone. Looking back on their marriage, I realize that all of the times my mom struggled the most were due largely in part to my father's failures. I have seen women become ruined because of the men in their lives that they depended too much upon. It has even influenced my choice of a major. Instead of pursuing my interest in English, I chose to study biology for a vocation in health care rather than writing or teaching. Because stability and happiness were absent in my mom's adult life and mine, I crave them more than any amount of prestige or wealth. I will admit that I am cynical. But in this day and age I believe it is much safer to be strong and cynical than to be naïve and get hurt.

My sisters and I were the only kids in our extended family fortunate enough to attend private schools. We are also the only ones who have gone on to attend four-year colleges. My mom would not tolerate us growing up in an area of town that exposed us to crack or violence. As a child, I remember how awkward it was for me to relate to my cousins because of the many differences in our lives. I was criticized for the material things my parents bought me. In their eyes, I was spoiled. On the other hand, at the private all-girls high school I attended, I was one of the few who were not dropped off in a sparkling Mercedes or BMW. Being insecure in my surroundings, I allowed my selfish pride to take over. I remember begging my mom to drop me off a block away from school, because I was too ashamed to be dropped off in our beat-up, pick-up truck with the cracked windshield. I realize now how self-absorbed I was, and how much my mom valued education above material goods.

I had always wanted to attend college. I knew that in order to be successful it was necessary to be educated. Over time I learned that an education was the greatest of all gifts. I debated between Santa Clara and the University of San Francisco for a long time but eventually decided on SCU with the help and influence of many people. One of my favorite teachers at Notre Dame High School received her bachelor's degree from USF and had taught a couple of courses at SCU. I asked about the pros and cons of both schools for my academic interests. She helped me realize the distinction of Santa Clara's academic reputation over most schools. I had always known that my parents wanted one of their daughters to graduate from SCU and that it would make them very proud if I chose to go there.

After speaking to many adults and hearing many opinions, it was my best friend, Sabrina, who finally convinced me. She told me that she felt I would be challenged at Santa Clara. She was right. As I've progressed throughout this year, I'm still learning why I chose to come to Santa Clara: the quality of the education, the close contact with teachers and the community of talented, caring people. I also love that I am required to take ethnic/gender studies and go out into the community and learn from people, and that all aspects of myself are educated in the process.

My adjustment to Santa Clara was trying because academically, I had never been so challenged in my entire life. As I anticipated, I suffered the trials of balancing a biology major with the Swig dorm life and five a.m. crew practice six days a week. I also missed my mom a great deal. I felt horrible because I had been the last child in the nest, and I felt as though I had abandoned her in our house with my father.
I also felt incredible pressure to be a smashing success right off the bat, which I was not. I thought the problem was that I just didn't know how to study properly. I later discovered that I wasn't allowing myself enough time to absorb the material we were covering at such a rapid pace.

I had never previously experienced failure and to have to tell my mom was depressing. She sympathized, but could not relate to my experience. I was her "baby" who had always received A's in high school. I knew she had very high expectations of me. My sisters had already graduated and started their careers, but for my parents, I was still a big question mark.

SANTA CLARA

My mom and dad had hoped for at least one doctor or lawyer in the family, and I felt the pressure to be the one who fulfilled their dreams as parents. In the beginning of the school year I suffered from a lack of confidence in myself which had never been a problem before. This caused me to think negatively and doubt qualities in myself of which I had originally been proud.

I also felt stupid because I had not taken calculus in high school. Many people living around me, including my roommate-who was an engineering major-began in upper-division calculus. I recall one instance in which my roommate and I were hanging out in our room with two guys from our dorm, both of whom were also in advanced calculus. We were talking about math and one of them mentioned, "At least I know I'm smarter than one person sitting in this room." I wanted to lash out at him, scream, cry, or just leave college forever. It was devastating because it was the first experience in my life in which someone had made me feel that painfully inferior.

I attributed my problems in calculus to the fact that I had always had a weak background in math. I could never ask my parents for help with any homework. When I asked my roommate for help, she unintentionally made me feel like an idiot, because she could not explain the math in 'simple' terms. I always had too much pride to ask her to explain concepts a third or fourth time.

I envied the fact that both of my roommate's parents had attended college-her father was a college professor-and that she had been surrounded by scholarly influences since she was young. Often, I thought that I could cram weeks of studying into just one night, as she did, and was always upset when she did well and I did poorly on chemistry tests. At the end of the first quarter, I came to the conclusion that college was only for smart people. I failed to realize that she was only one of a few who could do well without studying a lot, and that most students who earned those grades were working 10 times harder than she.

Although I've been blessed with the education I've received, I've noted since elementary school how different the learning process was for me in comparison to the way that my friends learned. Aside from language barriers early on, it was frustrating for me to learn that many of my friends could rely on their parents for help with schoolwork while I could not. On more than a few occasions I called my mom, bawling about doing poorly in chemistry or calculus, only to find that there was no way I could make her understand the problems I was having. The fact that she was always so sympathetic made me feel guilty for not studying more in the first place. I often felt as though she would be harder on me if she had attended college because she would know that college isn't as impossible as I made it out to seem.

It was difficult to adapt to the social life at school in the beginning because I felt as though all of the people around me were superficial, immature, promiscuous, or too obsessed with being pedants to be my friends. I found myself compromising my beliefs in order to fit in, and although I had fun at times, I was generally not very happy. Making the crew team helped a great deal. It forced me to be more responsible than most people and it introduced me to a great group of women who were fun, virtuous, and down to earth. Also, being in a small college community and having close relationships with my professors helped me incredibly. Life is so much more comfortable knowing that I have brilliant people willing to devote their time to helping me by answering questions or assisting with problems. It is really an honor to be taught and influenced by such talented people and to be able to contribute to a community that I esteem so highly.

My first year at Santa Clara differed from other students in that I felt pressure from others as well as myself, so much so that my previously stable mindset often feels more like an emotional whirlwind. I knew that my parents wanted me to be successful at college, but I also knew that their idea of success differed from mine. I discovered that success amounted to being able to handle my tough major classes and one of the most difficult and time consuming collegiate sports my first year at Santa Clara.

I did feel guilty dedicating so many hours a week to a sport that my parents knew absolutely nothing about. I felt selfish for spending so much time on something aside from my studies that was not a job for which I was getting paid. Neither of my parents played sports in school, so I thought they couldn't appreciate the value of the responsibility and time management that goes into being a student-athlete.
My father had a difficult time understanding why I did not want to become a doctor. For some reason our opinions of success differed in that mine involved being fulfilled in all aspects of life and his was limited solely to income. I remember him inquiring of my sister's degree in clinical psychology, "So what, now you're just going to listen to people's problems the rest of your life?" It's no surprise that my sister was offended to be belittled after all of her hard work.

In my adjustment to college, I couldn't help but notice that despite the fact that my parents had been through the college process before with my sisters, I still felt as though their efforts to help me were futile in comparison to those of my classmates, and especially my roommate. While my roommate's parents were there to fill out all of her financial aid paperwork, hand her a list of internships she could work for, and encourage further educational opportunities, my experience was quite different. I was always the one reading up on loans and researching information to be knowledgeable enough to inform my parents so they could let me sign up. In order to complete my financial aid appliction, I scheduled an appointment with my mom's accountant in order to get the information that she didn't understand. It wasn't as if she wasn't motivated, it was just that she has never had confidence in her knowledge or English speaking skills. She has always depended on me to take charge on such matters.

In comparison to the other students I lived with, I sensed that while I was learning more about myself and the world around me, other people were learning how to conform. A surprising thing that I learned from my first year at Santa Clara was the ingenious skill of having common sense- and knowing basic information. For some reason, there seemed to be a whole lot of things about computers, research, lab work, and politics that I had never learned. This may be because not only did my parents not have the background information to discuss such topics over dinner, but such gatherings never occurred in our family because my parents did not have the time. I had always read the news and paid attention to politics and environmental issues to have some general knowledge, but at college I found myself surrounded by people my age who were extremely well read and informed. It was also shocking to see how the same knowledgeable and intelligent people could be so naive at times. Although I let all of these things get to me in the beginning, I realized that being myself was something I valued more than the comfort and assurance of being like everybody else.

Although I used the fact that I was Mexican to my advantage in the application process, when I was accepted to colleges I wondered if the only reason I was chosen was because of my race. And if that was true, then I felt guilty, because I realized that I was more fortunate than most Latino people my age. I felt privileged to be a minority in a place where I was surrounded by intelligent people. But I also felt intimidated by the large population of people who so blatantly displayed their wealth. Although I was not poor, I feared that I would get caught up in trying to appear as well off as my colleagues through material possessions. That happened to my sister when she attended the University of California, Santa Barabara, and my mom paid the price for her mistakes. Although that did not happen to me, there were times when I let myself feel inadequate in comparison to others, for superficial reasons. I felt less informed and less intelligent than my peers, although I did not initially attribute that to my parents or race. There were times when I was hard on myself, and I allowed myself to impute the cause of my problems to external factors instead of my inability to maintain self-discipline and improve my study habits.

When I consider that I belong to a minority population at an institution of higher learning, I feel pressure to be influential in my career, as though I have to prove myself a little more than most people. I do not like how people-strangers and family-view me differently because I attend Santa Clara University. "Oh, you go to Santa Clara?" "That's a really good school." All of sudden, I receive newfound respect and awe for something I do not deserve.

I find it difficult to relate to my classmates when they speak of their families and their parent's occupations. It is difficult to share your family problems, in my case, my parents' constant fighting and my father's most recent driving under the influence arrest and imprisonment, with people whose parents are doctors, accountants, and politicians. When my dad went to jail in the middle of the year I was already emotionally overwhelmed and stressed out by midterms and crew.

It was heartbreaking to realize that my relationship with him was so pathetic that I suspected nothing for two months before my mom told me my father was now living in a county jail. I remember being the first to arrive early to my writing class a few days later and talking with my professor about nothing before blurting out the story of my dad. It was a relief to share my burden with someone who I knew wouldn't judge me, and I was so grateful when she comforted me with her wise advice. I admire her a great deal, not only because of her intelligence and sense of humor but because she challenged me to think outside of myself.

Being in the first generation of people in my family to attend college has had a tremendous impact on my first year at SCU. Being in the first generation of people in my family to attend college and being Hispanic has further shaped my values and beliefs and affected my adjustment. I have also found that the mere process of learning about first generation college students has helped me realize that my problems are not simply individual, which is remarkably reassuring. In the past year I have grown and learned so much from each trial and triumph that I eagerly anticipate the discovery of what the next three years have in store.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I would like to thank my Mom, the wind beneath my wings. Without her support and sacrifice I would have never had the opportunity to be where I am today, or the inspiration to dream of the goals I will attain in the future.