BELIEVE

"What if I fall?" Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?

— e.h.

"Nancy, when you grow up, find a job that has air conditioning, in a store or an office," my mother would tell me as we pushed ourselves to harvest tomatoes in 105º heat in Vernalis, California.

I was eleven years old, and those words followed me for the next twenty years.

I needed to make money for my LA Gear shoes and school clothes and also to help my family. Working in the fields in the summer is part of the migrant farmworker culture. As my father would remind me, his father brought him from Mexico to the United States when he was fourteen to work in the fields in Woodland, California.

My mother grew up very poor in a small town in the state of Michoacán, Mexico. She was the youngest of nine, and in those days, a woman's ticket out of poverty was to get married and come to the United States, "where you will find money on trees," per local rumor.

Family members persuaded my mother to marry my father. My father was twenty-two years old and had papers, meaning a visa to come to the United States. My mother was fifteen when they got married. She got pregnant on her wedding night and had me nine months later. Then she had my sisters and brothers — Araceli, José Manuel, Luis Fernando, and Yesenia — a total of five children.

My mother did not have more than a second-grade education. In her mind, pursuing a college degree was a foreign concept. She liked how pretty, fresh, and cool the ladies at the department stores and offices looked. They did not have sweat dripping down their foreheads or backs, blisters on their hands, or tired feet from walking miles in tomato fields. They were not doing backbreaking work from dawn to dusk at miserable wages. My mother thought that a woman was living well if she ever got to look pretty when going to work.

You may think that this was not a major life accomplishment or that my mother had limiting or limited dreams for her children, but when I look at it from her perspective, it makes a great deal of sense to me.

My mother's words about working in an air-conditioned room would stay with me for many summers and years to follow. At the young age of fifteen and a half, I was hired to work in a woman's clothing store called City Wear. I was one of the youngest sales associates they had ever hired. I used to make ninety-four dollars a week. I was ecstatic! I could finally save for every teenager's dream: a car. I remember giving my father my earnings for the week so he could save them for my own car. I finally bought myself a Hyundai Excel for two thousand dollars.

Everything was going well for me. I loved my independence and was no longer working in the fields. But my subconscious would remind me that I needed to find a job as a secretary to fulfill my mother's desires for me.

When You Believe It to Be True

I believe that we never get what we desire but what we believe we deserve. This was true for me. While growing up, however, I was not wise enough to look at my thoughts and beliefs. As a child and adolescent, I was only listening to my mother's voice because mine was not yet developed. I felt the need to experience a secretarial job because my mother had told me that secretaries looked pretty, fresh, and cool.

I was lucky to have a mortgage company hire me when I was a junior in high school. I was done with my graduation requirements, and since my mother had never mentioned college and no one pushed college as a possibility for me, subconsciously I was fulfilling my mother's dream one more time. My parents were happy for me.

Living the Life at Seventeen

At seventeen years old, I was making eight dollars an hour — not bad for a high school student — and the best part was that I worked in an air-conditioned room. I was happy and content for the next two years of my high school life. I had a car and was making good money as a teenager. And the best part was that I had met my mother's expectations. What else could I ask for?

I did not ask for anything, but I did start to question my life. I started to wonder if my present situation was going to be an ongoing one for me. I don't know how I knew, but something inside me told me that this job would not be my destiny. I did not know what my destiny would hold, but what I told my boss when I quit the secretarial job was a response I would repeat a few more times in my life.

My boss asked, "Why are you quitting? Aren't you happy? You know you are due for a raise pretty soon."

I told her, "Yes, I know. But I can't help but know, deep down inside, that there must be more to my life than being a secretary. The money is great, but I want more, and it has nothing to do with money. I feel that I have something amazing to do, and I am going to college to find out what that is."

Finally my mother's voice was gone. From now on, I would be the captain of my ship. Or would I?

Following the Crowd

When I started college, I did not have a clear picture of what I would be. My ego voice and society told me that getting a college degree would give me prestige. Not only would college graduates make more money — they would also make names for themselves.

Long gone were the days of believing that working in an air-conditioned room was all that I had to aspired to do. But what would I aspire to be? I had no clue. I just knew that college was highly regarded by the majority, and I believed that education would only add to my personal growth. What could I lose?

I loved the college experience! I met wonderful friends, and college gave me a new view of the world. I don't regret the college experience one bit. It exposed me to worldviews that I would never have experienced in an office and prepared me for my present career.

Seeking a New Outer Voice

I had no outside voice dictating to me what I should pursue until I got a part-time job in college as a Mini-Corps student. Mini-Corps is a program for college students from a migrant farmworker background. It is a wonderful program that gives them classroom experience as they complete bachelor of arts degrees.

I was a teacher assistant for migrant students. I enjoyed working in the classroom but always had doubts, though supervisors told me that I was a natural teacher. I even received awards for being Mini-Corps Student of the Year.

Yes, maybe encouragement from others pushed me into doing a job that was effortless for me. It felt easy and comfortable, but it also felt like conformity.

I Did Not Seek Teaching — Teaching Found Me

Around the time I was graduating from college, there were many bilingual teaching positions available in the Central Valley of California. What was a young girl to do? I pursued teaching — not because it was a true calling of mine or because it was my dream but because it was...