You Don’t Have to Lose Your Values and Traditions
Luz Gonzalez
Dean, College of Social Sciences
My journey from fieldworker to educator took prayer, courage and hard work—lots of it. I never had the opportunity to attend high school and I began college at a third grade level in reading and mathematics.
"I was an excellent fieldworker and could have made a lot of money, but my dad was the center of my life . . . I realized that I needed to speak the language the doctors and nurses spoke so I could protect him and assure that he got good medical care. "
I grew up following the harvest from state to state. As migrant farm workers, we traveled from Mexico to California to Oregon to Montana and back to Mexico, picking strawberries, tomatoes, grapes and sugar beets. Consequently, I received minimal schooling both in Mexico and in the U.S. During the winter months in Mexico, student teachers would come and leave quickly. From February to April we went to school in the U.S. Even then, we were often called out to help with the crop. Being a good farm worker isn’t about how strong you are, it’s about how fast you are. So there is always something kids can do in the fields to help the adults make more money.
After finishing the eighth grade at El Monte School in Orosi, CA, I started working full- time in the fields with my parents. With only a fifth grade education in Mexico, they knew just enough English to talk to the farmers and survive. But in his early twenties, my father got diabetes. In his thirties, he started developing complications in his toes and ankles and his eyesight deteriorated. At times, he was hospitalized as long as two months. I’m the oldest of six children, and the load on my mother was tremendous. She worked in the fields with six kids to care for, paid the bills, did the laundry, sat with my dad in the hospital and kept him up-to-date on everything so he could stay an involved, empowered member of the family. She kept it all together.
The bulk of what Latinos do is for family and community. We do some things for ourselves, and we’re competitive in the fields, but we’re raised to be cooperative within the family and to keep others in mind. It’s just second nature that if you’re done with your homework, mom would say, “help your brother or your sister.” Or if you’re going outside to play, she’d say, “don’t go without your friend.” I was an excellent fieldworker and could have made a lot of money, but my dad was the center of my life. When I thought about what would help him most I realized that I needed to speak the language the doctors and nurses spoke so I could protect him and assure that he got good medical care.
For many years my father wasn’t happy about me going to college. It took awhile to convince him to let me attend. He was afraid I’d lose my culture, values and traditions, and afraid something would happen to me driving to Fresno. In the 1960s and 70s, girls didn’t have cars. They didn’t go to college. They were supposed to get married, find a good farmer to work for, have kids and follow the crops and maybe finish the eighth grade. If they didn’t take on these roles, they risked bringing shame on the family. But my mother backed me up all the way. “If I can get one of my six children out of the fields, I’ll be happy,” she said.
When I was 18, my father relented. I decided to become a missionary and, while still working in the fields, I enrolled at West Coast Bible College in Fresno. I had to learn everything I never got in elementary and secondary school and learn it fast. I shared a dorm with six English-speaking women who became my friends. Living with them, and listening to their conversations, was how I learned to speak English. I remember sitting under a tree with my text book in one hand and a dictionary in the other, struggling over every word. If I failed, I believed, everybody behind me would fail. If I went back home and said I couldn’t do it, it would be the end of women trying. My mother’s strength carried me for many years. It was from her that I learned not to give up and to dream bigger dreams.
After college, I taught a year and a half at a private Baptist school. That was when I realized teaching is my calling. I completed a second baccalaureate degree, a teaching credential, and a master’s degree at California State University-Fresno. After earning a doctorate in teacher education at the University of Arizona, I returned to Fresno State as a full-time lecturer in 1989. Until then, at age 32, I continued to spend my summers picking tomatoes and working in the table grapes in the San Joaquin Valley. I couldn’t stand the thought of my mom and sisters picking grapes and tomatoes while I was sleeping in. It was my mother who finally told me it was time to leave the fields behind and focus on education.
Across the years, as my father’s health worsened, I studied every medical condition he developed. I was forced at times to request, and often demand, the best medical treatment for him. He spent a lot of time in the hospital, but we were always with him. When he needed a kidney transplant in 1996, I donated one to him. Unfortunately, he died 18 hours after the surgery. Despite his initial resistance to my getting an education, he was proud of me and my accomplishments. He could see in me that education doesn’t mean losing the values you were raised with.
As a Latina educator, recruiting and enrolling Latinos is important to me. Through my own experience, I not only helped my parents, but the Latino community to understand the U.S. educational system. When I look into the eyes of worried parents, especially farmworkers, and I get to tell them in Spanish not to worry that their child will be well taken care of at our university, it makes me proud of my accomplishments. Seeing parents relax and feel comfortable about letting their children out of their nest and into ours is my reward.
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