My father, who had a rough upbringing in foster homes, did not get the chance to attend school, as he had to start earning money at the age of eight. He is one of the smartest people I know, and yet he lacks a degree, which in turn makes his job pool small. This is a reason he always encouraged us to do well in school and get a degree.
College for any student is hard, but being the first in your family to attend college, and being born to immigrant parents, who cannot guide and aid you in your college experience, adds another level of pressure. Coming to the United States was a huge sacrifice for them. They came to achieve the American dream, to be able to give their children the tools to be successful, in a way they would not have been able to if they were born in their countries. It’s impossible not to feel like you need to make their sacrifice worthwhile.
Being a first-generation student has been a struggle for me, I have struggled not to burn out trying to reach someone else’s expectations. I have been attending Mercer County Community College on and off since I was 19, and I am 26 now, a fact I used to be ashamed of, but I have started to make peace with it.
Immigrant families can have it rough, having to assimilate into this society, while not knowing the customs, and not knowing the language.
My parents who were born on opposite sides of Guatemala, met in the United States and raised my brother and me in Trenton, NJ. They were always working. I recall my father coming home at 5 am from his sugar factory job on weekdays and then doing mechanic work on cars on the weekends. I would complain that he worked too much but he always said that this is so we could have the best future.
My mother was a housekeeper and I remember she would take me with her in the summer, and I would help her clean. I asked her once if I also would be a housekeeper when I grew up, and she told me that I had the opportunity she didn’t have to attend college, and that I would be able to be better than a housekeeper. I looked forward to that opportunity, but I didn’t know what kind of challenges I would face and how much motivation I would need to keep moving forward.
I interviewed my classmate Gabriela Vanegas, another first gen student, who is a Television major, about the pressures she has faced. She said that her parents didn’t pressure her directly, but observing their lives has motivated her.
“I [wanted] to have a better opportunity. I’ve seen [my parents’] growth and development in this nation, but it has not been much. I want to be able to take advantage of the opportunities that this country has,” she said.
Mariana Molina, a Graphic Design and Advertising major who graduated from Mercer told me, “I definitely felt pressure to attend college from my parents as they weren’t able to, so they always wanted a better education for their kids.”
For children of immigrants, you are often tasked with being a translator at a young age, Vanegas explains, “My parents don’t speak English … I was kind of on my own, in elementary, middle, and high school, I had no one to help me out.” This puts children in difficult positions at times, since there are important moments where you would need to communicate effectively in English, Molina states, “I’ve had to translate for my mom, at school with grades, at appointments, whether it was medical, dental, or vision, mail occasionally…”
Translating for your parents is usually very prevalent in an immigrant household. For the first 12 years of my life, I didn’t have this burden, as my father spoke English well enough, but unfortunately, he was deported and soon enough I was translating everywhere we went. The places ranged from lawyer’s offices to parent-teacher conferences at school.
Due to my father’s deportation, my objective was no longer focused on my collegiate future but instead on my present and how soon I could start working in order to help my mother out. Fortunately, my older brother stepped in and, right after high school, he got a job at an Amazon warehouse working the overnight shift because it paid the most. This allowed me to start attending college, but with financial expenses and dealing with mental health struggles, I´ve had lots of speed bumps on this road.
In a Google survey I sent out to first generation college students/graduates, 89 percent had immigrant parents, and 100% had dealt with either depression or anxiety. Although they may have battled mental illness, the survey had many success stories, bachelor’s degrees from Rutgers University, University of Richmond, and Franklin and Marshall College.
Seeing that data and talking to other students like me helps me keep motivated. First generation students from immigrant families may have had difficult obstacles to overcome but they can also help each other and their other family members out.
