First-generation students overcome college barriers

LEXINGTON - If high school is the road to college, then Vanesa Aguado has been traveling with no directions, took a late detour and is now in a race against the clock.

Vanesa is like many first-generation Hispanic American students at Lexington High School, where 61 percent of the 800-student enrollment is Hispanic. And like many of her classmates, she hopes to become the first person in her family to graduate from high school and attend college.

But unlike most ``straight A'' high school seniors, her college preparation is behind schedule.

Way, way behind.

She has yet to start the college application process or take the ACT test, and her struggle to overcome a language barrier in high school has forced her to load up on math and science courses in a race to play catch-up from the two years she spent in English as a Second Language classes.

In March, she had hopes of going to the University of Nebraska at Kearney or University of Nebraska-Lincoln, even though she had yet to apply or fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

Furthermore, she was still playing catch-up from the three weeks of classes she missed in early December.

For Vanesa, college applications were just another entry on a long list of things to do.

MexicAN Vacation

A spur of the moment decision by Vanesa's parents to get away from work landed the family at her grandmother's house in Guanajuato, Mexico, for a Christmas vacation.

Once there, her father, Fidel Aguado, was able to forget the stress of work at Tyson Foods, Inc. by looking at horses and helping plant the gardens. Her mother, Angelina Aguado, took charge of cleaning the house and preparing cakes and sweets for dinner.

But even in Mexico, Vanesa couldn't shake off her student workload, knowing there was a mountain of make-up work waiting for her in Nebraska.

She didn't want to miss school. She would have rather stayed home and worked on keeping her grades high and addressing the math and science deficiencies holding her back from college.

But the temptation of family was too much.

``I hadn't seen my family in a while,'' she said.

Vanesa blames herself for falling behind and not her parents, who gave her the choice to go to Mexico or stay in Nebraska.

``They asked me if I wanted to go,'' she said. ``They also told me to make up work I would miss.''

Vanesa is different than her three older brothers and two older sisters. While her older siblings left school when they were still young, Vanesa has always planned on staying in school.

Sometimes, it is difficult for her Spanish-speaking parents to understand the educational goals of their bilingual daughter.

``They didn't want to go to school, they just wanted to make money,'' Vanesa said about her sibling. ``And some of them had kids to take care of.''So, as her classmates in Lexington were cramming for final exams, Vanesa was touring a museum with mummy exhibits and boating across a lake to the island of Janitzno in southwestern Mexico.

Christmas was spent at her grandmother's house, eating a tamale dinner, breaking a piáata and listening to her grandfather tell stories of his childhood.

``We don't have a tree or presents,'' Vanesa said. ``We don't do that in Mexico.''

not the typical high school course

In addition to classes on sports literature, biology and algebra, each day Vanesa joins other students to learn the basics of American citizenship.

She blends into the predominantly Hispanic class well, leaving her more at ease to relax and add to class discussions.

On one March afternoon, social studies teacher Lennie Ambler breaks up the lively chatter by giving a quiz over citizenship terms such as ``discrimination'' and ``alien.''

Vanesa correctly answers four of the 10 questions - a fairly average score for the class.

She then concentrates on completing a worksheet in addition to finishing tomorrow's homework assignment, asking friends for help.

``Aggaraste esa....a ver?''

``Did you get that question?'' she says in Spanish. ``Let me see.''

Multitasking is nothing new for Vanesa.

Upon her return to school in mid-January after vacationing in Mexico, Vanesa's grades were low, and she struggled to make up her work from the first semester.

``Hoy estoy bien, pero fue dificil.''

``I'm good now, but it was difficult,'' Vanesa says in Spanish.

Her father, Fidel Aguado, a slaughter worker at Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc., said he noticed his daughter's workload increase after arriving home from Mexico.

``Se desbelaba, y se dormia mas tarde.''

``She stayed up and slept much later at night,'' Fidel Aguado says in Spanish.

Managing two semesters of courses at once wasn't easy and Vanesa's teachers credit her work ethic and desire to succeed.

Carol Anderbery, an English teacher who taught Vanesa's Latino Experience I writing class last semester, said Vanesa took it upon herself to come in early and ask how she'd be allowed to make up her work.

She also noted that Vanesa's writing skills eased her catch-up schedule, saying the language barrier hadn't affected her writing.

``She was motivated enough to finish her first semester while starting the second semester,'' Anderbery said.

And her teachers have added to that motivation.

Vanesa calls her former physical science teacher Cory Spotanski ``inspirational'' because he always encouraged students to pursue a college education.

Spotanski thinks it's important for each generation to build upon the successes of the previous, noting education as the key to that goal.

An education allowed him to build a better life for himself - just like hard work did for his parents and his grandparents, who emigrated from Poland.

He grouped Vanesa with the dozen students a year he teaches who are willing to do that extra work for an ``A.''