 "Photo: GREG BLOBAUM/DN")
Burke High School 2004-2005 1,950 total students 71 percent white 16.4 percent black 8.7 percent Hispanic 2.4 percent Asian 1 percent American Indian 64 percent college-going rate to four-year schools 22 percent college-going rate to two-year schools
Pictures of smiling sisters on the beach, handwritten notecards and award ribbons decorate the space over her desk. Pinned neatly to brown corkboard, the mementos bring home a little closer for Cindy Barrera.
When she looks at them, she doesn't think about why she sometimes feels so different from the girls living in her residence hall or the students passing her on campus.
Each day, she climbs the lecture hall steps, scanning hundreds of faces.
The girl shadowed by a low-slung baseball cap? Nope. Not the guy shielded with an open newspaper either.
She's not really sure what she's looking for. But she knew she lost it after coming to Nebraska nearly eight years ago.
``I'm usually always the only Hispanic student in my classes,'' said Cindy, a freshman pre-physical therapy major.
``It's something I expect, so I see it as a fact and move on.''
full ride
More than a year ago, she peeled apart the acceptance letter from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, accompanied by an NU Paths scholarship, and a sharp pain seared through her stomach.
The scholarship - full-tuition with automatic admission to the University of Nebraska Medical Center - was too much money to pass up.
``I knew my parents were going to make me come here,'' she said, ``and I knew I was going to hate it.''
When she told her parents the news, they jumped up and down in the small kitchen of their Omaha home. They hugged each other then encircled their arms around their crying daughter.
``¿No es usted feliz, Cindy?''
``Aren't you happy, Cindy?'' her mother asked, tears spilling over her own brown eyes.
``No, Mama.''
Cindy never visited UNL's campus before applying. She hadn't made any college visits.
She traveled to Lincoln once during high school, a short field trip to the Capitol building. Out the school bus windows, her wide brown eyes searched for the rest of the city that paled in size to home.
She looked for the Hispanic markets and neighborhoods that had made her family feel more at home after moving to Omaha when she was 12. For the entire day, the only Hispanics she saw were her classmates.
Cindy wanted to go to Brigham Young University in Utah. Her family is Mormon and she thought she could relate more with the university's conservative student body.
But all she knew of BYU was what she read on the school's Web site. She never requested for the school to mail her any information and never actually applied there.
She also never told her parents. No way would they let her travel 900 miles for school. They didn't even allow her to stay overnight at a friend's house.
The only reason she applied to UNL was because her high school's guidance office had the applications on hand.
She knew her parents, both without college degrees, expected her to do what they never had the time or money to accomplish. Their dreams for their daughter, though, had limitations.
``Antes de que usted haga cualquier cosa consiga su grado.''
``Before you do anything, get your degree,'' her father once told her.
But telling her to work on homework, helping her with challenging math problems or quieting his children so his oldest daughter could study - he never did that much.
Yet, Cindy's high school grade point average never fell below 3.8. She graduated among the top students in a class of 1,950 at Burke High School.
``I wish I could have had a million students like Cindy,'' said her guidance counselor, Wayne Fowler. ``She never asked for help but always had everything under control.''
While many of her friends fell behind on homework and stayed out late each night, Cindy was home by 11 p.m. on weekends. She pleaded with her father for a later curfew, but he just waved his calloused hands. She would understand when she was older.
The day she mailed her intent letter to UNL, Cindy retreated to her room in a torrent of sobs and stomping feet. That evening, her mother crept in to stroke her daughter's dark hair - the gentle way she quieted Cindy to sleep on past nights in loud, overheated and cramped apartments.
``Deseo que haba ido a la escuela.''
``I wish I had gone to school,'' her mother whispered in her ear.
And as Cindy watched her father lumber out the door the next morning, off to spend another long day driving a school bus, she knew life would have been better if her parents had gone to college.
``They had to work so hard to support me and my sisters,'' Cindy said. ``I don't want it to have to be so hard for me.''
American dreams
Jobless and penniless, her parents came to California from Guatemala looking for a new life. Her mother, then 20, was newly married and pregnant with Cindy.
Her 22-year-old father was tired of losing jobs, knowing he wouldn't be able to provide for his future child.
After moving in with family in Lakewood, Calif., just southeast of Los Angeles, her father began working odd jobs, mostly in security or construction.
He eventually moved his growing family into their own small rental apartment. Cindy shared one bedroom with her sister, Leslie, and her parents took the other.
During summers and school breaks, the family returned to Coatepeque, their hometown in the impoverished southwestern corner of Guatemala. The small city had lush jungle and burbling brooks, where as Lakewood had busy streets and tiny yards.
Cindy walked to the sandy beaches and went horseback riding with sisters and cousins. In a small guestroom, the young girls giggled for hours listening to their parents laughing outside on those warm evenings.
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