I was an Econ major at Claremont McKenna College where I graduated in 1987 during the rah-rah 80’s, Greed-is-Good-Reagan era. I’m the last person anyone would have imagined showing up at CMC to screen my current documentary about migrant child farmworkers who grew up to become successful professionals! Yet there I was on March 11th as an Athenaeum speaker at the very venue where I sat next to Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman back in the day.
This was a dinner event at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum known as “the Ath”. Its speaker series is extremely prestigious as Forbes recently wrote about in its article, “Claremont McKenna’s Famed Athenaeum Speaker Series To Begin A New Era”. Over the years, the speakers have included such noteworthy figures as former President Bill Clinton, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, filmmaker Spike Lee and Bono.
Our evening started out with a cocktail reception, followed by a lovely dinner. We then screened Migrant Child Farmworkers Now High-Profile Professionals© for those attending. The film is presented on camera by Xolo Maridueña . I took the stage following the screening and moderated a moving panel discussion with four of the professionals who are featured in the film: former Congressman Tony Cardenas, Enrique Diaz, Dr. Ramon Resa and Dr. Lisa Ramirez. Each shared insights and lessons learned from their inspiring life journeys and then took questions from the audience, mostly of whom were CMC students.
Tony Cárdenas shared challenges he faced as he built his career as a US Congressman because of the color of his skin, sharing stories about another Representative who yelled “Go back to Puerto Rico!” and security hassling him when he went into the elevator even though he was wearing his Congressional Representative pin. Having overcome previous experiences such as being told he should go into wood shop rather than become an engineer, he brushed the incidents off and stayed in Congress for 12 years. Takeaway: You will run into continued challenges as you enter the workforce – stay focused and you will beat them.
Enrique Diaz talked about how he managed to get from working in the fields as a kid to becoming an Apple engineer. He said there was no big “lightbulb” moment. Instead, it was one step at a time. First, he wanted to be in a job with air conditioning and knew that getting an education was the only way out. An elementary school teacher told him he’s good at math and should be an engineer. He didn’t know what that was but when he applied for college he remembered that. He applied for computer science engineering, got accepted and got hired at Apple while still in college. Takeaway: Teachers can make huge impact on a student’s life even at very young ages.
Lisa Ramirez told a story about the day she was working in the fields as a child and heard a low flying helicopter overhead. She stopped working, looked up and saw an Army helicopter. She asked her grandfather what you have to do to be able to do that, adding that she wanted to do that someday. Her grandfather and other family members laughed at her, shutting down her dream by saying poor people like them were meant to work, not to ride the helicopters. She thought she would be stuck in the fields forever. Little would she know then that she would join the Army and that the military would help her get a college education which enabled her to become a leader in national education. Takeaway: Don’t let anyone shut down your dreams.
Pediatrician Dr. Ramon Resa talked about the lack of role models he had growing up. He did not see one Latino professional in his community – there were no Latino doctors, lawyers, accountants, police officers or store owners. Beyond one Latina teacher in elementary school, he never had a Latino teacher in middle school, high school, college, medical school or residency. He could not even find any role models on TV as the only Latinos there were either gang members or criminals. After he received his medical degree, he went back to his Central Valley community because he wanted to be a role model for kids like he used to be. Takeaway: Seeing successful people who look like you, role models, is important.
You can see the film preview here: https://www.migrantchildfarmworkerstohighprofileprofessionals.com
If you would like information about booking a similar event, email me: diane@themigrantchildfarmworkers.com