Page 86 - LIN.DECEMBERWEBPDF
P. 86
MARIA ESPINOZAAFUTUREFULLOF
HOPE AND TRIUMPH
T he Guadalupe Center provides educational programs for more than 1,100 students Virginia. My siblings and I are grown now, but this
a day in Immokalee, beginning at infancy and continuing through college. Each pattern continues to this day. I stay with my older
year at its signature fundraising event, in addition to dinner, dancing and a live brothers and sisters while they are away, and we
auction of one-of a kind experiences and items, guests have the rare opportunity eagerly await our parent’s return from Georgia around
to hear remarkable stories of determination and triumph from Guadalupe Center Thanksgiving.
high school graduates and college students. They are living proof that education
can change one’s life, no matter where that life began. One such story is that of Education was so important to my parents that
Immokalee High School senior Maria. This determined young woman is a member they always made sure my siblings and I were back
of Guadalupe Center’s college preparatory Tutor Corps Program and volunteers with the in time for the new school year. I remember my
Coalition of Immokalee Workers advocating for their rights and fair treatment. This is school experience at Village Oaks Elementary as a
Maria’s story. very difficult time. I did not understand English or
anything going on around me. Through hard work,
My family is from a small, rural village in Guanajuato, Mexico. My parents, like however, I was fluent in English in about a year, and
most people from our village, have only a second grade education. This is the age at was soon placed in a program for gifted students.
which they began picking produce in the fields.
In middle school, I began to volunteer with the
In hopes of providing my six older siblings and me with the education they Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). Witnessing
never had, my mom and dad brought us to the United States 13 years ago. We firsthand the many injustices that occur in the fields,
settled in Immokalee and my parents were hired as farm laborers, the only work and the direct impact that had on my family, spurred
they had ever known. They picked tomatoes every day from sun up to sun down, my interest in advocating for the rights and fair
and each summer my whole family followed the harvest north to Georgia and treatment of farmworkers. I helped with the artwork
for their Fair Food campaign, and in high school
my involvement continued to grow. I completed a
summer internship with the CIW and helped lead
a special project documenting the organization’s
history. I founded the Student Farmworker Alliance
Chapter at Immokalee High School in hopes of
forming student solidarity with the farm working
community. Through the CIW, I advocate for the
86 Life in Naples | December 2016
