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#826LACelebratesHistory: Kenny Coronel’s “The Voyage to a Better Life”

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Kenny Coronel 1 copy

Kenny Coronel was born and bred in Boyle Heights. He loves the sport of boxing, and in 2014, was ranked #9 in the nation. He is currently injured but trying to recuperate. He looks forward to being a professional boxer and striving to attend CSUN.

The Voyage to a Better Life is an interview with Leisy Abrigo, a professor in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at UCLA, by Mendez High School student Kenny Coronel, as featured in 826LA’s 2015 Young Authors’ Book Project, We Are Alive When We Speak for Justice.

Mendez v. Westminster ended segregation in California schools, but in reality we students still see and experience segregation. Immigrant students like us here at Mendez High School still put up with classrooms full of other students trying to find a seat. Also friends of mine who go to other schools mention their schools being in terrible condition like having high dropout rates and having bad reputations because the teachers don’t care much about the students’ education. This leads to bigger problems like students not wanting to go to school because they are not looking forward to class. Sometimes we go to conventions or college expos where we get looked down on by other students because we are not part of their ethnicity or do not go to their schools. We still live through unfair government decisions around immigration. One major concern is families being separated from each other because one family member is deported, and the children can’t live alone so either they live with another family or in state-run facilities.

Leisy Abrego, a hardworking professor in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at UCLA, points out the big issue of equal education for immigrant students coming from the Americas. Her mindset about immigrant students is very open. She explains how her students have the urge to succeed because of their past experiences going through tough situations of adapting to a new language and a new country. She relates to the experiences that kids have on the perception of immigration. She herself fled from El Salvador to the United States trying to get away from the civil war at the age of five, alongside her parents, in search of security and economic stability. Her parents didn’t talk much about the war because they were too traumatized from their experiences, even though they were already in the United States living a better life. It made Leisy curious about the civil war in El Salvador, and it motivated her to look back at what she lived through. This motivated her to follow a profession in sociology and to become a professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies. My interview with Leisy focuses on letting people know that unequal education still happens. It is also about how being an immigrant or coming from immigrant families can impact students’ lives.

Kenny Coronel (KC): Why do you think Chicano Studies is important to learn?
Leisy Abrego (LA): It’s an important moment in this country’s history. We have over fifty million Latinos/as living here, and we’re the biggest ethnic group as well, and we’re all trying to figure out how we fit in and how to thrive in this country. It feels like Chicano/a Studies and Latino Studies will help us understand who we’re talking about, what history people are bringing with them, why they are migrating, how they have been able to fit in in this country before, how we can look forward to continuing to adapt and shape this country as we live here.

KC: Have any of your students told you of their own personal experience migrating, and if so, what is it like for you to hear their stories? Is there any story in particular that you would like to share?
LA: There are so many. Most of my students, especially in this department, are immigrants or children of immigrants. In class, they share a lot of the same information, they talk about their stories, and they connect with their readings. Each of my students has a story. I work a lot with students who are undocumented or do not have access to legal permanent residency, and their stories are especially hard because they’ve had to work so hard to go to college and to get financial aid, and pay extra fees, and work full time to go to school. They’ve had to take time off to go to school. They work for two quarters, then go to school one quarter, and then they raise the money for the next quarter. Seeing them struggle and value that space so much to go to school has made it more meaningful for me. Students often end up reflecting about what it meant that their parents were immigrants, and a lot of them hadn’t thought of that before until they read about immigration. I learn a great deal from my students who shared their parents’ immigration story, like how long it took them to get here, what they went through, how long it took them to get their papers, what lessons they learned from their parents who were immigrants, and how to go to college and make a better life for themselves and for their community. They learn also about their parents’ struggles and their community’s struggles, and they want to contribute to their community because they know how much it takes to be there.

KC: Did you yourself as a young child want to be in the position you are now or want to be in another position? Do you ever look back and wish you had made a change?
LA: I didn’t know that I was going to end up doing what I do. When I was a kid, the profession that was most concrete to me was being a teacher, like an elementary school teacher. For the longest time, that was what I thought I was going to do. Then when I went to college, I loved it so much. I loved the learning, the reading. I was a big nerd, and that’s what I learned. I could keep going to school after college. I worked in college admissions for a couple of years and I enjoyed that, but it wasn’t my passion. I missed reading books and having conversations about them. So I went back to graduate school and enrolled in a PhD program. And I was one in my family to go to college, so I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into.

Then I learned along the way that when you enroll in a PhD program, you’re being trained to be a professor. And the more I learned how to do research, the more I loved that part. The way academia worked, the best way to keep doing research was to get a job at a research institution, like UCLA, which is a large research university. That’s what I aimed for, and I tried to find out what it would take to get there. I’ve been really lucky that even though I didn’t know what I wanted to do until my late twenties, that I had the mentors, the professors who wanted to help me with their expertise and time. That is an important lesson that I’d like to share. If you’re fortunate enough, people will find you and come to you and offer to mentor you, but that doesn’t always happen, because people often are busy and have a lot on their plate. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t happen to you. You have to find people who are in the same line of work you want to do, living the life you want to live, and are happy doing what you want to do, and ask them questions about how they got there, and what they wished they had known. Ask them what they think is the most important lesson to know. And ask a lot of people, not just one, because a lot of people in those positions that you come across, even if they can’t mentor you, will be willing to sit down for an hour to let you know about their life. You can learn so much from that.

KC: Just speaking with you is an honor.
LA: Thank you.

KC: That advice reminds me of an experience I had. I went to a place where there were a lot of homeless people, and I met a homeless man who was Latino. He mentioned a lot of discrimination when he was coming to the States, and that’s why he ended up where he was—because no one gave him the right to go to school. He told me to stay in school, and he motivated me to look at him and learn from him and not be like him.
LA: That’s a very important lesson. It’s not so much to say, “Don’t be like me,” but for you to understand that this system fails a lot of people, and so far you’re still in the position that you have access to resources. There’s always a risk that the system can fail you. How do we improve the system so it doesn’t happen to others, and what resources can you access to keep improving your situation and those of others?

KC: Did you have any mentors or support during high school or college who would talk to you about staying in school or experiences that made you not want to continue going to school?
LA: I never thought I wasn’t going to go to school. Even though no one in my family had gone to school. My parents didn’t give me a choice not to go. Everyone in my family supported me. There were two mentors in my life, when I was in public school, in junior high. My English teacher and my math teacher did the research, and they wanted me to go to private school. They took me to interviews, and they were really set on it. I didn’t want to go because I wanted to go where my friends were going. But once I got in, it was hard to say no, because I got a big scholarship and it was a really big school, and I had to go. In some ways it was really, really hard experience because I didn’t fit in. All these people had so much money, and I didn’t, and it was a whole other world. I hated it, and I didn’t participate in anything. I did really well in classes but didn’t go to any of the dances or the sporting events. I didn’t like anything about that place, but that’s the place I learned about inequality and how unfair it was because all these kids had all these resources. There weren’t any people reprimanding students for being late, there weren’t any gates, and students came and went if they wanted to. I ended up learning so much about other ways it could be—that it could just be about enjoying learning.

KC: What a great story. One of a kind.
LA: Well in some ways, it doesn’t happen often. I found my teachers recently online—I was looking for them to thank them because it really changed my life—and they were so kind and remembered me. Teachers can make such a big difference. They didn’t have to do that for me. Every time I meet a teacher, I want to tell them they can make such a big difference in students they see some promise in just by encouraging them.

KC: Do you believe you’re like that with your students? Because I’m sure you are.
LA: I try, I definitely try. I think I’ve made some good connections with my students. A lot of them keep in touch with me, and it’s different because I deal with them when they’re in college. I realize I do make a difference, and they know it means a lot to me. Part of it is being able to be yourself—a lot of people get to college and they feel out of place. Making a connection with people in clubs or organizations or classes, it makes a huge difference. I try to give my students some of that. I’m also a very strict professor. I have high standards for my students.

KC: That’s awesome. This is a personal question. I was curious because I want to be a teacher myself when I’m older. I’m still thinking about it. How does it feel to teach what you love as your profession?
LA: I feel blessed. I’m not going to lie to you. It’s a very stressful job. You have a lot of responsibilities, and it gets overwhelming. At the same time, I’m in this position where I get to talk about things I find important and that I know are important for other people. I get to help them understand their own lives in ways that are empowering. I have this chance to come in contact with other people and write things.

I was invited recently to speak in Portugal at a conference about transnational families—families here and in El Salvador. It was so amazing to be able to go to another place in the world I’ve never been to, and to know that people are connecting with ideas that I wrote about. Being in this position allows me to connect with so many people in so many different places. It’s an incredible blessing.

KC: That’s great. If you were in front of a crowd right now, what is a tip you would give about striving and going to school?
LA: I think that students need to find a group of people to support their dreams. They need to find people to help them figure out where they want to go, and to fit it. Go talk to your teachers and others in your life, to help you understand how the world works and achieve your dreams. Maybe you want to do art, maybe you want to work at a college. There are so many things out there. When I was going to school it was like become a lawyer, a doctor. I didn’t know there were other things. But learn from other people. That’s the only way. That’s a really good way to figure out where you want to go and how to get there.

KC: Thank you for your time and your information.
LA: Thank you! And congratulations on your project.

Before the interview I had great and fearful excitement to talk to a professor. I was excited before I spoke to her because this was a once-in-a-lifetime thing for me. I have never talked to a professor before. What made me enjoy the interview most was knowing that Leisy has the same background as me with immigrant parents and as an immigrant herself. I felt a great connection through the interview, but it was a great connection because we both felt that unequal education is a big issue that continues until this day.

As a kid, I saw protests at my elementary school because the teachers were getting paid low wages for their service and also being cut from their work. I also joined a protest as a little boy with my parents for immigration in Downtown LA. I saw a lot of people wanting changes to be made by the government for the benefits of the immigrant families so they wouldn’t be separated, and also so they would be allowed to live here in the United States.

There are great programs lately that have changed the lives of many immigrant students. A great example is when I went to a camp named CYLC, or Chicano Youth Leadership Conference, hosted by the Sal Castro Foundation. It completely changed my life in a matter of three days. Being there showed me the actual significance of being a proud Chicano. This foundation was named for Sal Castro, one of the leaders of the 1968 Walkouts in Los Angeles, who has influenced me and inspired me. Sal Castro was someone for his students to connect to, like Leisy, and both have inspired students to make change in this atmosphere. Getting to know a professor who has gone through the same struggles as me inspires me to continue my voyage in school and always strive and prosper for my dreams.

Keep following 826LA on Instagram as we share with you the stories of these young individuals with the hashtag #826LACelebratesHistory.

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