Maria’s Story

Let me start by saying. I can’t believe I’m standing here today, talking to all of you!

I would like to tell you a bit about my self, and why it took me fifty-two years to get my G E D. I was born in Mexico and never went to school, I’m the second oldest in a family of ten. And because my older sister was sick all the time, I had to take on the responsibilities of the older sibling, like helping my mother around the house and with my brothers and sisters; I would also help my father on the farm.

When I was six years old I remember asking my father to allow me to go to school, He told me I couldn’t go, because he needed my help on the farm, and my mother needed my help around the house and with the other children. After all, he and my mother never went to school. My grandmother taught him to read and write and my mother still signs her name with an X . He said I didn’t need to go to school!!!

That same year, it rained a lot and we couldn’t work outside. During those rainy days my father taught me how to read using the old pieces of newspaper that was used to wrap our groceries. It was like somebody opened a door for me! I started reading everything I got my hands on. (I still do!) When I was nine years old, I bought a pencil and a note pad for the very first time and started writing. I would copy any handwriting I saw, and little by little I learned to write.

By the time I was twelve years old. My father moved us to Guadalajara, the second biggest city in Mexico, to help my father support my brothers and sisters I started working as a housekeeper and babysitter, with the condition that my younger siblings would go to school.

I was twenty-one years old when I moved to California with out telling my parents. I knew they would not let me go. That was in 1974. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, leave my family and come to a country with out speaking the language. (Now I’m glad I did!) I got a job as a waitress in a Mexican restaurant, working seven days a week 15 hours a day without any breaks. I was getting paid $40.00 dollars a week and wasn’t allowed to keep the tips. Now I know I was taken advantage of, but back then $40.00 dollars was a lot of money to send to my parents in Mexico.

Since then I held different jobs, I was a manager of a central laundry for twenty years as my most recent job. I have lived in the U S A for thirty years now,

I have been married twice, (the last time to a wonderful man). Between the two of us have ten kids and sixteen Grand kids.

In 1997 I took a class to become a US citizen. You have no idea what it meant to me, to become a citizen of this great country, where somebody like me could do what I did with no formal education.

When we moved to Flagstaff last fall, my husband told me to take a year off from work and do whatever I wanted. One of the things I always wanted was to get my G E D. So I decided to sign up for the test at Coconino Community College. I was told at CCC that I could go to the “Learn Center” at N A U to get ready for the test. That is where Janice Dixon and Paula Pluta taught me so much!! I will always be grateful to them, also to the state of Arizona, and the federal government for funding programs like this one.

Without them; people like me would have NO place to go to prepare for the G E D test.

I hope many people will continue to take advantage of the opportunities the Learn Center at NAU offers. I am planning to take some classes at CCC in the fall, to prepare my self for a better job in the future.

Thank you, all for your time.