The Best and The Brightest / Valley Valedictorians : VERDUGO HILLS HIGH SCHOOL : College Would Be a Dream Come True

Sandra Ruiz moved with her family to Huntington Park from Mexico four years ago not speaking a word of English. Starting a new life in the United States meant riding two hours a day on a school bus to Tujunga and back and sleeping three to a bed with her sisters in a one-bedroom apartment shared by her parents and five siblings.

But the Verdugo Hills High School valedictorian said the hardest part has been just finding a place to study.

“I studied on the bus,” Sandra said. “And sometimes I would go in the kitchen. I really didn’t have a place.”

As she spoke, the petite 19-year-old scanned the living room of her family’s small apartment, the back half of a bungalow across the street from a busy playground. Two couches, a narrow coffee table and a double bed crowd the room that doubles as sleeping quarters for Sandra and two sisters. Her parents and three other siblings share the only bedroom.

When she was 15, Sandra, who is the third child, moved to the apartment from Zacatecas, Mexico, with her mother, three sisters and two brothers. Her father has worked as a cook in a downtown Los Angeles restaurant for as long as she can remember. The family arrived in the United States with little more than a few suitcases of clothing to begin their new life.

“My father always told us, ‘I want to go there so you can get a better education,’ ” she said.

After all her hard work, Sandra still faces an uncertain future.

She awaits news from Cal State Los Angeles about financial aid. If she doesn’t get it, she said, her dream of being the first member of her extended family to attend college will be shattered. Her parents only attended school through the third grade in Mexico, Sandra said, and immigrated to the United States to give their children a better opportunity for education.

They struggle to support the family and have nothing left over to pay for a college education.

Her father still works in the same restaurant six days a week, and her mother sews for a textile factory where she is paid by the piece.

Because her neighborhood school was overcrowded, Sandra enrolled at Verdugo Hills when she arrived in California, rising before dawn every day to make the hour trip from Huntington Park to Tujunga.

“She is the epitome of a good student,” said Fred Boobar, her math teacher.

After school every day, as the bus rumbled down the highway, Sandra would pull out her books and read. After washing the dinner dishes, she would finish math or science homework in the cramped kitchen. There was an occasional game of basketball in the park across the street with her brothers and sisters, but no time for a boyfriend or other activities.

While she nervously waits to hear about college, Sandra is concentrating on her last semester of high school and preparing a speech for the graduation ceremony.

“I’m kind of shy--I’m not much of a talker,” Sandra said, blushing at the thought of speaking in front of her classmates.

But as she pondered for a moment what she might say to her peers, some of the words came quickly.

“You do the best you can,” she said. “You don’t give up. If you keep trying, you can do it.”