They Hope Allure of College Grows on the Class of 2011

Six-year-old Joshua Fernandez paid his first visit to a college Friday, and it made a big impression. In a dozen years or so he’d like to come back.

“If you go to college, you get to be anything you want to be,” said the kindergartner from Carl E. Gilbert Elementary School in Buena Park during his trip to Fullerton College. “I want to be a construction worker or a police.”

Joshua was one of about 8,000 kindergartners who converged on four Orange County community college campuses to learn about a plethora of professions and the importance of higher education as part of the second annual KinderCaminata. The event, sponsored by the Latino activist group Los Amigos of Orange County, is geared toward introducing the youngest schoolchildren to college and careers.

The children each got to walk around one of the institutions--the Santa Ana and Orange campuses of Rancho Santiago College, Golden West College in Huntington Beach and Fullerton College. As they went, they chanted “Si se puede” (Yes, it can be done) in a special tribute to the man who coined the motivating phrase, the legendary labor leader Cesar E. Chavez.

Several of Chavez’s relatives--including two daughters and his son-in-law, United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez--opened the event at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana on what would have been the late activist’s 68th birthday. They said Chavez, who died in 1993, would have been proud because he always stressed the importance of higher education.

“His life was dedicated to helping the poor achieve their dreams and advocating that school is the way to do it,” said Galal Kernahan, creator of KinderCaminata. “That’s why this event targets kids from low-income families who would probably never get the chance to see the inside of a college otherwise.”

Last year’s event was staged only at Rancho Santiago with 2,000 children attending. Next year, more colleges, including some in Riverside, Los Angeles and Orange counties, are planning to participate, Kernahan said.

Dhyan Lal, a state deputy superintendent of education, welcomed students at Golden West College, where he praised the event, saying it “will leave an imprint in these youngsters’ minds. . . . When they walk away, they will remember that college is a positive experience, and it will inspire them to come back.”

The kindergartners wore “Class of 2011” caps and had cards around their necks telling what they want to be when they grow up. Most said they wanted to be teachers, doctors or police officers. Some want to become athletes, artists, store clerks, scientists, soldiers, cooks and jet pilots. There also was an aspiring movie star, a rock ‘n’ roll singer and a princess.

Mexican folkloric dance troupes, including Relampago del Cielo of Santa Ana, Itzamna of Westminster, Ballet Folklorico de Los Ninos of San Clemente and Xochipitzahuatl of Fullerton, Aztec dancers, puppeteers and singers entertained the children between career presentations at the colleges.

Scientists did experiments, veterinarians explained how to care for animals, police demonstrated how patrol cars work, firefighters arrived on their engines to give fire safety tips, cosmetologists provided face painting and doctors and nurses let the children use their stethoscopes on stuffed animals.

“You need to finish school and come to this college to become a police officer,” Fullerton Police Officer Alma Buis told a group of kindergartners as they passed through her booth.

Kernahan said teachers prepared the kindergartners for the event by having them talk with their parents about the careers they hope to pursue and by encouraging them to begin thinking about going to college.

David Han, 6, of Laguna Road Elementary School in Fullerton, said he learned a valuable lesson.

“College can make you grow up to be a doctor and that’s what I’m going to be,” he said.

Erika Zuniga of Madison Elementary School in Santa Ana also saw the advantages of a college degree. “You have to go to school to learn everything and (become) whatever you want.”