MONTEREY PARK : Young Parents Given Career Options

Pregnant with her first child, Jessica Zuniga dropped out of school three years ago, fearing disapproving looks and comments from friends and fellow students.

Three weeks ago, she enrolled at the East Los Angeles Skills Center to earn her General Education Diploma and start thinking about her future. With two babies now, Jessica separated herself from old friends, who kept telling her she had made the biggest mistake of her life by getting pregnant at such a young age.

“I had to make my own decision about coming back to school,” said Zuniga, 17.

Her decision was reinforced in an unusual conference Tuesday at East Los Angeles Community College designed to show pregnant teens and teen parents options in higher education.

Called “Career Options for Success,” the conference included inspirational speakers who have been or are in the same circumstances as the young parents. The 300 students who attended from throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District toured the campus and received information on services offered at the school.

“We’ve started something that seems to be a good thing,” said Kay Hudnall, East Los Angeles College’s director of institutional advancement and executive director of the East Los Angeles College Foundation. Hudnall spoke to the students about her own experiences as a teen-age mother whose children are now in their 30s.

“They have to realize that life has more to offer them and they have not committed the biggest sin,” she said.

The conference gave the students the rare opportunity to compare notes and find that others received similar reactions from parents, teachers and fellow students when they disclosed they were expecting a baby. They talked about how easily they get discouraged and feel like giving up.

“I think they were looking for reinforcement that their experience was not isolated,” said Hudnall, who started college when she was in her mid-30s. “That was an extra bridge that they needed to connect with us.”

Zuniga and other students say they were encouraged to hear stories about how other people handled similarly difficult situations. Some said the conference helped them start thinking about expanding their career choices, instead of narrowing them.

“Everybody else I talked to said, ‘Oh no, you messed up,’ ” said Vinny Sigala, 16, whose girlfriend had a baby girl three weeks ago.

When his girlfriend got pregnant, Sigala dropped out of Franklin High School and enrolled at the East Los Angeles Skills Center. The skills center, 3921 Selig Place, allows students independent study to complete their high school diplomas in a shorter time.

“I really didn’t think about what I would do in the future. I just thought about getting this over with and haven’t thought about a career,” Sigala said. “The message [at the conference] was just never give up, that everybody can succeed and I had never heard that before.”

“Some would like you to think that your life is over, but in reality, your life is just beginning, plus you have another mouth to feed,” said Connie LaFace-Olson, coordinator for Los Angeles Unified’s Career Equity Services Unit, which helped coordinate the conference with the college.

With the encouraging turnout of 32 schools, LaFace-Olson said she hopes to offer the conference again next year.

Zuniga, who had stayed home taking care of her children, now wants to look into becoming a bank teller after she receives her diploma.

“I want something for the future,” she said. “I think about my kids and they’re everything to me. If I’m going to be somebody to them I have to be somebody to myself.”