From the Fields to UCI: Josias’ Long, Hard Climb
Josias Gonzalez kept a secret from his mother at the start of his senior year. The young man was born to traditional Mexican immigrants, and he knew his mom wouldn’t approve of what he planned to do with his life in the United States.
So Josias didn’t tell her he was completing an application to the University of California. He had chosen Irvine and three other campuses, all far from the Central Valley town of Visalia where he grew up harvesting grapes alongside his parents.
Josias, the fourth of five children, had his heart set on becoming the first in his family to go to college. He would become the first to move so far away at such an early age. And he knew it would break his mother’s heart.
Clementina Gonzalez has not had a day of schooling in all her 43 years. Like her husband, she doesn’t speak English. But that’s not the reason she refused to sign the financial aid portion of the UC application after Josias broke the news to her. She didn’t want to give her blessing because she wanted her dutiful son to stay close to home.
“No quiero que te vayas,” she’d say, urging her son to attend the local community college instead.
“Mom, look at all those people who want to go (to UC) and they don’t get in,” responded Josias, who was accepted to all of the campuses where he applied--Berkeley, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz and Irvine.
Obviously, Josias had done well at Visalia’s Golden West High School, one of three secondary schools in the town of about 100,000. He managed to earn a 3.86 grade point average and excel in science even while working full time as a busboy. He had turned over every paycheck to his parents, supplementing what they earned from stoop labor, seasonal packing-house jobs and from selling home-made tamales.
“I may not be able to help you right now,” the prospective engineer explained to his mother. “But I’m sure I’ll be able to help a lot more later.”
Josias finally did what most teenagers do: He went around one parent and got what he wanted from the other. He persuaded his father to endorse the UC application. But that didn’t stop the debate. An older brother even intervened, offering to help Josias get a good job as a financial lure to stay at home.
No thanks, said Josias, who’s enrolled at UC Irvine for the fall.
I met the handsome 18-year-old on campus this week. Today is his last day of a six-week intensive program called the Summer Science Academy for Entering Freshmen. It’s run by the California Alliance for Minority Participation, or CAMP, a statewide effort to increase the quality and quantity of minority students in science, engineering and math. The 8-year-old program is funded by the National Science Foundation.
The challenges facing Josias are not uncommon among CAMP students, said Kika Friend, program director at UCI. Many old-fashioned Mexican parents are afraid that letting their children go away to college will mean their moral ruination. They often think of campus life as permissive, a place where boys and girls take baths together.
It’s especially difficult for kids like Josias who break ground as the first in their families to go to college, said Kika, who calls CAMP participants “my kids.” When they arrive, she tells them they are pioneers because “they’re in a land that’s completely unknown to them.”
Few places could be more remote from Irvine than Canelas, the village in the mountains of Durango where Ramon and Clementina Gonzalez came from. The town is accessible only by plane and has no electricity and no school, said Josias, who has been there once to visit his grandmother. The people of Canelas make their living from the earth and cook their food in wood-burning stoves.
The Gonzalezes were a young couple in 1974 when they crossed illegally into the United States. The first baby, a girl, was born at the border, in Tecate, before they crossed. The last time Mr. Gonzalez was deported was just before their fifth child was born. Josias remembers the excitement of his relatives hustling to sneak his father back into the United States in time for the birth of his baby brother, Obed, now a seventh grader.
Dad made it and eventually became a legal resident, though he was turned down for citizenship because he doesn’t know English and can’t read or write.
Kika, who shepherds CAMP students from recruitment through graduation, placed a call to the Gonzalezes to encourage them to let Josias come to Irvine. I chuckled at the thought of the protective Mexican mother telling the university administrator in Spanish that Irvine seemed so far away: “Pero queda tan lejos.”
“It’s cute, but it’s also sad, Agustin,” Kika corrected. “Los detiene [It holds them back].”
Josias credits Kika with persuading him to choose UCI over more prestigious campuses. “She cares,” he said.
The dorm food has almost made him regret it. The campus “gruel” made him yearn for his mother’s delicious, authentic Mexican food. Josias can’t even identify what the student cafeteria tried to serve him Wednesday.
“I guess they were tostadas, or something,” said Josias, who only ate the jello. “They call them Mexican pizzas, but I’ve never seen that before.”
When he went home recently, his mother “was like hysterical” about how skinny he had gotten. “I try to miss every meal I can, Mom,” he joked.
Josias was 7 when he started working in the fields around Avenal, a tiny migrant farm community off Interstate 5 near Coalinga. He recalls clipping the stems from the tops of onions, filling bucket after bucket all day. Or he’d follow vines with his hands until he found buried melons, which tasted so sweet.
The family moved to Visalia when he was about 10. That was the beginning of Josias’ torture in the vineyards. He worked in the blazing sun with no shade, stooped over for 10 hours cutting grapes from endless rows of vines. He still suffers from lower back pain, as does his father.
“That’s the worst job in the world,” he said, shuddering at the memory of it. “That’s worse than hell.”
Josias remembers helping his weary father remove his muddy boots after a long day of work, unlacing the work shoes and yanking them off.
“It made me love my dad a lot more,” Josias said. “My dad, to me, he’s like my idol. I mean, he’s not smart at all. He never went to school. But he worked every day of his life in the fields to raise our family. He’s the hardest-working man I know.”
The boy’s interest in engineering was awakened on construction jobs when he was about 12. Despite his age, he did roofing and framing and was always amazed at how houses were built. His tasks were always rote, but he wondered how people knew where to put things.
He was also curious about the men arguing over blueprints, watching them flip pages back and forth as they talked. What are those “big blue maps?” he asked a co-worker. “Don’t worry about that,” he was told. “Go clean up.”
Later in high school, Josias created a science project that blew everybody away. Students were asked to build a small-scale tower to test how much weight it could withstand. Some towers cracked with just 70 pounds. But judges were astounded to see the one built by Josias hold 1,325 pounds.
Josias held his busboy job at Marie Callender’s during his four years of high school, working from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Quitting time left just six hours before waking up again to get ready for another school day. He squeezed in homework whenever he could.
“I finished every assignment, but the quality could have been a lot better,” he said.
What motivated him to be a good student?
“There’s an event in my life, it still sometimes makes me cry,” he said. “It’s like a racist kind of thing.”
On the last day of eighth grade, Josias said he was the only Mexican American student among 14 finalists for an American Legion Award. The students rehearsed the order their names would be announced. But when the ceremony came, Josias Gonzalez was the only name skipped.
His heart pounded, and he felt like running up and screaming out that he was overlooked. But he stayed in his seat. Later the school administrator explained, “Oh, I forgot. I’m sorry.”
Josias said he eventually drew strength from his hurt feelings.
“I realized it’s not about them,” he said. “I don’t need their approval. It’s about me. It’s about my family.
“That’s who I’m doing this for.”
Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesdays and Saturdays. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or agustin.gurza@latimes.com.
