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Featured: Raquel Pérez, right, posing with her mother and father, Raquel and Fito Pérez, is the youngest of four children and a migrant farmworker, and she will be the first in her family to graduate from a university when she walks on Saturday, May 11, 2019 at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Spring Commencement at the McAllen Convention Center. The journey to get the diploma took five years. She is one of the first at UTRGV to receive the Charles Butt Scholarship for Aspiring Teachers, under the Raise Your Hand Texas Foundation.

Featured: Raquel Pérez, right, posing with her mother and father, Raquel and Fito Pérez, is the youngest of four children and a migrant farmworker, and she will be the first in her family to graduate from a university when she walks on Saturday, May 11, 2019 at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Spring Commencement at the McAllen Convention Center. The journey to get the diploma took five years. She is one of the first at UTRGV to receive the Charles Butt Scholarship for Aspiring Teachers, under the Raise Your Hand Texas Foundation.

Photograph By SILVER SALAS

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Striving for better: Raquel Pérez, UT Rio Grande Valley soon-to-be graduate, who embraces her roots as a migrant farmworker, ready for next chapter

By AMANDA L. ALANIZ

Family vacations, spending time with friends, taking a break from schoolwork – college students usually envision those as summer break activities.

But for Raquel Pérez, a bilingual education major at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, summers consisted of waking up early to work long hours in la labor, helping her family sort produce on a farm in Michigan.

The soon-to-be UTRGV graduate and future educator embraces her roots as a migrant farmworker, and says she appreciates the inspiration and motivation her parents gave her to continue her educational journey. ‘

“Something nobody can take away”

The Pérez family, from Edinburg, has been traveling to Michigan for more than 20 years to work at the L. H. Piggott and Girls Farm in Benton Harbor from April to October. When there, the family of six works seven days a week for nearly 12 hours a day.

Raquel started working when she was 12 years old, helping to sort and package produce with her mother and three sisters, while her father worked the machinery on the farmland. She also worked in the fields from time to time, picking fruits and vegetables. Her schoolwork was important, though, and she was always determined to graduate from high school and go to college.

As a migrant student, she faced more than a few obstacles – like making sure all her credits transferred from the Benton Harbor school to the Edinburg school she attended. But Raquel had the drive to make it happen.

“The work ethic my parents instilled in me helped me when it came to my education, because I know the same work I’m going to put into the field is the same work I’m going to put into my education,” she said. “They stressed how important it is to be educated, because that’s something nobody can take away.”

Raquel, the youngest of four, will be the first in her family to graduate from a university. The journey to get the diploma took five years. She is one of the first at UTRGV to receive the Charles Butt Scholarship for Aspiring Teachers, under the Raise Your Hand Texas Foundation.

She says education wasn’t always easy for her: As a migrant worker, she had to move every six months, and that was definitely a struggle. Still, the hard work helped her grow, she said, and it taught her skills she will carry into her career.

Raquel Pérez, Sr., the graduate’s mother, said she would tell her daughter, “Que le eche ganas,” when it came to her education.

“I would tell her to always put effort into it, and that she always continues going forward,” she said.

During her college career, Raquel kept going to Michigan to work and help her family. Once her finals were over in the spring, she would catch a plane to Michigan, then she would return to Edinburg near the end of August to start the fall semester.

“Being here at this university, and then going back to Michigan every summer – it’s a very big contrast. But I know I’m making it, I’m trying to get there,” she said.

Raquel’s father, Fito Pérez, hasn’t missed a day of work, his daughter says. Like clockwork, he wakes up by 5 a.m. and gets ready to be at work by 6 a.m. He’s very strict when it comes to his work ethic, she said.

Her father always impressed on her that education is the basis of any progress.

“I was happy she was going to school, that she would be able to accomplish to get wherever and what she wanted to do,” he said.

Before deciding she wanted to go into bilingual education, Raquel had started out as a psychology major. But having to deal with her own challenges growing up when it came to schooling, she decided she wanted to help contribute to improving bilingual education in the Rio Grande Valley.

“I think that this is my hometown and I feel there’s a lot of growing to do. I have it engraved in me, and I couldn’t see myself anyplace else but here,” she said.

Ready for graduation

Raquel’s high school graduation was a bit unconventional: She wore her Edinburg CISD cap and gown when she walked across the stage at her Benton Harbor graduation. Now, on Saturday, May 11, 2019, she will walk across the stage at the McAllen Convention Center in her UTRGV cap and gown to accept her Bachelor’s Degree in Bilingual Education.

She is sad that her parents won’t be able to attend her UTRGV graduation because they will be in Michigan, but she will have other family members there to support her. Her graduation day is special, she said. It’s for her and for her family, especially her parents, who instilled in her the drive to push forward and never give up.

“I don’t think they understand how much they’ve done for me, and not only financially,” she said. “I look at them and I feel so motivated. I want to do better. I want to continue to grow.

“And I tell them, they see it when I’m putting in work (at school) … I want them to know it’s all because of them. Without them, I wouldn’t have this passion and work ethic they’ve given me because they’ve always strived for better. And that’s what I’m trying to do.”

Not content to rest on her laurels, Raquel already has started the job application process and hopes to work with the McAllen Independent School District.

VIDEO by Amanda L. Alaniz:

MORE THAN 3,000 GRADUATES TO WALK AT UTRGV SPRING 2019 COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley will graduate a total of 3,400 students in seven ceremonies at the 2019 Spring Commencement on May 10-11.

This year, the Brownsville festivities will be at the Jacob Brown Auditorium at Texas Southmost College and will include four ceremonies on Friday, May 10 – 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. – for almost to 800 prospective graduates.

Three other ceremonies – 9 a.m., 1 p.m., and 5 p.m. – will be held Saturday, May 11, at the McAllen Convention Center for 2,600 prospective graduates, who will walk the stage in front of family and loved ones.

UTRGV Commencement Schedule

Friday, May 10, 2019
Jacob Brown Auditorium at Texas Southmost College

9 a.m.

College of Liberal Arts.

Noon

• College of Health Professions. School of Nursing. School of Social Work

3 p.m.

• Robert C. Vackar College of Business & Entrepreneurship.
• College of Education and P-16 Integration.
• College of Fine Arts.

6 p.m.

College of Engineering and Computer Science.
• College of Sciences.
• Math and Science Academy.

Saturday, May 11, 2019
McAllen Convention Center

9 a.m.

• College of Fine Arts.College of Liberal Arts.

1 p.m.

• Robert C. Vackar College of Business & Entrepreneurship.
• College of Health Professions.
• Cooperative Pharmacy Program.
• School of Nursing.
• School of Social Work

5 p.m

• College of Education and P-16 Integration.
• College of Engineering and Computer Science.
• College of Sciences.
• Math and Science Academy.

For more information about graduation, contact the UTRGV Office of the Registrar at [email protected] or visit http://www.utrgv.edu/commencement.

About UTRGV

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) was created by the Texas Legislature in 2013 as the first major public university of the 21st century in Texas. This transformative initiative provided the opportunity to expand educational opportunities in the Rio Grande Valley, including a new School of Medicine, and made it possible for residents of the region to benefit from the Permanent University Fund – a public endowment contributing support to the University of Texas System and other institutions.

UTRGV has campuses and off-campus research and teaching sites throughout the Rio Grande Valley including in Boca Chica Beach, Brownsville (formerly The University of Texas at Brownsville campus), Edinburg (formerly The University of Texas-Pan American campus), Harlingen, McAllen, Port Isabel, Rio Grande City, and South Padre Island. UTRGV, a comprehensive academic institution, enrolled its first class in the fall of 2015, and the School of Medicine welcomed its first class in the summer of 2016.

UTRGV MOVES UP IN CARNEGIE CLASSIFICATION

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley was recently elevated to the second-highest classification of the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

UTRGV is now in the classification of Doctoral Universities – High Research Activity (R2), the highest level ever attained by a university in the Rio Grande Valley. In addition, UTRGV is one level away from the highest classification of Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity (R1), often referred to as Carnegie Tier One.

“This new classification is another example of how UTRGV’s profile and reputation continue to rise,” said UTRGV President Guy Bailey said. “I am very proud of our elevated classification because it reflects the hard work and commitment of our students, faculty and staff, and the immeasurable support from our community.”

The Carnegie Classification has been the leading framework for recognizing and describing institutional diversity in U.S. higher education for the past four and a half decades. Starting in 1970, the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education developed a classification of colleges and universities to support its program of research and policy analysis. This framework has been widely used in the study of higher education, both as a way to represent and control for institutional differences, and also in the design of research studies to ensure adequate representation of sampled institutions, students, or faculty. The next classification update is expected in 2021.

To be classified as an R2 institution, UTRGV awarded at least 20 research/scholarship doctoral degrees last year and had at least $5 million in total research expenditures as reported through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Higher Education Research & Development Survey (HERD).

UTRGV is one of 135 U.S. institutions – 91 of which are public institutions – classified as R2. Nine are from Texas, including Baylor, SMU, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Texas A&M-Kingsville, TCU, Texas Southern, Texas State and UT San Antonio.

To look up UTRGV or any other institution, visit http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/lookup/lookup.php.

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For more on this and other Texas legislative news stories which affect the Rio Grande Valley metropolitan region, please log on to Titans of the Texas Legislature (TitansoftheTexasLegislature.com)

Titans of the Texas Legislature

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