We need to nurture low-income, first generation and students of color through higher education. Academics create knowledge. Society needs the new ways of seeing the world that these students bring.
—Minerva Munoz
Nuyorican Roots
My grandparents were part of the mass migration of displaced workers from Puerto Rico to New York City after Operation Bootstrap. My parents met when they were 14 and 15, growing up in the Frederick Douglass Projects from 101st and 104th St. That is where I was born.
When I was five, my mom applied for public housing in Harlem on 132nd and Madison Ave, away from community supports. Have you seen movies about NYC in the 1980s? That was it. Crack everywhere. Gun shootouts. My parents started using cocaine. Every one of my mom’s five siblings were using substances.
My grandfather was a former alcoholic who got his life together, got with the church, and he wanted to save his daughter. He put away enough money to move us out of New York, to Milwaukee to live with my Aunt. Unfortunately the location cure didn’t work. My parents continued to use until I was 19.
Milwaukee’s Latinx Southside
Milwaukee is segregated in very distinct ways. Southside, where we lived, was all Latinos. There was a lot of violence and gangs, Latin kings and the like. The first school in Milwaukee, they put me in ESL. I don’t speak Spanish like that. English is my first language. I remember thinking, ”What the hell Milwaukee!” I had to test out of it.
Milwaukee was a hustle. We had the New York mentality. It was really hard to stay stable. We were moving all the time. I went to a different school every year for the first six years. When I was fourteen I got my first job. I was trying to be as independent as possible. I had two siblings who were 8 and 9 years younger than me. They were my babies while my parents were still using.
I am my mother’s child. Love was always centered in my family. My mother was the smartest of her siblings, the only one who got an acceptance letter. She got into Boston College, but she couldn’t go because she couldn’t afford it. But the fact that she got in made me feel college was open to me. I grew up hearing her story: how she got in, couldn’t go, how she sacrificed to have a family, so I always planned to go to college–for me, but for her too.
For a kid growing up in poverty, school was a way out — it was always a safe space for me. I volunteered. I was the teacher’s pet, front of the class, always had my hand up. I had caring adults who helped me. My 12th grade English teacher was great. She edited my college essays, listened to my stories and guided me a lot.
At UW Milwaukee they had a pre college program— EOP. ( Equal Opportunity Program). They came into our high school and recruited us, gave me the coaching— how to take the SAT’s, fill out financial aid — the motivation to make it into higher education.
While I was still in the program I decided I wanted to help youth get the assistance I got. In my college essay I said I wanted to start a nonprofit to help kids like me. Each one reach one.
Getting to Minneapolis—and the University of Minnesota
In April of my senior year, I got on a Greyhound bus with my 10-year-old sister and came to Minneapolis to take the U of M tour. We got out at the bus station in downtown Minneapolis and walked. A woman from the La Raza Student Cultural Center saw me walking across campus with my suitcase and my little sister. She said,“Do you know where you’re going?” She led us to La Raza in Coffman Union. Jennifer Molina was there. She took me and my sister to the Mall of America that same night. Made me feel right at home.
I thought Minneapolis would be just the right distance from Milwaukee. I could be free, on my own, but could come back once a month if I had to, take the Greyhound. But when I left for college, my parents moved to Florida. It was a good move for them. It was there that they got off the drugs. But it meant I was all alone.
I moved into Bailey Hall at first, and then lobbied my way into the La Raza Learning/Living Center. I signed up to volunteer in the Minneapolis public schools, doing America Reads, and tutoring Latino students. I helped start a Latina sorority on campus. I was this first generation kid trying to make a space for myself and people like me.
Still, the first year was rough. The U messed up my financial aid, gave me more than they meant to and then said I had to pay them back. In May I got a letter saying they were un-enrolling me in my classes for fall because I owed them $2,500.
Like most poor kids, when I got my first financial aid check I spent it all. Some of it went to help my family move to Florida. Some of it went to buy things I had never had. So that summer I ended up working two jobs, 70 hours a week, to pay them back, while paying rent for the first time. I lived on Doritos and Pepsi, worked the early shift at Starbucks, 6AM every morning. But I paid them back. I had the hustle in me.
My sophomore year, amazing things began to happen. I got accepted as a McNair Scholar. I got my job with TRIO Upward Bound. I found my love working with high school youth. At that age they are still ideating, figuring out who they are. I discovered I have a lot of patience for that.
I worked with Upward bound from 2002 – 2008, while finishing my BA and going to grad school. I left for a bit and then got recruited to come back as Upward Bound’s director. I am currently the Director of the college level program.
Classism and the Universities
I have taught some seminars on classism and its impact on college success. It has gotten harder for working class students. What needs to be done?
Wages have to improve for students to succeed in college. If you are low-income, chances are you will go for a degree in a helping career, and those jobs don’t pay enough. Not enough money for the loans you had to take out to get them. And jobs in college pay too low. When I started at student job in 1999, I made $10 an hour. U of M student jobs are still paying $10.
Low income students often share their wages with their families. My parents have been on my payroll since I started working. I send money home every month, but my whole family is still in poverty. One person coming back and saving their community is a fallacy. We need to stop telling that lie. We need to bring whole families and communities into the fold and elevate them, not just the one star student.
The tax code is rigged. Low income people tend to be collectivist. You are not going to hire a nanny, you are going to ask the neighbor next door to watch your kid while your run an errand. We help each other out. If our family member needs help paying for insulin we give. We support each other financially, but there is no benefit, no tax right-off for helping your neighbor. We can give to a corporate nonprofit but not the people we know. The tax system keeps poor people poor.
Our students are bumping up against amazing wealth they have never seen before: their roommates. They see their roommate buying nice stuff and going on vacations, riding their really nice cars. The average Trio student comes from a family-of-four-salary of $24,000. UM average is 110,000. They want that.
And the gap is growing. These new UM luxury style apartments are charging 800-900 a month. So low-income student can’t live on campus anymore, so they spend more time and money getting to and from school. They get parking tickets. They are ashamed of their housing because it isn’t anything like what their counterparts can afford.
The TRIO students at the U of M think all colleges are like this. They could go to Metro State which is both cheaper, and does not have that huge wealth disparity among students, but they don’t know it is different. UM gets a gold mine.
And there is the emotional damage. I had one African American student last semester from North Minneapolis, who had a wealthy roommate pay her $150 to move out on the first day. That is unfortunately typical. Students are harmed by the classism they experience at the U.
Students start chasing what their roommates have, and then hating their community. They don’t want to go home. They’ll say,“home is too chaotic.”We have taught them to shame where they came from and desire the middle class lifestyle.That is why they are not going back to help. I would like to see a curriculum and college experience that doesn’t teach students that everything that happened before they came to college was horrible, and now what they need to do is follow the money.
On a systemic level, low-income students pay out huge amounts in educational debt, funding the education of wealthier students. Financial aid is a business. They need to be more transparent so students understand what they are getting into. I would love to see higher-ed teach students everything from using credit cards to dealing with the expectations of middle class friends.
I know students who leave college with 25,000 in credit card debt because they were trying to keep up with their classmates.
Many students drop out. That is a loss to all of us. We need to nurture low-income, first generation and students of color through higher education. Academics create knowledge. We need the new ways of seeing the world that these students bring.
Low income and students of color are still getting tracked. Years ago I met with a high school Principal about recruiting students who wanted a four-year degree. He asked me if I would encourage a student who wants to be an electrical engineer, to look into becoming an electrician. I said, “No! If a student wants to be an engineer, let’s track them into those high paying careers.” I’ve had Administrators tell me I should encourage the trades, and promote the military as an option as well. I tell them “No. We are a college readiness program. That is my objective.”
There is a message right now, that college is not for everybody. Youth in my community should be able to self-actualize. They have so many barriers. It is our job as adults to remove as many as possible.We need grants, free higher-education, full supports.
I see the trades being promoted as a solution to student loan debt. It’s the wrong solution. It is good to give people all options, but not if we are only pushing people of color into the trades. If students of color stop going to college, the production of knowledge will again be whitewashed. In the last decades academic research has diversified We don’t want to move in the other direction.
Negotiating Life and Health As a Woman of Color in Minneapolis, (or Milwaukee)
My mom told me she cried when she saw that I was a girl. She knew how hard my life would be as a woman of color. She told me that story a little too young, but in some ways it has protected me. Life has not been easy. She prepared me for that.
I have polycystic syndrome. When I was 29, I weighed 320 pounds. Having medical care — a middle class privilege my family does not have — saved my life. I had weight loss surgery so I would not die.
I am learning to know where my privilege shows up. I deal with imposter syndrome. I am constantly questioning if I deserve to be here. That is something low-income students grapple with when they gain success.
I love Minneapolis. I have adopted the city as my community. But I don’t get to share my awesomeness with my cousins and aunts. U of M has stolen my energy, solving their messes. My work is not that effective anymore. I am just holding up shit. I won’t keep doing that. My parents — who moved back to Milwaukee — are 60 and not doing well. My brother has diabetes. They are all on disability. My energy needs to be directed to them as some point. I’m looking at work in the Milwaukee vicinity. I’m a little too radical for most places, but there are options.
I will miss Minneapolis. I don’t like Milwaukee’s brand of racism. But they need love too.
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