Two years ago, Angelica Ortiz was on a trajectory that fell well
short of a high school diploma.
Gilroy – Two years ago, Angelica Ortiz was on a trajectory that fell well short of a high school diploma.
Her parents – migrant lettuce-pickers from Mexico – never graduated. Likewise, both her older sisters got married and had children instead. And as a junior behind on her courses, when Ortiz gave birth at 17, it seemed the coup de grace for her education.
“I thought I wasn’t going to be able to graduate,” she said.
Yet the 19-year-old is one of 52 Mount Madonna Continuation High School students who graduated Tuesday. She was also one of 32 seniors who received their diplomas in a Gavilan College Theater brimming with kazoo-tooting siblings, camcorder-toting parents and crying toddlers. During a ceremony that often lapsed into Spanish, teachers gave personalized tributes, which touched upon obstacles each has overcome.
For Ortiz, these obstacles started at one month of age, when she first followed her parents to Gilroy in their search for work. Since then, she has packed all her belongings into two suitcases every six months for the three-day journey back and forth between a temporary settlement in California and her home in central Mexico.
Each year, she had only a few months in American schools to learn a second language and all the other skills she needed to pass school tests. As a result, she often came up short on exams and had the equivalent of only four courses under her belt by her junior year at Gilroy High School.
Already lagging behind expectations, when Ortiz learned she was pregnant at 16, it threatened her high school career.
“I didn’t have nobody to take care of my daughter,” she said.
However, the birth of her child was the very event that drove her to Mount Madonna, where she received the support she needed, and her eventual success. She placed her daughter in the school’s on-site day care facility, was able to take additional courses to earn extra credits and passed the state exit exam earlier this year. Starting an associate’s degree at Gavilan in the fall, she hopes to become an elementary school teacher.
“She quite a survivor,” said Marina Campos, academic support teacher for teen moms. “She quiet, she’s humble – just a great work ethic.”
Ortiz – who was in the largest graduating class of teen moms in school history with 14 – had a journey that was difficult but not uncommon, Campos said. Many teen mothers gain strength and motivation from their babies, which helped the class of teen moms have the highest average attendance and grade point average in the school, she added. In addition, many graduating seniors without a child had moments similar to Ortiz, where their education seemed doomed before coming to Mount Madonna.
“We graduate kids other schools don’t graduate,” Campos said.
Student body president Stephany Veliz was one of those kids, having the equivalent of only three classes accumulated by her junior year at Gilroy High.
“I just stopped going because I thought the classes were too crowded and I didn’t see the point,” she said.
Veliz found a home in the small classes and Mount Madonna and soon caught up to her requirements. A middle child of five boys and girls, she even stayed beyond the typical hours in the past few months so that she could earn enough credits to walk at graduation.
“I wanted to give my mom and my dad that thrill of seeing one of their sons or daughters walk on stage,” she said.
The 15-year-old has done an about-face with regards to education. She now wants to transfer from Gavilan, where she will start next year, to a 4-year university. After that, she hopes to earn a master’s in psychology or a degree in law, with the eventual goal of becoming a district attorney. For her, graduation represented the first step on this new journey.
“To me, it’s important to get my diploma,” she said. “If you don’t, you can’t become anybody in life.”
The teachers and administrators have faith that Veliz and Ortiz with realize their aspirations, principal Alma Quintana said.
“I believe their goals spoken in public will be realized,” she said.
In addition to reaffirming that faith, the ceremony was a celebration of the work all the graduates have already accomplished, Quintana said.
“It’s just a wonderment and a relief that this school year ended with such a wonderful testament to their persistence and courage,” she said.
