Student Spotlight: Grace Rascon

by Sarah Sedwick

Afer she was born in the U.S., Grace Rascon’s parents decided to move the family back to Mexico, where she grew up and spent most of her life – making Spanish her frst language.

During her sophomore year of high school, Grace started exploring the idea of returning to the U.S. to further her education and seek new opportunities. Luckily, a family friend was already living in Virginia, and ofered Grace a place to stay. Despite her initial fears of leaving home and arriving in a country without knowing the language, she decided to buy her plane ticket and take the leap.

“When I arrived in the U.S., I was 17 years old, and my biggest fear was becoming true. I was by myself in a place where I couldn’t understand anything, not even the system,” said Grace. “Everything was so diferent compared to Mexico.”

Once she was registered into her new high school, she was assigned an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher. Grace found that reading and writing were most challenging, so her ESL teacher recommended watching all of her TV shows and movies in English, leting her know that while she may not understand the language starting out, she would start to catch on soon enough.

“I listened to her advice and I started to watch all my shows in English. At frst, I used to feel very overwhelmed because everyone was talking very fast,” said Grace. “However, I consider myself persistent. Maybe it didn’t make sense to keep watching something that only made me feel frustrated, but I decided to, ‘give time to time,’ just like my mom once told me. Nowadays, I tell people how I learned English by watching movies.”

As she began to take hold of the English language, Grace found herself afraid of speaking the language in front of her peers, fearful of mispronouncing a word. Ten, perhaps, the best opportunity found her at just the right time.

Grace took a trip to Switzerland during the last semester of her senior year, and was amazed to discover that many Europeans speak four languages easily. “While I was listening to their English pronunciation, I noticed a strong accent. Te thing that surprised me the most is how they don’t care if they don’t sound perfect. ‘We speak other languages, and it makes sense to have your own accent,’ a Swiss girl mentioned to me.” Grace added, “When I came back to the U.S. afer that trip, a new version of me arose. I stopped caring what others had to say about my pronunciation, so I started making friends and speaking.”

Afer graduating from high school, Grace decided to pursue higher education with the goal to become a foreign service ofcer, or diplomat, by studying International Confict and Security, focusing on the Latin American region, with an ambition to learn additional languages. She was invited to participate in the BRidge to Madison program – a partner program between Blue Ridge Community College and James Madison University.

Te BRidge to Madison program is an invitation-only program designed for a select group of prospective JMU students who begin their collegiate studies at BRCC, and live on the campus of JMU, also having access to all BRCC and JMU student resources, etc. Te partnership between JMU and BRCC allows students to make academic progress in their frst-year general education courses at BRCC and upon successful completion, transition to JMU courses for their second year.

Grace has enjoyed her time at BRCC, and said she felt comfortable here from the beginning. “My frst impression when I visited BRCC was very positive, everyone is friendly, and the teachers are always looking out for students,” she said. “I will never forget my frst day - the day everyone doesn’t know where to go, who their teachers are, and neither their classmates. Same as every other student I was nervous. When I arrived at BRCC there were many faculty and staf walking around and others in tents just to help students walk their way through and help with any questions they had. I felt so relieved to know they were/are looking out for us.”

Grace also notes that she has benefted from having the same privileges as both JMU and BRCC students. In particular, she has utilized the CAVE (Center for Academic Vision and Excellence) at BRCC as a study space and says that being a member of the Latin Student Alliance club at JMU has given her the sense of belonging she’s always looked for.

Currently, Grace has a parttime job as a Family Education Specialist for the Shenandoah Valley Migrant Education Program. Tere, she helps ensure that all migrant students are obtaining challenging academic standards, which will allow them to obtain their high school diploma, or GED, and continue their studies to higher education or employment.

“Everything I went through was worth the efort, and nowadays I realize that my fear of failure became my way of success,” said Grace.