El Camino: Three Latinas Tell

Latina El Camino Package Three Latinas Tell Their Stories

Design by Itzel Montoya

Cheyenne Rae Flores

All for Amelia: One First-Generation & Single Mother’s Journey to Finish College

Story by Yajaira Perez | Photos contributed by Cheyenne Rae Flores

As Cheyenne Rae Flores looked into her newborn’s eyes, she felt her long-held fear of uncertainty melt away, replaced by a desire to provide the best possible life for her daughter.

Now a junior Elementary Education major at CWU, Flores has carried the responsibilities of being a first-generation student, living on her own and being a single mom all at once. Thanks to her persistence and willingness to try, she is not just making it work – she is succeeding.

Flores’ father crossed the Mexico–United States border when he was 17 years old, without completing high school. He had Cheyenne, his first child, at 23 years old, with the hope that she would go on to pursue higher education.

Growing up in East Wenatchee, Flores watched her dad struggle while working in landscaping to provide for five kids and her stepmom.

“When he would come back from work, my dad would provide us with food but he would struggle to eat himself, because he didn’t have enough food to separate for all of us,” Flores says. Seeing the struggles her dad experienced motivated her to continue her education.

Flores developed a love of teaching after taking child development classes in high school for three years. Her interactions with children there inspired her dream of becoming a teacher.

Shortly before graduating high school, Flores found out she was pregnant with her daughter, Amelia. She felt like a disappointment to her parents and knew that the responsibility of a baby was life changing.

“I kind of felt like I couldn’t go to college anymore, like I disappointed my parents, but at the same time, I knew I needed to come to college to better my daughter’s life,” she says.

Knowing that Amelia was on the way, Flores applied and got accepted into CWU. The uncertainty surrounding the idea of being a full-time student and a single mom scared her.

“My advisor [Heidi Anderson] helped me since I got accepted to CWU. She ended up contacting me and telling me that I will be successful, and I should still come to college. I’m not the first nor last person to go through this,” Flores says.

Managing her education while raising her daughter is difficult, but with the support of her friends, professors and daycare, it is manageable, she says. Her friends and professors are very considerate of her situation and provide support in any way possible.

“I would say it’s pretty hard being a single mom because I have to manage school and my daughter at the same time, but I’m doing pretty well so far. Amelia recently got accepted to the daycare, so it’s been helpful,” Flores says. “I have friends to help me out, but sometimes it’s hard to do homework when I have to take care of her at the same time. She’s at the age where she no longer takes naps, so I have to be in constant care of her.”

Being a first-generation student just adds more tension for Flores.

“As a first-generation student, you feel pressured by your parents and your family. If you fail that test or fail a class it’s like the end of the world, and they don’t really understand how hard it is to be in college, especially as being a mom in college at the same time,” she says. “I feel like your parents have that pressure on you that you have to succeed in everything for those four years.”

Her internal motivation in being successful and striving at CWU, for herself and for her daughter, is that it’s better to live life knowing you tried rather than thinking of the what-ifs or regretting not putting effort in.

Flores is on track to graduate in June of 2022.

“My goal as a parent is to help better my daughter’s life and give her the best future I can,” she says. “I will have a great career and I will be able to provide as many resources as I can for my daughter, because this degree is not only for me, but it’s also for Amelia.”

Alejandra Cruz-Martinez

CWU’s New Director of Student Life and Facilities Reflects on Path to Success

Story by Austin Kong | Photos contributed by Alejandra Cruz-Martinez

Alejandra Cruz-Martinez, CWU’s new Director of Student Life and Facilities, is the oldest child of immigrant parents and embodies the image of perseverance.

Now ending her junior year as a business administration and management major, Cruz-Martinez’s story began well before she decided to attend Central. During her middle school to high school years, Cruz-Martinez and her family experienced temporary homelessness and displacement, which she says accounts for the perspective she has today.

“As someone who personally dealt with food insecurity, displacement, temporary homelessness … that really shifted a lot of my perspective on, 'How are students able to be successful if they don’t have their basic needs met as an individual?'” she says.

While attending high school in Vancouver, Washington, Cruz-Martinez took college readiness classes to prepare for higher education. Like many high school seniors, Cruz-Martinez felt pressure from her family to strive for greatness.

Cruz-Martinez comes from an immigrant family. Both of her parents immigrated from Mexico and as the eldest of three children and the first to attend college, there were a lot of expectations that she felt she had to live up to.

“I feel like often times I can’t let anyone down," Cruz-Martinez says. "Like I can’t mess up because there is no room to mess up, you know? There’s that pressure of parents getting older and my siblings getting older, and they’re starting to grow up and also maybe consider college.”

Cruz-Martinez also mentions differences in the pressure she has felt coming

from an immigrant family as opposed to those whose parents were born in the U.S.

“It comes down to really anything. That could be job positions, class, quality of life, really anything,” she says. “I think the most noticeable thing for me personally was obviously not looking like my peers growing up. But essentially, it’s everything really. The language, everything.”

Even while feeling this pressure, Cruz-Martinez went on to apply to CWU and pursue higher education. She hoped to major in business administration with a specialization in leadership and management, something CWU offers, but it was not the only thing that drew her to attend. She says one of the things that drew her in was the university’s diversity.

Even with clear goals, she continued to face obstacles. Transitioning into college life was not a simple task. Cruz-Martinez says the transition can weigh on students academically and personally, and affect their mental health. However, she also says that it has allowed her to learn more about herself and how to help others.

Cruz-Martinez says there was a moment in her academic career when she was not doing so well, where grades and general life had been affecting her heavily, almost to the point of considering dropping out. Her academic advisor, Anna Cortes, was a major support for her and her biggest inspiration, she says.

“[Cortes was] honestly the person I credit to really getting me together, and me staying here at Central,” Cruz-Martinez says. “I love talking to her and meeting up with her because we have very inspirational, motivating conversations, essentially. What I like to say about [Cortes] is that she tells me what I need to hear and not what I want to hear.”

After facing that period of doubt, Cruz-Martinez felt the support of her academic advisor and continued on with her college career, reinvigorated by the fact she had another supporter cheering her on. With that energy, Cruz-Martinez re-centered herself in her college career, working hard at academics as well as taking on the responsibility of being an administrative assistant for the former director of Student Life and Facilities.

After two years of being an administrative assistant and campaigning, Cruz-Martinez is taking strides as she steps into her new position of Director of Student Life and Facilities.

While being excited for the position and celebrating her big win, Cruz-Martinez is still thinking of things to do for the next year.

“Coming back to in-person, I want to kind of make up for lost time that we lost during the pandemic, which you know, involves the fun culture of being a college student here at Central,” Cruz-Martinez says. “So essentially, I get to help put on big events like Fred Meyer’s Night, the Mariners night collaboration with CWU Fred Meyer’s Night, Wellington’s Campfire and WildFest, which is like our cool end-of-the-year student appreciation fest.”

With the intent of bringing back a lot of the activities that create a college life atmosphere, Cruz-Martinez also plans to introduce more initiatives to help improve student life.

“Essentially, helping establish basic needs here at Central," she says. "That could be like food insecurity initiatives that help address that, or housing insecurity, financial insecurity. How I view it is like, you can’t have a good experience in college if your basic needs aren’t met.”

While campaigning, Cruz-Martinez mentioned that food insecurity is a major issue she would like to tackle at CWU, as someone who has experienced it firsthand. By championing this cause, Martinez hopes to relieve financially struggling students of the issue of finding food for the day.

Fabiola Serra Fuertes

Following Her Heart Led to a More Fulfilling Life

Story by Robin Gramlich | Photos contributed by Fabiola Serra Fuertes

Fabiola Serra Fuertes, raised in Lima, Peru, grew up in a culture that held a high value for tradition. In the face of these expectations, Serra Fuertes followed her heart and dedicated her life to her dream of becoming a veterinarian.

Serra Fuertes grew up learning to value a strong work ethic while helping her family run their small convenience store.

Along with working at her family’s business, she says she often brought home sick and injured animals. She once rescued 24 puppies that she kept in her parent’s backyard.

“I would get animals into my house and my parents were very open-minded to a lot of things, even though they are very traditional, and they always accept all my hobbies and stuff,” Serra Fuertes says.

After finishing high school at 16, her aunt came to her and said, “Okay Fabiola, let’s sit down and decide what you are going to be.” Serra Fuertes responded, “Well, I want to go to vet school.”

Her aunt tried to convince her to study something else, saying, “You’re very good at numbers. You’ve always liked science. So why don’t you study something that is more related with numbers and pragmatics?” She took her aunt’s advice and began studying mechanical engineering and chemistry, but it was not long until she realized veterinary school was where she truly belonged and switched.

When she first began vet school, she was focused on small animals such as cats and dogs. After taking a class with a professor who taught about small ruminants, such as sheep and goats, she fell into the world of agriculture. She quickly realized the field needed more attention, because while there were plenty of people working with small animals, there were not nearly enough people working with farmers.

“[Working] with agricultural animals and agricultural sustainability in Peru helped me understand that I could be part of the solution and not part of the problem,” Serra Fuertes says. “So that’s why I focus my life, my professional life, on agriculture.”

In Peru, a farmer typically makes around $200 a month for a family of four. This means they maintain their farms and create products on a tight budget. Part of Serra Fuertes’ job became teaching these communities how to make the most of their resources by offering means of increasing their income. She also had to ensure she was being respectful of each individual community by adapting her ideas to fit within their culture.

“Just because you have this great idea, the people in that town, they are not going to listen if it doesn’t go within their culture,” Serra Fuertes says. “We are all humans. It’s just like me going to your house and telling you how you should organize and paint your house. You will not like that, right? It is the same thing.”

One of Serra Fuertes’ fondest memories of working on these farms was when a young man asked her to take a picture of him next to alfalfa that he grew. It made her happy to see someone be so proud of their work that they would want a picture with it. She felt she could relate to that as a woman who always felt like she needed to prove herself.

After years of working with these communities, she landed her first big job. At the age of 26, she became the director of her own veterinary school, where she oversaw other professors, schedules and student activities. It was here that she founded a goat farm where she would teach students how to milk goats, turn the milk into yogurt or lotion and, much to her dismay as a vegetarian, commercialize the meat.

“I had to be a part of the butchering process of my goats, and that was horrible and painful, and I cried for days,” she says. “It was not something I looked forward to, but this is how I see it. If you give an animal a good life and just one bad minute, it’s okay.”

After working with cattle for years, Serra Fuertes found her way to Oregon through a friend she met while interning as a veterinarian. She received an invitation to come work at an animal hospital in Oregon. She learned about the agricultural differences between Peru and the United States, which excited her. She worked in Oregon for about a year and a half, until her visa expired.

Serra Fuertes continued to make trips between Peru and the United States, where she eventually met her now ex-husband, who lived in Ellensburg. From there, she decided to try to get a job teaching at CWU.

Moving to the United States came with its own obstacles.

“It’s just being a foreigner, it’s a little bit nerve wracking when you go to another place.” Serra Fuertes says. “But, [the people here] were super welcoming, they were very respectful and they liked my job. I started with just teaching one class and went from there.”

In addition to the overwhelming experience of moving to a new country, Serra Fuertes had to adjust to the needs of CWU's students. When she first began as a professor, she would get comments from students saying they could not understand her because she had a very thick accent, or that her English was bad.

“I understand that I have an accent. I don’t think my English is too bad,” Serra Fuertes says. “But I do have an accent, so it was hard for me.”

She realized that in order to communicate effectively with her students, she needed to rehearse her lectures to improve her pronunciation.

“I remember practicing my lectures over and over on pronunciation, just trying to understand a bit more, and I still do,” she says. “I still get concerned, not as much, because now I am a little bit more comfortable with myself and my own accent.”

She also makes sure to ask her students to tell her when something does not make sense, or how she can improve her English.

The challenges Serra Fuertes faced never stopped her from following her dreams. Ultimately, her ambition has paid off. Today, she lives in Ellensburg, teaches biology and owns a dance and fitness studio. No matter how busy she gets, the knowledge that she is doing what she loves is all she needs to get through the day.

“We need to love what we do always, because it’s the only way you wake up in the morning and say yes,” she says. “That doesn’t mean it is always going to be fun, but if you love it, then it’s not going to be a dread to get out of bed.”