Pride in Our Own will be a new series on this blog highlighting the accomplishments of our Latin@ youth.

If you or anyone you know would like to be recognized for reaching a personal milestone, share it with your community. Use my contact page to send me a brief description of what has been achieved.

It is with great pride and immense satisfaction that I share with you the two individuals, Denise Pichardo of Carol City, FL and Adan Juarez of Garden Grove, CA, who embodies “hope of a different tomorrow” for our Latin@ youth. Because they never gave up, because they kept working hard, both Wilma and Jesse succeeded in spite of the odds against them. These impressive individuals overcame the odds that were already stacked against them and proved the naysayers wrong.

Denise Pichardo

Denise Pichardo of Carol City, FL was the valedictorian of Carol City High’s 2007 graduation class. She graduated with a 5.25 grade point average, was the first Dominican valedictorian in Carol City High School’s history.

According to local South Florida NBC affiliate, NBC 6, she was raised in a trailer home by her mother and has suffered through some hard times. This is what she has to say:

“The hardest moments would probably have been my 10th through 12th grade years after my dad left,” Pichardo said. “After I pressed charges against him, I had to just get over him and rebuild my life.”

“It’s awesome,” she said. “Everyone says we’re a minority — Hispanics, Latins, African Americans — but minorities are succeeding every single day.”

“Never give up,” Pichardo said. “Don’t let anyone tell you who you are or what you are because that doesn’t measure you.”

“A lot of people would have thought that I would fail, that I would be crazy, I would be wild, that I wouldn’t graduate,” Pichardo said. “When I hit 18 that’s it, my life’s down the drain, so that just kept me motivated to prove them wrong and say look, ‘I can make it, even though I went through all of this.’”

Pichardo is attending Saint Thomas University in Miami Shores and plans to enroll in the school’s dual program in accounting and law. She hopes to become a federal prosecutor one day. We can learn a lot of from Pichardo’s “Si se puede” attitude.

Adan Juarez

Adan Juarez of Garden Grove, CA, was one of only 426 students to ace the National Latin Exam out of more than 135,000 high school participants worldwide. He is the high school’s first freshman to have aced the exam.

Juarez, 15 and a product of American public schools, shares a room with one of his two little sisters in a Garden Grove apartment. He at Garden Grove High to have aced the exam. Adan is also an immigrant from Mexico. Adan’s parents, Elvira and Adan, immigrated to California from Mexico City soon after Adan was born.

Adan debunks every myth nativists have regarding immigrants attending public education.

“Education is everything today,” Adan says. “You can’t get a decent job without a high school diploma. I hear even McDonald’s won’t hire anyone without one.”

Adan has always been a good student.

He went to Brookhurst, Woodbury and Peters elementary schools, and to Ralston intermediate. He went into the GATE program for gifted academic students in the fourth grade and won academic awards while a sixth- and eighth-grader.

He tried playing baseball after the fifth grade, but with a laugh says he was horrible at it. His mother smiles in agreement.

So, he focused on his studies. He takes AP classes in high school belongs to the academic decathlon team.

Like Pichardo, we too can learn a lot of from Adan’s “Si se puede” attitude. (h/t to Julie Anne from the O C Register for contacting me about this story).

Congratulations Denise Pichardo and Adan Juarez!

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• The Latino Challenge to Black America: Q & A With Earl Ofari Hutchinson (3)

Tags: Adan Juarez, Denise Pichardo, Education, Latinos-as |  Print This Post |
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