Alisal High Students Take a Day in Parents’ Shoes

The students may not agree with mom and dad all the time, but one thing is certain: Their parents are tough.

That’s what a group of students from Alisal High School learned after spending a day in their parents’ shoes. Their field trip July 31 was literally a trip to the fields – the lush Monterey County land where many of the students’ families earn their livings. And they weren’t just visiting; they were there to work.

“I was really tired,” says Melissa Rodriguez, a junior at Alisal. “We started working around 10 or 10:30. By 11, me and my friends were already tired – even with water breaks. It makes me appreciate what my mom does.”

The trip to JV Farms in Soledad was part of the Alisal Dream Academy, a fledgling nonprofit (it expects to get its tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) status this month) started by Alisal High government teacher Ruben Pizarro. The academy is a continuation of a project Pizarro began in 2008, when he brought a group of 33 students to Washington, D.C. for Obama’s first inauguration.

Four years and one re-inauguration later, Pizarro again made the trip to D.C., this time with 61 teens in tow.

But a trip every presidential cycle – and the learning and life experiences that come with it – wasn’t enough, in Pizarro’s view. Why not every year?

With that thought, the Dream Academy was born. Next spring, Pizarro hopes to take 100 Salinas high-schoolers to New York City. But to get there, the teens – all of whom need to maintain 3.0 GPAs to participate – will need to come up with about $1,500 each.

Over the summer the students held a few car washes; they plan to ramp up fundraising efforts during the school year.

“The academy is to build leadership,” says Carolina Mundo, one of Pizarro’s students. “Not only are we fundraising, but we’re going to gain leadership skills to help us in the future.”

Once they get to New York, they’ll take part in activities like touring museums and visiting the campuses of big universities, including Columbia and New York Univeristy.

Hitting the fields was a voluntary side project, more in line with the learning mission than the fundraising one.

“We live in a community that is predominantly made up of farm workers,” says Pizarro, a former attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance. “It’s important we understand what that means, really to honor it.”

The kids left with a newfound appreciation – and aching backs. When Rodriguez got home from the trip her mom, who picks lettuce for a living, asked her how it went.

“We were just standing with the hoes and picking the weeds,” Rodriguez explained.

“‘Yeah,’” she recalls her mother saying. “‘That’s the easy part.’”

Mundo’s father used to harvest cotton, coffee and tomatoes; he now works in packaging. But Mundo, a junior, had never experienced farm work herself. As part of the school’s wrestling team, she didn’t think there was any greater challenge than grappling for sport. That is, until she took to the fields.

“I woke up sore, and was like, ‘Is this what they go through every day?’” she says. “It made me value education and see that education is something no one can take away from me.”

To learn more about the Alisal Dream Academy, contact Ruben Pizarro at 229-7969.