Education NewsTaco June 28, 2016

Sisters become doctors, lawyers after childhood of farm labor

*There are so many stories like this in our community. We need to celebrate them, loudly. Share yours with us. VL

fresno_beeBy Carmen George, The Fresno Bee

One scorching summer day in Selma, 8-year-old Leticia Corona Gómez asked her mother why their family had to toil in the fields all summer – work that began before dawn and lasted all day, all week, and often, all weekend – for a mere 17 cents per bucket of grapes.

The answer that followed would stay with her and her sisters.

“She said, ‘That’s why you have to get an education,” recalls Leticia’s older sister, Luz Corona Gómez, “so you don’t work in the dirt like us.’ ”

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I THINK MY MOM SAW THE DESPAIR IN MY SISTER’S EYES AND SHE WANTED SOMETHING BETTER FOR US.

Luz Corona Gomez

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Twenty years later, Liduvina Corona Gómez and Rafael Corona Villagómez’s five daughters are now college graduates with impressive careers, including a doctor and lawyer who graduated from UC Berkeley and UCLA.

Luz says their parents raised them to help others.

“It’s not about just one person, but everyone succeeding and reaching back and helping the next person,” Luz says. “I think that’s why all my sisters and I were able to get degrees.” READ MORE 

[Photo courtesy  of Corona Gómez family]
Suggested reading
Victor Villaseñor
Victor Villaseñor
Rain of Gold is a true-life saga of love, family and destiny that pulses with bold vitality, sweeping from the war-ravaged Mexican mountains of Pancho Villa’s revolution to the days of Prohibition in California.
It all began when Villaseñor’s maternal grandmother sat him down in their little home in the barrio of Carlsbad, California, gave him sweet bread and told him the story of their past. Of his mother Lupe, the most beautiful girl in the whole village who was only a child when Villa’s men came shooting into their canyon. And of his father Juan and his family, reduced to rags and starvation as they sought refuge across the border, where they believed that endless opportunity awaited.
Lupe and Juan met and fell in love in California, but they found that the doors to the Promised Land were often closed to those from south of the border. His father was forced to take the law into his own hands, in spite of his wife’s objections. With love and humor, Villaseñor shares this passionate love story that celebrates the triumph of the human spirit.
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