CSUB offers the most comprehensive educational programs to migrant and seasonal farmworker families in the Southern San Joaquin Valley, said Lou Montano, director of HEP and the university’s testing center. In addition to HEP, the university offers the College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) to first-year CSUB students who are farmworkers or the children of farmworkers.
Both are five-year grant programs administered by the United States Department of Education’s Office of Migrant Education and are highly competitive. Few institutions in the nation offer both; in the California State University — the largest and most diverse system of public higher education in the nation — only Sacramento State and CSU San Bernardino share the distinction with CSUB.
“We target all the farmworker communities in Kern County,” Montano said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for these families to earn a high school diploma, but most importantly they gain confidence to move on. We’ve had several students who have gone on and done extremely well through the HEP program.”
HEP and CAMP were launched at CSUB in 2000. After the grants lapsed for a few years, they returned in 2010 and have won renewal ever since, with the next renewal application due in 2025. Montano noted that the success of the program’s graduates is essential to getting the $2.2 million HEP grant renewed every five years.
“We have to meet certain targets,” he said. “For example, we have to serve 80 students per year, and we have to have a 69 percent graduation rate. Consistently, we’ve been around 70 to 80 percent, but the work doesn’t stop there. The grant also requires that we place our students, and that can be in post-secondary education, vocational training or a good job.”
All instructors are bilingual and the classes are held at Mira Monte and Golden Valley high schools in Bakersfield as well as Wasco Independence High. Students meet at night so that they can work in the fields during the day.
One such student who required that flexibility was Ruiz Lopez, who returned to work in the fields after improving her English at Taft College.
“I worked full time in the grapes, cilantro, as a waitress, as a cook. I always had work to do,” she said. “That’s what I had to do at that moment. When you have that barrier of no education, it’s hard to get good jobs. I thought my only opportunities were in the fields.”
Ruiz Lopez eventually enrolled at Bakersfield College, earned her associate’s degree and transferred to CSUB in 2019.
“Honestly, it was hard. I remember someone asked me, ‘Do you think in Spanish or English when you do homework?’ And I said I always think in Spanish and do my assignments in Spanish and then translate into English," she said. "I did what I had to do. My family was always supporting me. I remember my mom sleeping on the couch, just waiting for me to go to sleep at 3 or 4 in the morning. And I remember my mom saying, ‘I’m sorry I’m not able to help you,’ and crying.”
Ruiz Luiz was also struggling with a family crisis. Her mother, Alicia Lopez Cervantes, had been diagnosed with a brain tumor just as the transfer student began her journey at CSUB.
“I talked to my mom and I said I didn’t want to go to university because I know you need me here," she said. "My dad was working, and my sister had moved back to Mexico, so I was the only one there. And Mom said, ‘I don’t want you to drop. I want you to continue with your studies.’”
With medical care, her mother’s condition improved, and Ruiz Lopez acclimated to life at CSUB.
“When I graduated, I felt so proud of myself because of what I went through to be where I am today," she said. "I didn’t do it myself. I had people support me through my path, and HEP has been one of the programs that has supported me the most.”
And now Ruiz Lopez reaches out to families just like hers who are seeking opportunities outside of the fields.
“I remember this one summer,” she said. “It was so hot, like 110, 115 degrees. I remember people passing out in the fields. And it was so sad, looking at those old people, 60-year-olds, 70-year-olds working so hard. I remember looking at them and thinking I don’t want to be that age and working in the fields.”
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