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Migrant education champion shaped thousands of students’ futures

Janie Flores to be inducted into Alumni Hall of Fame

By California State University, Bakersfield

February 25^th, 2026

Janie Flores remembers riding in a red truck with her grandparents as her entire family drove west from Texas to settle in California’s San Joaquin Valley.

“I am the proud daughter of Emilio and Serapia Cervantes, farmworkers who migrated from Texas to California with my siblings. We traveled here for a better life. My extended family, my aunts, my uncles — everyone came,” Flores said.

Her first language was Spanish and her childhood was centered on the fields of the Valley and the work that her migrant family did there to plant, raise and harvest crops. Flores experienced the educational inequities migrant students faced in school during the 1960s and ‘70s and made it her life’s work to help the thousands of children who followed her transcend those common barriers.

And, because of her, migrant children went out into the world to become doctors, lawyers, college professors, government officials, law enforcement officers and school principals.

Flores became a leader of migrant education in the city of McFarland where she helped unify the McFarland elementary and the high school district, so migrant students experienced a seamless transition between the two educational systems. She left McFarland to work at the Bakersfield City School District where she became the Region 21 migrant education director. There she was able to champion migrant education on a much larger scale — building student and parent engagement strategies, summer residential programs at CSUB and intensive programs in academic subjects like math, science, speech and robotics.

She also trumpeted the benefits of migrant education in the halls of government in Sacramento and Washington D.C.

Doctor Miguel Zepeda Torres, associate dean at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, was part of the BCSD out of school youth programs Flores helped create. They developed a friendship that remains in place.

“She never took a no as an answer. I know that sometimes she had to struggle. But she will fight for what she knew was right,” he said. “If one door will close, I know she will find another door. But if there were no doors, I know she will even climb through the window. She will find a way to solve things. That's her. Her signature. Her impact is going to be felt not only right now, but for generations to come.”

Pathway to impact

Flores’ story mirrors those of thousands of other migrant children who grew up in multiple worlds — bridging the fields and the classroom, family and education — as they sought a future for themselves.

“I remember being carried in the cotton sack that my mother would use to pick cotton. She would lay me at the end of the sack so that her hands would be freed to pick the cotton. There was no babysitter available, at that point. And I remember, my older brother and sister, who were just little kids, they were working just like adults,” Flores said.

When she was a little older, she took over the cotton sack’s job.

“So, when our families would travel to work, many times, I was the one that was charged with babysitting the younger cousins and my little brother while the families worked. And they worked from sunup to sundown. So, we would find our way to take care of ourselves. Because I was a little girl, too,” Flores said. “I was too big to be little and too little to be big.”

When it came time to start high school, her parents struggled to understand the need.

“We had to go to school because we were little, but work was first. It wasn't until they learned the value of education that it was supported or encouraged,” Flores said. “They did not think that girls should leave home. When you left home, it was because you were going to get married. And so, you know, when I left home to go to school, it was difficult.”

She never forgot that her parents played a big part in how she was able to succeed, but school wasn’t easy for a girl who spoke Spanish and came from a family that worked the fields.

Her kindergarten teacher, unwilling to be bothered to learn to pronounce her real name, gave her the name “Janie.” Her real name is Sanjuanita.

“I was traumatized. I didn't know when they were calling to me. You come to a place that you're unfamiliar with and they change your name and it, it was scary,” she said.

Flores still thinks of herself as Janie because of that teacher.

Fortunately, other teachers had a positive impact on Flores’ life, taking the time to know her, support her and make sure she was able to be successful in school.

“I had wonderful teachers, specifically one who made sure that I was prepared and that I did what I needed to do. He was my sixth-grade teacher,” Flores said. “And so, I did what I was supposed to do, which was enter high school, do well and then go on to school, so I thank Mr. Gragg for doing that for me.”

But even high school wasn’t easily accessible to Flores. She woke up before dawn to drive her mother and older sister to their work in the fields. Then she would rush back home to get ready to catch the bus to school. After school she would jump in the car and drive to pick up her mother and sister from work before heading to her two-hour secretary job at a Richgrove Community Organization.

“I only knew how to drive forward,” Flores said. “I did not know how to go backwards, and that's been the story of my life. I only go forward, you know?”

'I was mesmerized'

At first, graduating from high school and getting a job outside the fields was Flores’ greatest ambition. Rather than attend a university, her goal was to go to a business school and become a full-time secretary. Again, it was a teacher that changed the course of her life.

“There was a fabulous teacher that we had, a seventh-period shorthand teacher at the high school,” Flores said. “My girlfriend was going to get married. We had to go try on our dresses in Bakersfield, and so we wanted to leave a few minutes earlier, and (the teacher) allowed it on one condition. She said, ‘You go see the new university,’ so after we had our dresses tried on, we went to the university.”

Walking onto the California State University, Bakersfield campus — only a few years new at that point and still small — was a turning point for her future.

“I was mesmerized, even with how little it was back then,” she said. “I picked up a bulletin that was advertising Mini-Corps and the opportunity to be a bilingual teacher.”

Excited, she applied to the university. It was late in the application cycle, but she wouldn’t give up. She called the director of the program repeatedly, determined on her course, until she was finally accepted.

Flores found a home at CSUB and in the Mini-Corps program, where students worked as paid tutors for migrant students in K-12 schools as they work on their university degree.

“I was like a kid in a candy store,” she said. “It was small. It was perfect. The professors were there for us. That was a family within the university. No one was going to let anyone fail.”

The students taught, worked and studied together. Their professors were deeply supportive and helped Flores and her peers figure out how to work effectively in school organizations at the same time they taught them how to teach children.

As part of Mini-Corps, Janie and her peers worked in rural, migrant schools. There she saw, once again, that inspiring students to transcend their roots also meant impacting the mindsets of their parents.

“When they saw us work with their children, that was very motivating for them because they could see themselves and see that the possibility exists for the children to do well,” she said.

Migrant education

Flores began her career in 1976 as a migrant teacher in the McFarland Elementary School District. She quickly made an impact on the students, developing curriculum and support groups and friendships that helped the Spanish-speaking students become scholars, learn English and excel.

Flores built on the understanding she first glimpsed with her own parents and saw clearly as a Mini-Corps tutor — that students were only motivated to succeed when their parents were invested in their education.

And migrant parents simply weren’t engaged.

“Migrant parents were busy all the time. They had to work. Seldom were they able to come to school,” Flores said.

The only parents who came to her first meetings were her own parents and her secretary’s parents, so Flores started tracking parents down. She made home visits. Then, when that wasn’t enough, Flores connected with area churches and arranged to have meetings after services when she knew the families would be there.

Slowly but surely, she got the parents involved.

“The main mission was to get parents informed, get them knowledgeable of the educational system, teach them how to navigate it for the purpose of making sure that their children had their best chance at school,” Flores said. “Parents became their children's advocates.”

Mayela Medina, who is now the principal of Kern Avenue Elementary School in McFarland, was one of Flores’ students and developed a close bond with her because of her parent work.

“My mom didn't speak the language, so she didn't like to come to the school, so (Janie) was out there just pushing them. ‘Hey, you have a voice. Let's go out there and you let them know what it is that you need and come and learn everything that you know is available for your kids,’” Medina said. “I really got close to Janie.”

Eventually, the parents were so engaged that they were visiting school regularly and talking to teachers about their academic progress. When the students weren’t at school, their parents would find out, track them down and get them back in the classroom. They learned how to navigate school bureaucracy and advocate for their children.

“Once they knew that, there's no going back. Their kids are going to be successful because they know how to do it, and they know why it's important and what the outcome is going to be,” Flores said.

Eventually, Flores’ connection with parents became strong enough to change the face of education in McFarland. When she began her work there, the elementary school district was operated by a local school board, but the high school was part of the Kern High School District in Bakersfield.

“Two blocks separate the high school and the elementary. However, students wouldn't register for the high school. And the high school didn't know they were around, being part of the Kern High School District 25-30 miles away,” Flores said.

Migrant students were ending their educational careers after middle school just because of the disconnect between the two districts, she said, so McFarland launched an effort to create a single district.

Flores played a big part in rallying the migrant parents to support the move, a big job that involved taking nervous, Spanish-speaking farm workers into the halls of power in Sacramento.

“They had to advocate at the state. I just worked with them and showed them how to do it. That's all. This was something very different for those parents,” Flores said. “They had to take time off from work.”

Flores and the parents would jump in a school station wagon and drive to Sacramento, advocate for the change and then she would drive them back to McFarland because they couldn’t afford to stay in a hotel or miss the next day’s work.

Eventually, in 1979, the California State Board of Education overruled the staff of the California Department of Education, and the district became a K-12 school system.

Providing inspiration

It wasn’t just the parents who Flores inspired. She helped the students start a migrant club that helped them connect with the mainstream life at the high school campus and build bridges to other students. She worked with CSUB’s Career Beginnings Program where migrant students were matched up with a mentor who checked up on them and supported their career.

“I remember once when we attended a conference - I reached out to Chevron and they sponsored us. We went to the conference at the Biltmore Hotel in LA,” she said. “My students got there in sweatshirts and jeans, and because the president of our club was invited, she got to go sit at the head table.”

Medina was the president of the club that got to sit at that table.

“Imagine these Hispanic kids going to the Biltmore,” she said. We go into this dinner. I'm in jeans and a sweatshirt. Because I was the president of the Migrant Club, I get to sit up in the top with all the dignitaries,” Medina said. “So, I'm up there and I'm like, ‘okay, there's three forks. What am I supposed to do with all of this?’ We learned so much just with things like that.”

Flores was there for them even when their friends and family couldn’t be, becoming a counselor, guide, cheerleader and friend to them.

When Flores got done with them, all the students were shooting for the stars.

They reached them.

“I was at a parent conference one time, and the keynote speaker was a young man named Beto Gonzalez. He was working for the office of Education in Washington, D.C.” Flores said. “He got up there and his first thing he said was ‘Is Janie Flores in the house?’”

He asked her to stand up.

“Then he goes, ‘That person is responsible for my having graduated from high school,’” Flores said.

In the end, Flores said the work was always about small moments connecting students and parents with the idea that they could transcend their circumstances.

“I specifically remember, on one of our tours (of CSUB), there was a student that was lagging behind,” Flores said. “I turned around and saw that he was behind, and I wanted him to catch up with us. I said, ‘What's the matter, honey? Come on, let's go.’ And he's just mesmerized. He's looking around. He says, ‘Who does this belong to?’ And I said ‘To you. This is yours. This is yours to access, and this is where you can come.’”

Dr. Torres said those simple, human connections are what transforms lives.

“Education is the key for most migrant families. Very often that's the only way they can break the cycle of poverty. It is the only way for them to get resources that otherwise they wouldn't get,” he said. “I know that was the case for me and my family. Without education, we wouldn't be where we are.”

Dr. Torres believes that Flores spent decades changing lives every day.

“Without her intervention, many students would have not seen the things that they did. She ensured that they attended conferences, museums and programs to enrich them and also to see the world and to know that there was room for them, that they were part of society. They were not just left out,” he said. “Without her intervention, many of those students would have left school. They would have just dropped out because they didn't feel like they belonged. They would have just abandoned their studies.”

Recognition

In recognition of her achievements, Flores is being inducted into CSUB’s Alumni Hall of Fame this year. Flores said it is a humbling honor to be inducted but that her journey has been possible because of a host of people who made her accomplishments possible.

“CSUB, I can tell you, is responsible for my multi-decade journey and education,” she said. “I am so grateful to CSUB. They have wonderful programs that I have collaborated with. Working with the directors of Mini-Corps there and then having their students come and tutor our children has been a wonderful experience for our students.”

Flores credits her success to the fact she was supported by friends, family, colleagues, championed by administrators, other migrant educational directors and was blessed by the devotion and hard work of her husband who took care of her and their two children while working full time.

“I never even really knew how long I was at work. If there was something to do, you just stayed, and so consequently, I would get home really late. I had a wonderful husband who took care of all of us,” she said. “He was the hamburger cooker. He was the one that did the Halloween activities, the farm show. You name it, he was the one that did it.”

Together, her supporters, her students, their parents and her family, her children all made her journey possible, Flores said.

And also, of course, her parents.

“My mom and dad were my heroes,” Flores said. “They moved. They came with the family. They crossed states to come here for work, for a better life and to work in the fields.”

Flores’ mother died from cancer that Flores believes she got from years of exposure to pesticides. Her father died a of massive heart attack while at work in the rose fields.

“I always say, ‘La tierra se los trago.’ That means ‘The dirt ate them,’ you know, because of the work they did. Ultimately, it took them,” Flores said. “I do what I do for them and their honor — honoring their plight, honoring their work. Everyone should be their ancestors’ wildest dreams, you know?”

Flores, bottom right, Janie with her siblings: sister Isabel, younger brother Emilio and older brother Aramando — Flores, bottom right, Janie with her siblings - sister Isabel, younger brother Emilio and older brother Aramando

Flores, second from left, with her siblings, aunt and cousin.

Migrant education champion shaped thousands of students’ futures

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Footnotes

Story by James Burger, marketing and communications director; feature photo by EJ Medellin, videographer/photographer; secondary photos provided by Janie Flores.

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FootNotes

Story by James Burger, marketing and communications director; feature photo by EJ Medellin, videographer/photographer; secondary photos provided by Janie Flores.

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Migrant education champion shaped thousands of students’ futures

Janie Flores to be inducted into Alumni Hall of Fame

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