Ready For New Fields To Conquer Her Back Does Not Ache Just Because Of Class Load

Angelica Reyna’s back aches sometimes.

Not from her heavy load as a full-time Washington State University student, nor from carrying the 2-year-old daughter she’s raised on her own.

The occasional pain is from a decade of stooping over Washington farm fields, harvesting rows of asparagus, strawberries and cucumber alongside her parents and seven siblings.

“I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life working in the fields,” Reyna said.

Saturday, the 23-year-old Mexican native graduated from WSU with a degree in elementary education and a bilingual/ English as a second language endorsement. Fourteen members of her family (including all but one of her seven siblings) traveled to the Pullman commencement.

Reyna’s mother, dressed elegantly in maroon velour, smiled and applauded as her youngest daughter walked across the stage holding a diploma in one hand and a child in the other.

Afterward, Reyna’s nieces and nephews giggled as they tried on her tassled graduation cap. Her daughter Victoria twirled circles in a new gingham dress, ignoring requests to sit still for snapshots.

Reyna’s parents still work in the asparagus fields near Mabton, Wash. Her father brought the family to the United States when she was 7, envisioning a life he’d heard relatives and friends talk about - migrant families working summer seasons here and returning to Mexico for the winters. But her mother refused to move the family.

“My mother fought for us to stay and go to school,” Reyna said. “We needed money and knew we all had to work, but she always said she didn’t want us to work in the fields the rest of our lives.”

They lived among friends in the Mabton migrant worker camps, rising to cut asparagus at 3 a.m. during the March-June season. From seventh grade on, Reyna attended evening school, arriving home with enough time to eat, study and sleep a few hours before starting the next day’s labor.

After the asparagus season ended in June, the family moved to Mount Vernon for the strawberry, raspberry and cucumber harvests.

Reyna’s seventh grade teacher, Mr. Darlow, encouraged her to pursue college.

“He told me there’s opportunities out there other than asparagus and all the labor. He said it looked like I was going to be someone in life and he was the one who opened my eyes.”

Her senior year she received a scholarship covering her first year at WSU. The next year, she began receiving financial aid and started a work-study program.

She also became pregnant. Unmarried, Reyna unsuccessfully tried to hide her condition from her family. Her father, who didn’t attend Saturday’s graduation, hasn’t spoken to her since learning of the out-of-wedlock pregnancy, she said.

She credits her mother for convincing her to stay enrolled when the stress and fatigue became overwhelming.

“She said, ‘Now that you have someone else to take care of you have to hit the books even harder.”’

Reyna hung on, working in WSU’s multicultural center and raising Victoria alone. This spring, the child’s father began a court custody battle that required Reyna to take out $3,000 in loans for attorney’s fees. She now receives $25 a month in child support.

“It was expensive,” said Reyna, who has $10,000 in college debts. “I’ve never been so broke in my life.”

But Reyna’s persistence now has her poised to realize her mother’s hope for a future away from the fields. This month, she became a naturalized citizen, graduated from college and found summer work. She leaves May 29 for Hampton, Va., to help organize NASA educational activities at Langley Research Area.

In the fall, she’s hoping for a student teaching position in Sunnyside, Wash., near her hometown. There’s a need for Spanish-speaking teachers, Reyna said, and she wants her nephews and nieces to have role models outside the traditional family labor team.

“When I was growing up I never saw people like me in the schools,” Reyna said. “I feel like I want them to get something better.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 Color)