Jennifer Rocha, a University of California, San Diego graduate, took her parents to the same fields where they all worked to have a photo shoot wearing full graduation regalia. She´s worked these fields alongside her parents since she was in high school.
“I´m proud that that´s where I come from,” says Rocha, “It´s a huge part of who I am.”
“The whole reason I wanted to go back to the fields with my parents is because I wouldn´t have the degree and diploma if it wasn´t for them. They sacrificed their backs, their sweat, their early mornings, late afternoons, working cold nights, and hot summers just to give me and my sisters an education.”
These photos with Rocha in her graduation gown and her parents in their regular work clothes have gone viral in the past few days on social media. But Rocha says it´s the feedback from other children of immigrants who have reaped the rewards of having their parents do back- breaking work so they can succeed that she cherishes the most. “I really think that’s why people like them so much,” she says after a short pause.
Her mom and dad, Angelica Maria and Jose Juan Rocha, had both labored in the fields in Michoacán, Mexico, as young children before emigrating to the U.S. And when they arrived, they put aside their own dreams of becoming doctors or other professional careers, Rocha recalls. “They just didn’t have those options,” she says. Instead they returned to the fields.
“And when we were older they started taking us so we could learn a lesson about higher education,” she says. The message was simple: “If you don´t pursue a higher education, this is where you´re going to end up. And the only way for you to learn is for us to take you for you to experience it.” And so began her juggling school and cross-country with overnight shifts in the fields in her junior year of high school.
She would get out of cross-country practice at 2 p.m., get picked up to eat at home and start her overnight shift planting strawberries up until 2 or 3 a.m., sleep for a few hours and be up in time to catch the city bus to get to school. She would continue the work through college even with a job as campus security. During winter, spring, and summer breaks she would join her parents, hunched over or hoisting many barrels of various crops for 8 hours a day.
“And then once I got the job as a cadet [with the Beverly Hills Police Department], I was basically doing three jobs at the same time,” she says, laughing.
She says that the photos are meant to showcase the hardworking, smart people like her parents who are often invisible but can be relied on everyday doing the nation´s most menial and low-paying jobs.
Rocha, who majored in sociology with an emphasis in law and society, is already pursuing her dream in law enforcement hoping to be a chief someday.
“It´s not impossible,” she says. “Just because your parents work in domestic labor jobs doesn´t mean you aren´t going to be successful. It´s going to be hard, but everything is possible. And never forget where you come from.”
