Gonzales’ parents didn’t want to see their son spend his life in the fields and encouraged him to pursue an education.

“I had to go to college, but I didn’t know how to go about going to college,” he said.

By the time he was a senior in high school, Gonzales still didn’t see college as an option. He was barely able to graduate because of difficulties transferring credits from the high schools he attended in three different states. He hadn’t taken his ACT. And when his school counselor encouraged him to apply to the MSU College Assistance Migrant Program, or CAMP, he had no idea he would be graduating college and beginning a job to help migrant workers achieve higher education four years later.

“In the migrant life, you continue the cycle of thinking ‘I can’t do anything better … this is all I can do,’” said Gonzales, a global and area studies and Spanish senior.

Gonzalez is one of about 20,000 people nationwide whose dreams of attending a university were made possible by CAMP. The program, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, assists students who work or have parents who work as migratory or seasonal farm workers. The MSU program began in 2000.

“From its very founding, MSU has been committed to providing access for a broad range of students,” MSU Provost Kim Wilcox said in an e-mail. “The College Assistance Migrant Scholars Program represents the best of that tradition and the university’s efforts to recruit and maintain a diverse student body.”

Because the funding for CAMP must be reauthorized every five years, MSU recently submitted an application for a renewal of the grant. A decision won’t be reached until this summer and nothing is guaranteed.

“The nail-biter is we’re competing nationally for those funds,” MSU CAMP Director Luis Alonzo Garcia said. “It really presents a major setback given that these particular types of communities won’t be able to come though MSU.”

A helping hand for migrants
Gonzales’ parents always wanted a better life for their son, but they didn’t know where to begin.

“(My parents) couldn’t help (my siblings and me) out because they couldn’t speak English,” Gonzales said. “My father has a first-grade education. When we were having difficulties with curriculum in high school, it really limited who we could go to for help.”

Most of the students in the CAMP program are the first in their families to attend college, sometimes even the first to have graduated high school. The high school dropout rate of migrant seasonal farm workers is between 15 percent to 16 percent, Garcia said. The percentage of migrant workers who expect to go to college is smaller.

“When you come from an environment where no one else is going to college, there are very few people you can strive to be like,” Garcia said.

The CAMP program reaches out to communities with a significant migrant worker population, working with high schools to recruit students to the CAMP program.

“We concentrate primarily on the first year to make sure we’re providing the right guidance and academic support so we can keep them focused, and also, we work with financial aid,” Garcia said.

Arturo Almanza, a civil engineering freshman in CAMP, said the aid he received through the program allowed him to attend MSU.

“They helped me a lot with paying for classes; I barely had to pay anything out of my pocket,” Almanza said.

Migrants in Michigan
Garcia dropped out of high school, but a former teacher recognized his potential and helped him obtain his GED and college degree. Since Garcia brought CAMP to MSU in 2000, he has been returning the favor.

Almost 500 students have been helped through their freshman year at MSU with CAMP. In 2009, MSU was ranked the second-best program in the nation in terms of service to the migrant community by the U.S. Department of Education.

Despite the program’s success, it could be in danger of vanishing. About 50 other programs currently are competing for seven grants from the U.S. Department of Education. Although there are 48 similar programs nationwide, not all need to be renewed this year.

“There’s always a question because it’s all based on the readers that evaluate these proposals,” Garcia said.

MSU is the only school in Michigan to have a CAMP program and is the most extensive program among Big Ten schools, Garcia said.

Agriculture is the second largest economy in Michigan. According to a recent report by Michigan Department of Civil Rights and Michigan Civil Rights Commission, about 45,000 migrants come to Michigan each year to live and work, 10,000 of whom are permanent residents.

“Our state and MSU historically have been in the forefront of technology and assistance in the areas of agriculture in the state,” Garcia said. “We’re an agriculture university.”

Still working
Many Michiganians remain unaware of the state’s substantial migrant worker population and the challenges it faces.

“There’s a dynamic of a lot of migrant families (that) value is placed on work not eduction many times because it’s a necessity of the family,” Garcia said.

Garcia said many CAMP students hold jobs on campus and continue to support their families while obtaining their degree.

“Some students … if they get any extra money when they’re working, they send it home,” Garcia said.
Criminal justice freshman Jessica Villarreal, who works about 12 hours each week in the MSU CAMP office, said she sends anywhere from half to a quarter of her paycheck home.

“When I first got hired I felt like I couldn’t spend most of the money on myself; I had to take care of the needs of my family first,” Villarreal said.

Hundreds of miles away in Florida, Gracie Villarreal, Jessica’s mother, is on the receiving end of the checks. Gracie said the money is useful, but it is not as valuable as the education Jessica is receiving.

“I didn’t want her working (in the fields),” Gracie Villarreal said. “I wanted something better for her.”