Genesis of a Dream : As 6th-graders, they were offered college money if they stayed in school. Where are they now? : ‘Not All Students Like Me Have the Same Opportunity’

Name: Maria Medina

Age: 16

School: Jefferson High School

Goal: Cosmetology or real estate

“I’m confused,” Maria says. She wants to work in cosmetology or real estate, jobs that don’t require a college degree. However, neither she nor her parents want her to lose her chance for a scholarship.

“My parents told me I’m just going to spend three months in real estate school and that I need a backup in case real estate doesn’t work out. . . . I don’t want to lose my scholarship. Not all students like me are going to have the same opportunity.”

While she tries to figure out what to do, Maria is maintaining a C average, and is trying to pull herself together after a brief fall from grace. One semester last spring, she cut school so often with friends that she failed all her classes.

Project coordinator Marta Melendez met with Maria and her parents and the student soon returned to school. “The foundation helped me a lot,” Maria says. “I was about to drop out of school because of my friends. Ms. Melendez made me realize that I might regret it. . . . I think I’m more mature. I started thinking of what I was doing. That I had to do things right.”

Maria realizes she wasted a semester, Melendez says. “If she doesn’t do what she’s supposed to do, she won’t graduate on time. She’s even planning to go to night school so she can graduate on time.”

Maria says she cut classes because she was tired of coming home and caring for her nine younger siblings while her parents worked, her father as a truck driver, her mother as a seamstress.

She now seems to have more time for fun. “In the ninth-grade yearbook at Edison Junior High I was chosen the best flirt,” she says. “I like to have fun and make people laugh and be happy. But when I’m with friends and they’re sad, I’m real sad.”

When she goes out with people, Maria likes to dress well. “Even though the family doesn’t seem to have enough to get along,” Melendez says, “Maria always has nice clothes. Most of her dresses, or at least her pretty party dresses, her mother makes them.”

She wears nine rings and came to school one day in a mesh-net top, dressy black slacks and flat shoes with bows. “I like models,” she says. “Their hair styling, their makeup, the way they dress and the way they walk.”

Maria is conscious of making an impression in another way as well. She says that returning to school has taught her that she needs to be a role model for her siblings.

“I think what convinced me (to go back to school) was that . . . I want my brother and sisters to know I graduated,” she says. “They’re going to say, ‘My sister did it. Why can’t I?’ ”