Consumer Affairs<\/a> student, had waited 20 years to cross that stage.\u00a0<\/p>\nHernandez began college in 2006. Then came marriage, three children and years of checking the same box on school registration forms: \u201csome college.\u201d When her twin daughters were 9, heading into fourth grade, they noticed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMom, how come you always put \u2018some college\u2019?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hernandez told them she had never finished.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy not? You\u2019re smart.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She told them they were right, and she made a promise: By the time they entered sixth grade, she would be able to check a different box. She’d do it for them, she said, and for all those in her family, including her parents, who’d never been able to check it either.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For two years, while working full-time and co-parenting her children, she commuted from San Diego, leaving before dawn to make it to class by 8 a.m., then driving back afterward for her afternoon shift as a family support specialist at a nonprofit. She studied on the road, recording herself reading lecture slides the night before and replaying her own voice during the drive north.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She earned straight A\u2019s and was chosen to address the crowd at Nuestra Graduaci\u00f3n, CSULB\u2019s Latinx celebration and one of several cultural graduations held ahead of commencement.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I started 20 years ago,” she said during her speech. “I am not embarrassed to say it.” She had to pause for the applause.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It was wonderful, it was colorful,” he said. “I just said to myself, wouldn’t it be nice if I could find out if I could walk.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
He could. On Commencement Day, he marched alongside students decades younger.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It was a high,\u201d Aronson said. \u201cI can’t say it any other way. I was in heaven.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hernadez can relate, but for different reasons.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over the last two years, she said, her children became part of her process. The girls offered study advice during late-night finals and cheered her through her final paper. \u00a0Often in the car, they\u2019d listen alongside her as recorded lecture notes played in the background.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are we learning about today, Mom?\u201d they would ask.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In August, when Hernandez\u2019s twins enter the sixth grade, she will become the first in her family \u2014 though not remotely the last, she said \u2014 to mark a different box on their registration forms. She is even eyeing her master\u2019s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDreams,\u201d she told her children, \u201cdon\u2019t have expiration dates.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For five days this week, Cal State Long Beach became a landscape of black gowns and gold stoles.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1818,1820,7,1815,1821,1822,1819,131,133,132,1817,1816],"class_list":["post-327051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-49ers","tag-cal-state","tag-california","tag-college","tag-csu","tag-csulb","tag-dirtbags","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-long-beach-state","tag-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}