Jafet’s Story
Jafet Ascencion-Martinez, a humble man of few words, is a college student currently attending Western Washington University in Bellingham Washington. After attending HighSchool he read online and chose Western because of “the reviews and ratings.” and came with his decision. Because of college being online, he currently lives with his mom and dad in Rock Island, a small part of Wenatchee, Washington.To be able to attend College is a privilege and Jafet has had that privilege. He is seeking to finish College with a Business Degree. “Get into something business wise…Accounting, maybe.”It has taken a while like any other person to get prepared for a University and University type classes. Jafet has gone through many ups and downs throughout his life that made him be who he is today.
Dante and I conducted an Interview with Jafet’s consent and asked him follow up questions from previously reading his Writer’s Position Statement Essay. Dante and I focused on the story of Jafet’s life and how education and the people he met from school helped him be who he is today and help him achieve his goal of finishing College with a business degree.
Throughout Jafet’s life with his family, he had been surrounded by a great family that loves him very much. He started to realize when he was in Elementary School that he had been being treated differently by the teachers. At such a young age, Jafet was put into a separate classroom to learn with people that are in the similar situation as him. This made him feel a bit different and the odd one out in school. His teachers also tried to label him as one race and he said; “It made me feel… disturbed… It was back in elementary.” This went on for the longest time and when he got older he started to finally do research he had found that he could label himself as Chicano. This is because his family was from Mexico and he is also American. This was a major part of him learning who he is. He also knew Spanish, so being able to know two languages has definitely helped him in his future as he states; “Being bilingual has benefited me.” These teachers who made him feel down had helped him find who he is and be proud of it.
A big part of learning for Jafet was being able to communicate and hangout with his cousins and friends. His cousins helped him so much not only in communicating and just hanging out, but also with school. These sponsors helped him learn things he needs to learn for the future and most importantly getting motivation. After a couple of years, when Jafet was older, his older cousins and their family had moved away and that had a big effect on Jafet emotionally. When he was living with his aunt and cousins his parents struggled to help him with school because of lack of education and distance. “Well my parents… I don’t think they graduated from high school… so they couldn’t really help me. They tried, but they just couldn’t really help me… They were in Mexico, so it was kinda hard for them at that time.” Being able to find more friends helped him a lot. Although, he did talk about how his friends did not take school as seriously as him stating “ I have a group of friends that I like, hang out with daily, they don’t take this very seriously. Life. Like, going to college, especially Western.” Him being able to be open about this has helped him realize he is different from them in that sense. He is motivated by his family and cousins and especially his sister.
Although his cousins and friends were a huge part of his life, nothing could compare to his sister, Arleth. Jafet’s only sibling is his sister, and he found her to be a huge inspiration to him. When we asked how she was doing, Jafet brought up some good news.. “She just graduated…Central Washington.” Not only was his sister a first generation graduate from high school and college, but she was the driving inspiration for Jafet and his future.“-It made me wanna be like her,” he stated. So far, he has been on the right track to becoming as successful as his sister.
Throughout Jafet’s life, he was raised with his parents and family who spoke fluent Spanish. He had spoken Spanish as his first language.. Him being able to go to school and get educated helped him Immensely in regards to not only the English language, but opportunities with friends and teachers. “We were primarily mexican — teachers were mexican too.” He found that because of his similarities to his peers and teachers, he found out more about himself, and found out that he himself was chicano.
Through all of these ups and downs with countless different people like friends and teachers, Jafet stayed strong to who he is and what his goals are. Which is to graduate College just like his sister and to be able to start his own life with his own successes.
