Of Pomp and Challenging Circumstance

VENTURA —  After a lifetime of being told to look no further than the citrus fields for his future, Eric Barragan on Thursday proved his naysayers wrong.

He graduated from college.

The 22-year-old former gang member was among about 300 Ventura College students clad mostly in bright blue caps and gowns to attend commencement Thursday to the shouts of congratulations from family and friends cramming the stands in the school’s gymnasium. This year’s graduation class totaled 451 people.

Like many other children of first-generation immigrants, Barragan was the first in his family to earn high school and college diplomas.

“It’s been a long three years,” said the Santa Paula resident. “Always being told that Dad picks lemons and you should go into a low-level technical job. This day for me is to tell everyone that I can make it.”

Barragan, who studied journalism, has already been accepted to Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks with $7,000 in scholarships.

But his future hasn’t always looked so bright. Six years ago as a junior high student, he joined a gang, used drugs and committed petty crimes.

Barragan, who is this year’s student body president at the community college, eventually plans to become a junior high school teacher in Santa Paula to keep his hometown youth from becoming as “lost” as he said he once was.

“I’m bilingual, I’m male and I want to teach,” he said. “There aren’t many of us around.”

But Barragan was only one of many graduates reaching the end of obstacle-studded paths Thursday.

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Once a gang member, 23-year-old Carlos Rios was shot twice and spent a year in jail for theft before enrolling at Ventura College. The Oxnard resident has been accepted to Cal State Northridge this fall.

“I feel like a new man today,” he said, clutching a receipt so he could pick up his diploma later. “I ended up succeeding.” Graduate Marisol Castellanos of Ventura had a message of encouragement for anyone putting off going back to college, especially parents.

“I got pregnant, got married, had a baby and I am here graduating,” said Castellanos, 21. “If I did it, anyone can.”

Unlike the usual commencement speaker, Thomas O’Neill, a Ventura College science instructor for 41 years, offered little in the way of advice for the future.

“You need not take notes. There will be no quiz,” he said. “I have no crystal ball to predict your future.”

Instead, he mused over the sacrifices faced by everyone from immigrants to single parents to senior citizens returning to college after years away and told them to follow their hearts. After a somber moment of silence for four students who died before completing their studies--including Oxnard Police Officer James Rex Jensen Jr., killed during a March drug raid--each graduate’s name was called. Jensen’s wife, Jennifer, accepted an honorary degree on behalf of her late husband.

Many graduates could hardly contain their pride as they left the stage with diploma covers in hand.

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Forty-eight-year-old Kendra Folsom and 35-year-old Demeria Waltz, both of Ventura, marveled that after missing their high school graduations decades ago, they were finally getting the pomp and circumstance. “It feels great,” said Folsom, pointing to her three children watching proudly from the stands. After shaking hands with Ventura College President Larry Calderon, 23-year-old Jason Pace of Fillmore thrust both his arms into the air in a victory gesture. “This is the first time I ever graduated from anything except military boot camp,” he said.

But perhaps most proud were the parents watching from the stands.

When her 31-year-old daughter marched by in the white cap and gown worn by those graduating from the nursing program, Barbara Harris burst into tears while her husband, Loyd, pointed out his daughter’s name, Denette Lynn Moon, in the program.

She was one of 36 students who graduated with high honors.

Nearby, a 77-year-old mother watched her 52-year-old daughter, Barbara Jeanne Velji, walk across the stage after raising a family of four while working a string of part-time jobs from McDonald’s cashier to bank teller.

“She wanted more,” Eleanor Brown said. “It took her awhile but she finally did it. I am very proud.”