Carlos Garza

      Eleanor Roosevelt said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” There are potholes on life’s road that we must all navigate around or over, but poor people’s potholes are oftentimes insurmountable. Education is without question a ticket to success, be that economic, social, or civic. Unfortunately, the education itself is the easy part. The hard and often impossible part of the equation is the opportunity to become educated. Opportunity in American society can be as elusive for some as the “dream” to which Eleanor Roosevelt alluded. Children in America are required by law to attend school at least until the age of seventeen. Beyond that, poor people are left to their own devices. The obstacles, bureaucracies, cultural, and social pitfalls associated with furthering one’s education are comparable to waging a battle with Goliath.
      I have, in many ways, taken on Goliath. While I had a successful career for ten years at the power company, I did not understand the importance of a college education until I -- along with a thousand other workers--was laid off. We were ten years older with high school diplomas or GEDs at best. When I showed up at the admissions office at the University of Houston-Downtown in the fall of 1996, I was told that the University could not let me apply for, or for that matter, register for college. I felt I had no choice but to be insistent, to refuse to walk away, to demand that someone listen—and help. I had no money, “no transcripts,” no job, and no real idea of how to negotiate the college environment. I knew I needed a degree.
      The oddity of my presence and my circumstances led the Dean of Student Affairs to ask the President of the university to “take a chance on one guy that just will not go away.” The rest, as they say, is history and I am now two classes away from what I once considered unattainable, a college degree in Computer Information Systems. Looking back, the rigors I faced entering college were almost as formidable as the classes themselves, and it should not be that way.
      I continue to live hand-to-mouth, paycheck to paycheck, doing the best that I can with and for my four children. I have no full-time job, no insurance, no savings, no reliable transportation, and no real prospect for any of those things until I complete my degree. But I have hope, and that is more than I had when I walked through the front door of the University of Houston-Downtown in 1996. I’ve spent these last eight years demonstrating to my children the importance of a college education, and I want them to see college as part of their futures. I see possibilities for my future and theirs that I could not even contemplate in 1996. Even as I stand on the brink of success, though, I am always aware of the many other people who are missing the opportunities that an education provides because they lack an awareness of college procedures, they are told they “don’t belong” or do not find someone willing to “take a chance” and help them negotiate the initial barriers.

Photo Exhibit

A nationally touring exhibit of 50 framed, museum quality, color photographs coupled with narratives created by students who are welfare eligible, single parents changing their lives through the pathway of higher education.  The installation presents a unique view of poverty from insiders’ perspectives and reframes the cultural (de)valuations of poor single parents vis-à-vis family, work and higher education in the United States today. View the Gallery Guide.