Roma graduate cited in Obama's speech

Jazmin Perez insists she’s one of millions of students who worked hard and succeeded.

President Barack Obama made her one example out of three.

Perez, 22, a 2005 Roma High School graduate, was cited by Obama in his Tuesday speech to students as someone who overcame obstacles in their path to an education.

Perez didn’t speak English when she first started school, Obama said in an address televised at some Rio Grande Valley schools. Although neither of her parents went to college, she worked hard at Roma High School and received a scholarship to Brown University.

Perez, who graduated with a degree in human biology and education studies, is now a graduate student in public health at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.

Obama used Perez’s story — and those of two others from Los Altos, Calif., and Chicago — to encourage students to commit to their education.

The planned speech drew the ire of conservative groups last week who accused the president of trying to foist a partisan agenda upon the nation’s schoolchildren.

But Perez, who found out she was included in Obama’s speech when two former teachers called her once the president’s prepared remarks were released Monday, said the speech was on target with her views on education.
“You are in control of what you want to be,” she said. “I hope that, more than anything else, motivates students to accomplish things in life and set high goals.”

HIGH GOALS

Perez spoke no English when her parents enrolled her in a private Christian school when she was 5 years old.
Her father, Jose Perez, was born in Rio Grande City and stopped school at third grade when his family moved back to Mexico.

He taught himself English and married Imelda Garcia, who helped him open a beauty salon along Roma’s main street. The business is the family’s primary source of income.

Jazmin Perez said her parents emphasized education for their three children, but she had rarely been outside of Texas until her junior year in high school.

A school trip to New York City opened her eyes to the rest of the world and led her to apply to schools outside her home state.

She received a Gates Millennium Scholarship to attend Brown University in Providence, R.I., where she was involved in a number of organizations and had the opportunity to abroad in Australia.

Jazmin Perez initially planned on attending medical school, but she fell in love with public health when she took an introductory course her senior year.

She said public health interested her because it allows her to implement preventive medicine on a large scale, including attacking Valley issues like diabetes and obesity.

“It’s one of those things where you need a bigger upstream approach than primary health care,” she said. “You really need to get at the root of the problem.”

Her father, Jose Perez, caught the end of Obama’s speech with others at his beauty salon.

All of the city’s residents were excited to hear that his daughter was drawing national recognition to their town, he said. Her success showed students in Roma that they can set high goals.

Jose Perez’s two other children — Elizabeth, 27, and Jonathan, 25 — are also college graduates.
“It teaches them you can get good results here,” the father said.

SCHOOL SUCCESS

On the top of her mortar board at her high school graduation, Jazmin Perez wrote: “I told you so.”

The message was for people who doubted her when she told them she could accomplish her goal of attending a prestigious Ivy League school like Brown University.

With a high school graduation rate of less than 70 percent, Starr County ranks among the worst counties in the state for drop-outs.

But Jesus Guerra Jr., superintendent of the Roma school district, said Jazmin Perez was the “classic personal example” for other students in the district and elsewhere to follow.

“Our kids need all the encouragement, all the motivation, all the reasoning to continue to learn,” Guerra said. “Jazmin is a perfect example of what they can accomplish.”

As a student, she was hardworking, focused and intent on doing more than the bare minimum, said Dan Defossey, who taught history and theater at Roma for three years through the Teach for America program.

Defossey was one of the first people Jazmin Perez called when another teacher who submitted her name for Obama’s speech notified her she would be in it.

Other students can learn from her belief in herself, Defossey said of her.

“Jazmin never had any doubts,” he said. “She just kept on going.”
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Jared Janes covers Hidalgo County government, Edinburg and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4424.