Sense of place: Delta center's director profiled on Today Show segment

IF YOU WATCH

>> The Today Show segment on the Llano Grande Center for Research and Development is scheduled to air during the window of 7-10 a.m. Thursday on NBC (Channel 8 for Time Warner Cable subscribers).

EDCOUCH — A message Delia Pérez wanted to convey as a first-year teacher at Edcouch-Elsa was that there’s no shame in going home.

Students questioned Pérez, who was fresh out of Yale University in 1997, on why she returned to a rural, farming community far removed from her alma mater in New Haven, Conn.

“Choosing to return was seen as a mark of failure,” she recalled this week. “(As a teacher), we want our students to value the place that’s raised them, so if they choose to return or don’t, they still remain connected and supportive to their community.”

Pérez, associate director of the nonprofit Llano Grande Center for Research and Development, will be featured Thursday on NBC’s Today Show as part of an in-depth look at the changing role of women in the workplace.

Pérez, who grew up with five sisters and a brother in a household that emphasized the value of education, was interviewed last week by NBC correspondent Jenna Bush-Hager, a daughter of former President George W. Bush.

The interview is part of a comprehensive look the show is taking on how women have emerged with roles beyond the home, said Juan Ozuna, director of community programs and outreach at the center. Women make up more than half of the workforce, earn more graduate degrees than men and in many cases are taking on roles as the primary breadwinner in their households.

Pérez’s mother never finished high school, a byproduct of the 1950s era she grew up in and different expectations for Mexican-American women in South Texas, Pérez said. But her mother encouraged her daughters to attend college and thought it was important they be able to sustain themselves without depending on a husband.

Pérez was part of a student group at Edcouch-Elsa High School that initiated an annual two-week trip to visit Ivy League schools.

When she returned to the high school as a teacher, she took on the nurturing role she learned from her mother and encouraged her students to aspire to succeed.

As the chief manager of the Llano Grande Center, which seeks to improve the Edcouch-Elsa community by engaging students and promoting education, Pérez teaches a social studies elective class in which she focuses on developing leadership skills among her students as a way to prepare them for college.

Pérez said she strives to show her female students the opportunities that are out there.

“They see us and the kind of work that we do, regardless of whether we are men or women,” she said. “They see they can do whatever they want to do.”

It’s a message she has managed to imprint on Samantha Herrera, a senior at Edcouch-Elsa High.

Samantha, 17, was interviewed by Bush-Hager on how her opportunities have expanded beyond her mother’s generation.

“College wasn’t an option for (our mothers) and they thought they would be stay-at-home moms,” the teen said. “The resources weren’t out there for them, but we don’t have to look far for help.”

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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.