One sweltering Tuesday afternoon a few weeks ago, a Filipino immigrant couple in their late 40s, Fernan and Jennie Belidhon, shed copious tears of joy as their eldest daughter, Minna Andrea, 18, spoke in her proud Filipino accent from the stage as a high school valedictorian of a public school in South Central Los Angeles.
Fernan, who works two jobs as a baker, and Jennie, a donut shop worker, both choked up in tears as words of thanks and heartfelt public acknowledgement of their parental sacrifice from the diminutive Minna floated in the air at the Foshay Learning Center campus in Exposition Park.
The speech was the icing on the cake in the season of good news that rained on the Belidhons. Weeks earlier, Minna, whose artistic talents have always defined her, received a full ride offer from the prestigious USC School of Cinematic Arts as a film and television production major. The award from the highly selective film school that costs $80,000 a year to attend and boasts an acceptance rate of 2% also came with a $20,000 stipend allowance. The teenager chose USC over four other top universities that offered her admission (all with undeclared majors) – UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, and UC Davis – because she got into her dream course, which is film studies.
Getting accepted into USC-SCA, widely regarded as the world’s best film school because of its proximity to Hollywood, is already a big deal, but getting accepted directly as a high school senior is an even bigger deal. Thousands of applicants from all over the globe, many already with film experience tucked under their belts, try their luck every year.
Minna, who is currently a summer intern at Warner Brothers, will be a first generation college student in the fall. Both of her parents are high school graduates (Jennie from Casiguran, Aurora, and Fernan from Isabela, Negros Occidental) and no one in either side of the family has been to college.
The journey to America
“Hindi po namin inaasahan ang mga biyayang ito. Parang hindi pa rin po kami makapaniwala sa naging kapalaran ng aming panganay, sa aming naging kapalaran. Overwhelmed po kami (We were not expecting any of these blessings. We cannot believe the good fortune that befell us. This is overwhelming),” Fernan said shyly on the phone.
Fernan’s wife and three young daughters arrived in California only five years ago, in 2016, when Minna was about to start 8th grade, the last grade of middle school in the US. The family was able to immigrate to America with the help of a nonprofit foundation that also helped the elder Belidhon and his 10 other Filipino coworkers escape from an oppressive situation.
The nonprofit paid for the immigration fees as well as the plane tickets of the whole family, and it also helped them settle down. Home for the Belidhons is a small, four-bedroom bungalow with a little yard planted with vegetables such as sitaw, kalabasa, and ampalaya that they share with another family (a relative) in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Exposition Park.
A low income, but thriving immigrant neighborhood, the busy and noisy Vermont Street turned auspicious for the Belidhons because they were able to send their children to nearby Foshay Learning Center, a school that offers USC’s Leslie and William McMorrow Neighborhood Academic Initiative (NAI) program.
NAI is an academically rigorous and comprehensive seven-year, pre-college program that allows smart students to attend Saturday Academy at USC, thus allowing them to have direct access to the university after high school should they meet admission requirements. As such, Foshay is considered the number one “feeder school” to USC.
Minna got into the NAI program right off the bat and off the “boat” from the Philippines. Her teachers at Foshay noticed her abilities right away and had her apply to the program immediately.
Her mother stepped up the plate too and committed to the program’s required parent participation. Jennie attended the compulsory, biweekly NAI parent meetings that teach how to create a healthy home environment that reinforces good study habits and other academic goals. At the end of 8th grade, Minna, who admitted spending the first semester eating lunch with a book because she had no friends, got the Gold Principal Award, the highest given by the school.
“NAI is a college prep program that transforms lives and it transformed mine,” said Minna noting that her younger sisters, 10th grader Jeanne Donnaferl and 8th grader Alliana Mae, are also on the NAI track.
“My father brought us to America, where there are more doors of opportunities for us to realize our dreams, but this did not come without a price, without a sacrifice. We left a place where we really belong, but the trade-off is big,” said Minna, adding that she was doubtful she would get the same shot at Manila’s top schools had her family stayed in the Philippines.
It all started in Cupang
While NAI made her college dream possible, Minna mentioned that the people who laid the foundation of her academic life were her teachers at Cupang Elementary School Annex (CESA) and Muntinlupa Science High School.
“The public education I got from the Philippines was good enough. I got a very good foundation to build on,” she said.
She acknowledged her CESA teachers for inspiring her to pursue her art interests such as drawing, writing, photography, and videography.
“They planted a seed in me and encouraged me to dream big,” she recalled. “That part of my life is very meaningful to me. My elementary school might lack resources, but it had the best teachers who had always encouraged me and my friends to be creative, to do our best even with the little that we had. I really believe that my CESA teachers started me on the right path.”
At Muntinlupa Science High School, Minna said she learned time management and how to study smartly. In short, a solid work ethic that proved very useful when she moved to Foshay.
“I guess I was prepared well by teachers in the Philippines because I was ready to tackle the school workload when I got to California,” Minna explained.
Asked about her plans after college and after “making it big” in the field, she said without any reservations, “I would like to go back to the motherland someday because I want to give back.”
When pressed on and asked for names of Filipino movie stars that she dreams of working with one day, Minna remarked: “That would be a big honor, to direct those big names, but honestly, I would want to work with actors from my community, the community where I came from, There’s a fair amount of kids from Cupang who are very talented, who have so much to give. I would love to give those kids a chance because they deserve it.” – Rappler.com
Ruby Clemmons is a former Manila-based journalist. She currently resides in New Hampshire with her husband and two teenage daughters.
There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.