Culture Shock: Jazmin Fermin and Mark Vargas

March 11, 2016

Jazmin Fermin and Mark Vargas grew up in different cities, but both were products of the Cristo Rey Network of high schools. Largely because of their Catholic education high school education, both attended Jesuit colleges and now work at Cristo Rey. In this conversation, they discuss the impact of Cristo Rey on them and their experiences as Latinx students in predominately white colleges.

This story was produced by StoryCorps.

This story is a part of the American Pilgrimage Project, a conversation series that invites Americans of diverse backgrounds to sit together and talk to each other one-to-one about the role their religious beliefs play at crucial moments in their lives. The interview was recorded and produced by StoryCorps, a national nonprofit whose mission is to preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world.

Jazmin: The way the systems work in New York is a lottery to go to high school, and you have to select 10 schools that you wanted to go to. And I've always been very smart and straight A student. Unfortunately, I got into a really bad school. So my mom heard about Cristo Rey, that was the second year they were open. I did not want to go. Because I was like, "No, I don't want to go to Catholic school", but I didn't really have a choice.

Mark: I had a choice.

Jazmin: Oh.

Mark: Kind of.

Jazmin: Kind of.

Mark: School was okay. I mean, it wasn't the hardest for me. I go into class, I wouldn't do my homework, but I'd still get A's on tests, which was what mattered. So my parents were like, "I don't think you're going to the public school here." For me, I was heartbroken because I mean, growing up, all my best friends were with me. We all played soccer together. So they went to a public high school. And then for me, it was different because my mom, she forced me to look into other options. I applied, interviewed, got in. To this day, it has been a blessing.

Jazmin: It definitely gave me, I think, a better focus of what I wanted, and it helped me identify that early on in my life instead of later on.

Mark: I don't know where my life would be if I didn't go to Cristo Rey, but I can tell you where it's going to be in the next five to ten years. And it's going to be making a difference in a different capacity.

Jazmin: College was completely different because I grew up in all Hispanic, everyone around me was Hispanic or Black. And then high school was the same thing. And when I went to college, I was 10% minority in my school. I went to Fairview University and I don't think anyone can really prepare you for that. That was just a shocker for me, that how much I didn't know about the world. I feel like it was my responsibility. You have to finish college and you have to motivate the younger people to go, so that we can go and work in jobs that make decisions for us in politics and business and whatnot. I don't know how it was for you.

Mark: I mean, going into college, my freshman year, one of the biggest challenges was the culture shock.

Jazmin: Yeah.

Mark: So if you're going from 100% Latino high school to 5%, I mean, I was really one or two of the only Mexicans or Latinos in each of my classes. I had some responsibility in the sense that I'd have to voice my opinion, voice what I thought. Because if I didn't, nobody else was going to. Georgetown is a great institution. Very hard, very rigorous. But at the same time, it taught me what society really is and what it looks like.

Jazmin: Yeah.

Mark: So it taught me as a person to grow, to be more open to different ideas, different people, different views. But at the same time, it taught me who I was. Mexican from Pilsen with the desire to help as many people as I can to make it out like I did. Because I'm not very special, but I am special in the sense that I can be that role model for people that were role models for me.