(VISIT HERE TO READ A 2024 UPDATE FROM MIGUEL)

Talk even briefly to Miguel, and you’ll quickly figure out that he’s a passionate learner with varied interests, Ivy League goals and a growth mindset.

Although he admits to being a procrastinator – a trait shared by none other than Leonardo da Vinci, he’s quick to point out – he’s improving: “Last year I didn’t procrastinate nearly as much as I did in middle school or my freshman year,” he said.

And this year, he just doesn’t have the time. 

An astronomy, law, history and political science enthusiast, Miguel’s academic load at HHS isn’t light: Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. history, AP psychology, AP English, AP computer science, Honors precalculus, and dual-enrollment (for college credit) anatomy and physiology.

Amid all the details, Scholars Latino Initiative (SLI) helps keep Miguel attuned to achieving his long-term goals. The nonprofit, which creates college opportunities for Latino high school students, has served more than 110 scholars since 2012 in Harrisonburg, Richmond and Winchester. In addition to offering a three-year program of college readiness, leadership development and community service, SLI awards scholarships and computer funds to its graduates, plus provides dual-enrollement tuition support. 

‘ONE OF THE FEW’

Most days after school, Miguel takes a break to watch Netflix before getting down to homework.

“It’s about trying as hard as I can,” he said. “If I can be the first in my family to attend an Ivy League university, I’ll go for it.”

That “go-for-it” attitude and his curiosity make Miguel remarkable, said the school system social studies coordinator and SLI founding board member Kirk Moyers. 

“He’s one of the few kids who will actually research something he’s interested in rather than ask the teacher for the answer,” he said. “Because of this, he has a deep knowledge about a variety of topics, and makes connections and analyzes the material at the level of someone far more experienced than a high schooler.”

ROOTED

A “Cuban Salvadoran American,” Miguel has been to Cuba several times to see his maternal grandfather, a “self-built” carpenter who’s old enough to remember the country before Castro’s revolution and who fed his own love of history as a library patron. Miguel’s mom studied to be a nurse but didn’t finish her degree before coming to the U.S. for economic reasons. She is currently an electric pallet jack operator in a poultry plant. 

Miguel hopes someday to also visit the Salvadoran town where his father, currently a chef at an Italian restaurant, lived until coming to the U.S. at age 14. Noel says that he tells of a volcano-heated river in his Salvadoran hometown that is hot enough to cook corn.

This international heritage gives Miguel unique perspective on the world, national identity and family relations.

“He is a bright young man with a keen sense of world politics and history,” said SLI program director and James Madison University professor Carlos Alemán. “Miguel is acutely aware of how the history of Cuban immigration in the U.S. is markedly different than that of other Latin American groups, and how too many people in the U.S. have very little understanding of that different history.”

SLI

“SLI has been a great opportunity for me,” Miguel said, in part because service projects – such as rejuvenating the courtyard garden at an elementary school last spring, supervising children’s activities at an international festival, and mentoring younger students – have helped him “become a better citizen.”

SLI has also equipped Miguel for higher education. Alemán, he said, “has done a great job of telling us how to prepare for our first year college” and connecting students to university resources. “He gives us advice from a professor’s point of view, which I really appreciate.”

It’s encouragement that Miguel has in turn begun passing on to his younger siblings, keeping tabs on his brother’s academics and helping him out when the subject matter is difficult. 

 “SLI has made me a more mature person overall,” Miguel said. “I definitely feel more focused.”

[Updated April 2024] By the time her family left Guatemala when she was eight years old, Sofía already knew what she wanted to do with her life: care for people. 

Today, Sofía is an experienced certified nursing assistant, a certified medical interpreter, and about to complete an accelerated nursing program. 

She’s made a life out of caring, a passion that began with caring for her ailing grandmother, who called Sofía “her doctor,” Sofía remembers. 

“It made me feel that I was doing something positive for someone,” she said. “Every time we have a loved one that is sick or struggling with something, we are to extend a hand and help them out with whatever is going on.”

But getting to where Sofía is now didn’t just happen. It took hard work, encouragement and support that included three years as one of the first scholars in the Scholars Latino Initiative (SLI) program at her high school – a program for which she later volunteered as a coordinator at her university. 

A nonprofit that creates college opportunities for first-generation Latino high school students, SLI has offered rigorous academic challenge, leadership development, supportive mentorships and scholarship awards since 2012.

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES

Sofía’s family lived in multiple states but settled in time for her eighth grade year. During those years of change – adapting to new cultural surroundings, navigating bullying, not feeling like she belonged – she always told herself that if she could learn English, everything else would fall into place.

She knew there was an alternative to sticking with education: getting a job to help provide for her family. In Guatemala, after all, her mother had completed just one year of middle school, and her father high school.

They encouraged Sofía to pursue her goals even though doing so wasn’t always easy.

“They didn’t want my siblings and me to continue that cycle of just getting just a partial education and being stuck there,” she said. “We have to be better.”

She did master English, thanks to a personal determination that hasn’t gone unnoticed. Sofía is “quiet but tenacious,” said Andrea Meador Smith, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Shenandoah University. “Her persistence is evident in her studies, her devotion to her family, and her service commitments.”

ON THE SLI PATH

Sofía joined SLI when she was in tenth grade, and credits the program with showing her that attending college was a real possibility.

She was paired with a mentor, an acting major who Sofía said helped her overcome her terror of public speaking. SLI’s Early College program also helped Sofía develop her writing skills, connected her to volunteer work, and exposed her to college-level academics, since in the program her papers and presentations were graded by college professors. 

“SLI and my mentors enlightened me that I can go ahead and fulfill what my goals are, what my dreams are,” she said. “They kept me on that path.” 

Sofía seized that new sense of opportunity. She is, after all, “driven, collaborative, empathetic, independent and engaged,” said Bryan Pearce-Gonzales, member of the SLI board of directors and department chair and professor of Hispanic Studies at SU. He and other faculty have given Sofía a traditional SU label reserved for students who excel academically and socially across programs: “Superstar.”

AN ADVOCATE FOR OTHERS

But it hasn’t been enough for Sofía just to succeed. Her passion, after all, is caring for others. 

When she realized she wanted to pass on to younger SLI scholars what had made her own college experiences a reality, she approached Maggie McCampbell Lien, the director of the Mosaic Center for Diversity and former SLI program director at SU, to find out if she could help.

Now, as coordinator of SLI activities in her area, Sofía interviews mentor candidates and helps pair mentors and high school mentees. She also gives presentations – the very activity that once gave her panic attacks – to SLI scholars and their families about financial options for paying for college.

“Sofía is peacefully determined,” said one SLI program director. “As she studies and continues to work towards her goals, current SLI scholars are benefiting from her example and giving spirit.”

And she shares about her own experiences, participating as a speaker on various campus and community panels. 

“Sofía is the definition of resiliency,” said McCampbell Lien. “Every time she has faced a hurdle, she has been determined to overcome it.”