From Mulberry's migrant community to Stanford and Cornell: A tradition of academic ascent

MULBERRY — When he was in eighth grade, Christian Cortes-Daza wrote an essay about an older student who had seemingly done the inconceivable.

In the school project, Cortes-Daza expressed admiration for Brenda Alvarez-Lagunas, a Mulberry High School graduate who had earned a scholarship to Stanford University, one of the country’s premiere schools. Cortes-Daza particularly identified with the older student because they were both first-generation Americans with parents who had subsisted on migrant agricultural work.

Alvarez-Lagunas attracted national renown in 2019 through a graduation speech as valedictorian of Mulberry High School, during which she brandished a pint container of strawberries, symbolizing the crops her parents had picked while supporting her quest for academic achievement.

“I just remember hearing about it, and I'm like, ‘Wait a minute, she comes from the same exact background,’” Cortes-Daza said. “She lives in a trailer. She's working farm-worker jobs. She's a child of migrant parents. It's like the same kind of person that I am. So, why not try to be like her, in terms of the academic aspect?”

Cortes-Daza has emulated his scholarly exemplar more fully than he ever could have hoped. He will graduate May 20 as valedictorian of Mulberry High School and then venture to California to enroll at Stanford.

He is not the only Mulberry resident launching into the academic firmament. Freddy Bautista-Molina, a student at Bartow High School’s International Baccalaureate, has received a scholarship to attend Cornell University, an Ivy League school in Ithaca, New York.

The pair sat in an office at Mulberry Community Academy on a recent afternoon, joined by Alvarez-Lagunas, who leads the after-school program at the first-year, bilingual school devoted to children of migrant workers. Cortes-Daza and Bautista-Molina are both volunteers in the program.

“I don't want to take credit for their inspiration,” Alvarez-Lagunas said. “I think it’s definitely something that came from them. And I know that for me, personally, too, when I saw one person do it, it meant a lot for me. I didn't think that I would have that mark on my community, and it happened, I think, (through) a lot of luck, a lot of hard work. And then, to see younger kids kind of experience the same journey as me is really rewarding.”

Bautista-Molina cited another child of migrant workers for showing that admission to an elite university is not beyond comprehension. In 2015, Erick Meza of Fort Meade earned a scholarship to Harvard University after graduating as valedictorian of the Bartow IB School.

Living amid hardship

Mulberry and the unincorporated Willow Oak community are a residential locus for immigrants from Mexico and other countries who provide manual labor for Florida’s agriculture industry — traditionally, picking fruits and vegetables grown here in the fall through spring. Many families migrate to northern states for the harvest seasons in warmer months.

Cortes-Daza and Bautista-Molina, both 18, reside in what they described as trailers, the latter sharing a bedroom with a younger brother. Cortes-Daza said his parents initially performed migrant labor in California after immigrating from Mexico, picking such crops as watermelons, tomatoes and blueberries.

Since moving to Polk County, his mother — raising Christian and three older siblings on her own — has shifted to working in warehouses, he said.

Bautista-Molina, the oldest of four siblings, said his parents previously ventured to Alabama in May or June for harvesting work and returned to Polk County in October. He recalled traveling with them by the time he was in kindergarten and joining them in the fields by his pre-teen years.

Bautista-Molina, a slender fellow with dark, floppy hair and metal-framed glasses, said his father eventually left migrant work to operate a small business in household appliances, and his mother sells jewelry. He guessed that neither parent advanced beyond sixth grade but said they emphasized the need for an education.

“As migrant workers, I think that's one of the main goals that most parents have of similar backgrounds,” he said. “I think the reason why they come here is to pursue the American dream. So, they always reinforced this idea that they want me to have an education and achieve more than what they did.”

Likewise, Cortes-Daza said his mother expected him to pursue either an academic degree or other training beyond high school. Even so, he said that he languished as a student until entering high school.

“Actually, as far as I can remember, I was always a bad kid in school,” he said. “Actually. I was a straight C and D student all throughout middle school. I really didn't care. I was involved in drugs, gangs, crime.”

Cortes-Daza, sturdily built and wearing a Stanford men’s soccer T-shirt, said his perspective changed after doing agriculture work and other physically harsh labor.

“But after middle school, and after working all those heavy labor jobs, I realized that I'm living a life that I told myself I wouldn't when I was very young,” he said. “And so, from that point on, I was like, ‘OK, I really need to turn around,’ and I just sort of started focusing on my academics.”

For Bautista-Molina, gaining admission to the Bartow IB School was an accomplishment in itself. During his four years at the school, he has taken nearly 20 International Baccalaureate or Advanced Placement courses, as well as collegiate, dual-enrollment classes.

Cortes-Daza maintained grade-point average of 4.55 as he ran cross country, played soccer, participated in track and competed in powerlifting. He recently won a 2024 Silver Garland Award, a program presented by Visit Central Florida that honors high school seniors who serve the community using their talents in one of 14 categories. His category was foreign language.

Anxiety over admissions

Even after rededicating himself to academics at Mulberry High, Cortes-Daza did not have lofty ambitions for college. He expected to spend two years at a state college and then attend the University of South Florida. Toward the end of his junior year, though, he considered other possibilities.

“I started talking to some kids who went to these big high schools — you know, they had all the resources in the world — and they were telling me my story is unique and I'm not a dumb kid, so if I really put in even more work, I could really share my story and maybe colleges, elite-level colleges, will accept me,” he said.

Both students credit Dani Higgins, a longtime migrant advocate for Polk County Public Schools and now principal at Mulberry Community Academy, with convincing them to aim for highly selective colleges.

“Miss Dani, she always supported me from sixth grade,” Bautista-Molina said. “I remember I met her in sixth grade, and she would always tell me, ‘Oh, you're going to go to Harvard.’ And at that time, I guess I didn't really have an idea of what Harvard was. It was like, ‘Oh, Harvard must be a good school.’”

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A business teacher at Bartow IB steered Bautista-Molina toward Cornell, her alma mater.

“So that's when I first found out about Cornell, and then she would tell us it had, like, an amazing campus, it was an amazing school,” he said. “So that's what motivated me to apply. And it was a reach school, but that was one of the schools that I wanted to get into.”

Both students applied to a slew of colleges, ranging from Ivy League stalwarts to such proud institutions as Duke and Georgia Tech. The decision emails, arriving in the spring, brought reminders of why such schools are known for their selectivity: a series of rejections or waitlist notices.

Bautista-Molina said he had low hopes when an email from Cornell appeared in his mailbox.

“I was kind of expecting a rejection, because I had opened up UPenn’s before that, and I think it was NYU as well,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh, no, I feel like I'm going to get rejected again.’ But I opened it and I saw the confetti and I just screamed. It was crazy. My siblings were right there when I opened it, and there they were, like, ‘You got accepted?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ We all just started jumping.”

Colleges employ confetti graphics bursting from emails to convey acceptance.

Cortes-Daza had heard from every school except Stanford, receiving acceptance to only one, when an email popped up on his phone as he drove home late at night from a side job in St. Petersburg. At first he thought he might wait until he reached home to read it, but he decided to check, expecting more disappointment.

“And then confetti came out,” he said. “And for the first time since 17 school (notices) came out, I read ‘congratulations’ instead of ‘unfortunately.’”

Crucially, considering his family’s economic circumstances, Cortes-Daza received a full scholarship.

Seeking to 'break cycle'

Alvarez-Lagunas, who had already inspired the friends toward academic heights, provided an assist to Cortes-Daza in following her to Stanford. After graduating last year with a bachelor of science in human biology, she returned to Mulberry and joined her former mentor, Higgins, for a one-year stint at the newly opened Mulberry Community Academy, now serving only kindergartners and first-graders but with plans to steadily add grades.

Alvarez-Lagunas befriended the high school seniors, who volunteered regularly at the campus, coaching youngsters in soccer, chess and other activities. Cortes-Daza said he might not have applied to Stanford without her urging.

“She was really pushing, like, ‘Maybe I can do this, too,’” he said. “So, without her, I don't think I'd be in the position that I am now — not only that, but also because she did write me a very, very well-written letter of recommendation to the school. And, I mean, she is pretty well known at Stanford. So I do think that played a large factor.”

Cortes-Daza intends to major in aerospace engineering and yearns for a career with NASA. Bautista-Molina received a Meinig Family Cornell National Scholarship and plans to study finance in the Charles H. Dyson School for Applied Economics and Management.

The pair, who both graduate this month, have helped solidify a tradition of first-generation scholars from migrant backgrounds gaining entry to out-of-state colleges. Two years ago, Manuel Santiz graduated from Mulberry High School with a full scholarship to the University of Chicago. Several students from the Mulberry area have matriculated in recent years at Michigan State University, Higgins said.

Just as the soon-to-be graduates drew inspiration from Alvarez-Lagunas’ example, the pair hope that their volunteer work at Mulberry Community Academy might influence some of those little Monarchs to scale academic heights, even if the tykes are years away from preparing college applications.

“I think as a community here, it's definitely a goal to break the cycle,” Cortes-Daza said. “Like my dad always says, he's like, ‘I walked here so you could run.’ And sometimes I joke around and be like, ‘I'm going to run so my kids can fly.’ It's just an ongoing thing. And hopefully, we do something so our future generations kind of want to do more than us.”

Alvarez-Lagunas, who starts a job next month as a paralegal in New York City, exults in the sweet residuals from her memorable strawberry speech and her Stanford excursion.

“I know what I experienced, from this moment forward, my life — when I got the acceptance — it was never the same,” she said. “And when I see Christian and Freddy, who I've worked with over the past year, knowing what's coming for them is really exciting.”

Gary White can be reached at [email protected] or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Seniors from migrant families gain admission to Stanford and Cornell