From migrant roots to RN: first-gen grad honors parents’ sacrifice with UWO Midyear Commencement degree

UW-Oshkosh nursing graduate Ivonne Valencia wearing a homemade stole that reads "Primera Generación, Hija de Padres Inmigrantes,"first-generation daughter of immigrant parents, which honors her family's migrant farmwork roots and her journey as a first-generation college student and mother of two.

Ivonne Valencia still gets emotional when she remembers how her father tells the story.

Her mother had given birth to her just three weeks earlier when the family had to return to the fields in Indiana, where they picked cucumbers. With no other option, they brought their newborn with them.

"My dad said they would put me in one of the cucumber baskets," Valencia said. "They would leave me two rows ahead so that by the time they got to me, my mom knew it was time to feed me."

Now, years later, that baby is a nurse in the making.

On Saturday, Dec. 13, she will graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh with a Bachelor of Science in nursing as a first-generation Mexican American college graduate and a single mother of two girls.

Valencia grew up watching her parents endure long, punishing days in the fields so their children could have opportunities they never had.

The day before commencement, she will also participate in the UWO School of Nursing and Health Professions Convocation, where graduating nursing students will receive their pins. The pinning ceremony symbolizes that a nursing student has completed the educational requirements necessary to take the state licensing exams and then to practice nursing. Valencia plans to be escorted by the four people who shaped her journey most: her daughters, her mother and her father.

On the graduation cap she decorated for the convocation and the main commencement Saturday is a message in Spanish that sums up what her educational journey means to her. Translated in English, the words read: "My parents came for a dream and today that dream is my reality. I didn't graduate, we graduated."

Learning what hard work really means

Valencia grew up in Las Milpas, Texas, the daughter of José and Socorro Valencia. Each summer her parents left home to work as migrant laborers in the Midwest. Her father completed school through ninth grade and her mother through sixth. What they lacked in formal education, they made up for in an unwavering belief in the power of education.

"My dad has always been big on school," she said. "He would say, 'I want you to know what hard work is, but I don't want you doing this for the rest of your life.'"

After high school, Valencia thought she might be done with school. Her father disagreed. To show her what he meant by "hard work," he brought her north to work in the cornfields of Springfield, Illinois, detasseling corn under the unyielding summer sun. The work was grueling. Chemicals used on the crops gave her a rash from her wrists to her elbows. Her dad wrapped her inflamed arms with cloth. The days started at four in the morning, even on Sundays.

"I told my dad, 'Sundays are the Lord's day. We don't work on Sundays,'" she said, laughing. "He said, 'The field is not going to wait for Sunday. You have to get up.'"

By the end of July, she had seen enough.

"I told him, 'Okay, I get it. I am going to keep going to school,'".

Life, however, would make that promise difficult to keep.

Finding a calling in nursing

Valencia's interest in nursing began almost by accident. As a high school senior, she took a health class taught by a retired physician. She did not realize that completing the course would qualify her to sit for the CNA exam. What she remembers most is the film the class watched on nursing homes before modern regulations.

"They showed patients with wounds, people just left in bed, not moved," she said. "My heart felt so heavy. I thought, 'That could be my mom, my grandma.' I refused to accept that someone could just be left like that with no one in their corner."

From that moment, she knew she wanted to be a nurse.

She earned her CNA license and began working in assisted living facilities, Alzheimer's and dementia units and later hospice. The work confirmed what she had felt in that classroom.

"I loved hospice," she said. "I wanted to be there for people, to advocate for them when they could not advocate for themselves."

Still, her early college attempts did not go as planned. She started three times at different schools. Feelings of loneliness, the demands of work and, eventually, pregnancy pulled her away from school. As a young mother, she focused on providing for her two daughters, leaning on benefits like FoodShare and BadgerCare in Wisconsin and stretching every paycheck to cover rent and childcare.

"I think I could have bought two cars with what I spent on daycare," she said.

Coming back, this time to finish

When her daughters grew old enough for school and summer programs, Valencia decided it was time to try again. She had moved to Wisconsin, where she had spent summers working for United Migrant Opportunity Services in Head Start programs for children of migrant workers.

"It felt like a full circle," she said. "I knew how much parents depended on that program so their kids had a safe place while they worked."

Eventually she settled in Beaver Dam and applied to the nursing program at UW-Oshkosh. The decision came with new challenges: a long commute to Oshkosh for classes, clinical placements in Appleton and weekend work as a CNA with a hospice organization in the Madison and Milwaukee areas. Later she would work nights on the medical-surgical unit at SSM Health in Waupun, where she secured a full-time job after graduation.

Her days often began before sunrise and ended long after her daughters were tucked into bed.

Mentorship, Guidance and a Community That Lifted Her Up

Valencia credits many UWO professors and staff members for shaping her into the nurse she is becoming.

"All of my nursing professors touched my heart differently," she said. "Some challenged me. Some showed me kindness when I was overwhelmed. Some believed in me so much they made me believe in myself."

Valencia, who minored in Spanish, said her professors in the Spanish program made an equally deep impact.

"They helped me grow not just academically, but culturally and emotionally," she said. "They made me feel proud of my roots, my culture, and the voice I bring into nursing."

Support on campus came from people like Esmeralda "Esie" Delgado, a student advocate and outreach specialist, in the Center for Student Success and Belonging, someone Valencia first met years earlier when they both worked with migrant families. When Valencia arrived at UWO, seeing a familiar face on campus made all the difference.

"I would go sit with her and tell her I had imposter syndrome," Valencia said. "I was like, 'Essie, I don't think I belong here. I don't think nursing is for me. Everything's so hard.'"

Delgado responded with steady reassurance and practical help, connecting her with scholarships and walking her through the process of getting testing and note-taking accommodations.

"She'd say, 'Ivonne, you do belong here. You are going to be a nurse. It's hard, but it has to be hard. You're going to take care of people, and people's lives are going to be in your hands,'" Valencia said, her voice breaking.

That relationship was still evident on the day Valencia came to campus for photos. When Delgado stopped by, Ivonne immediately pulled her into a long hug and thanked her for everything she had done. Both wiped away tears before stepping back, a quiet reminder of how much support and belief it took to get Valencia to this moment.

Throughout nursing school, Valencia relied on scholarships from the Doug and Carla Salmon Foundation. Each semester she met with executive director Theresa Braatz, who served as her Salmon counselor.

"It is inspiring to watch someone work so hard to achieve their goals and finally get to the finish line," said Braatz, who is also alumni relations officer at UWO. "Ivonne sacrificed everyday luxuries, sought out tutors when needed, studied round the clock, drove to school in Oshkosh, clinicals in Appleton and worked weekends as a CNA in Madison, all while making sure she was prioritizing her daughters' needs."

Guatemala: a trip that strengthened her heart

One of the most transformative experiences of her UWO journey came during a clinical experience in Guatemala. Working with limited medical resources but surrounded by community resilience, Valencia saw healthcare through a new lens.

She and her classmates visited schools to talk with teenagers about healthy and unhealthy relationships. Later, her professor shared that a student from one of the schools had come forward after their visit to ask for help leaving a harmful relationship.

"That meant so much," Valencia said. "It reminded us that our words and what we do matter."

Walking for herself and for them

As she prepares to graduate, Valencia reflects on what she has learned at UW-Oshkosh.

"I learned that strength does not always look loud," she said. "Sometimes it looks like studying after putting your kids to sleep, or trying again after failing, or showing up tired but determined."

Her daughters, Imani, 9, and Brisa, 8, watched every one of those moments.

"I wanted them to see that their mom kept going, even when it was hard," she said.

A few days before graduation, Valencia sat with her mother to talk about the milestone ahead. She realized she had never asked her mom what herdream had been. Her mother first gave the answer she had given her whole life - that her dream was simply for her children to have a better life.

But when Valencia gently pressed her on what her dream might have been in another world, in another time, her mother grew quiet. Finally, she said she would have liked to become a pharmacist, to work in healthcare. Valencia was stunned. She had never imagined her mother having her own ambitions beyond years of hard work and sacrifice.

Her mom told them that every backbreaking season in the fields picking onions and cantaloupe in Pecos, Texas to picking cucumbers and tomatoes in Ohio, every long day every summer spent far from home, had been worth it to see her children succeed.

At convocation, where she will be escorted by her daughters and her parents, Valencia will walk not only for herself but for the generations before and after her.

"College was not just my dream," she said. "It was my parents' dream too, and it is my daughters' future."

Learn more:

School of Nursing and Health Professions at UWO