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Luis Jimenez and tutor Linda Kegerreis |
Join the Library Literacy Program and help students waiting for tutors
April 03, 2015
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
Luis Jimenez grew up in Acapulco, in Mexico. Vacation destination, right? But Luis grew up helping his father clear trees on the land that he worked, hacking out a living to support his family of 13. Mama had finished elementary school, but papa never got that chance, and education was not a high priority in the Jimenez home. Papa couldn’t help him with homework, and mama was too busy with those eleven children, so Luis remembers tossing his backpack in the corner when he came home from school, and there it stayed till the next day.
ByWendy Batstone,
CoordinatorAdult
Literacy Program
Luis Jimenez grew up in Acapulco, in Mexico. Vacation destination, right? But Luis grew up helping his father clear trees on the land that he worked, hacking out a living to support his family of 13. Mama had finished elementary school, but papa never got that chance, and education was not a high priority in the Jimenez home. Papa couldn’t help him with homework, and mama was too busy with those eleven children, so Luis remembers tossing his backpack in the corner when he came home from school, and there it stayed till the next day.
When he finished the elementary grades at age 16, he started working on the land full time with his father, but in a year or so, he left for the United States to live with his sister in Oxnard.
He started working for a company that cleaned machines for agriculture. He worked for that company for five years, and never needed to learn English because everyone spoke Spanish.
Then he met Ana, who grew up in Santa Paula, completely bilingual. They married and began their family: two boys in a couple of years, and now a third son born last year. Ana has become a nurse. And Luis has moved on to a company that applies chrome polish.
But Luis wants a different life for himself and his boys. He wants to be able to help them with their homework. He wants to see them succeed in school, to have the opportunities that he did not. For himself, he’s working on passing the U.S. citizenship test. And he’d like to work toward becoming an independent truck driver. To achieve those goals, he wants to speak, read and write English fluently.
So he came to Blanchard Library and began attending the beginning English classes to get enough spoken English so that he could work with an English-only tutor.
Enter Linda Kegerreis, born in Kansas City, Missouri and raised in one of its suburbs. Her dad was a manager at the GM plant there. The family moved several times around the U.S. because of dad’s job. After graduating from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, where she also met her husband, Linda even worked for GM for a bit.
But she decided to pursue a Master’s degree in Counseling and Guidance at U of A in Tucson, Arizona. After a stint counseling teens, she realized that was NOT her calling, and she moved into the city offices of Tucson, working with the city’s affirmative action program. That led to a career in Human Resources for various government entities, both cities and counties, including 8 years as the Human Resources Director for the city of Ventura. She finished off her career working with a Human Resources consulting firm, and still does occasional consulting jobs for them.
Linda and her husband Mike moved to Santa Paula in 2014 and she officially retired in October. Almost immediately, she was down at the library offering to help tutor English learners.
I asked her “Why tutoring?” She says she’s always loved to read, and knows that to get ahead in the U.S. you have to be able to speak, read and write English well. It opens doors. She wants to open doors for someone else.
Linda says she’s enjoyed working with Luis and tutoring is fun. He’s highly motivated, and she learns about him and his life as she’s helping him move ahead with English. She’s even learning a bit about her own language as she teaches it!
Would you like to join us in the Library Literacy Program and help one of the 30 students waiting for a tutor? You don’t have to be a career teacher to help someone learn better English. We’ll be hosting a New Tutor Orientation on Thursday, April 9th from 6:00 to 7:30 PM and if you find it’s something you’d like to do, the full Tutor Training will follow on Saturday, April 25th, from 10 AM to 2 PM.
Give Wendy or Olivia a call at 805-525-2384 X4, or shoot us an email at wendy.batstone@blanchardlibrary.org. to sign up. “Walk-ins are welcome” too, if you’d just like to come down to the library and meet us in person! We’re here M/T/Th evenings from 4-8, and Wed, 10-2.
