NICOLE MILLER/Daily Bruin Nick Mortaloni
(left) and Kevin Kwan sit at the orientation
program table outside Kerckhoff Hall for AAP’s Scholar Day
Saturday.
By Scott B. Wong
Daily Bruin Staff
Luis Inocente knows the meaning of responsibility.
In the South Central neighborhood where he grew up, he still
feeds and changes the diapers of his disabled brother who was born
with Rett Syndrome, often misdiagnosed as autism. He must also
attend all of his brother’s frequent doctor’s
appointments to translate for his Spanish-speaking parents.
Each night around midnight, he picks up his older sister, who
had a three-year stint as a gang banger, from her minimum-wage
job.
And at 6 o’clock each morning, he rises to do it all over
again.
But despite all the challenges and daily sacrifices, Inocente is
going to college ““ the first in his family to do so, and the
first to graduate high school.
Inocente manages time for his studies across town at Echo
Park’s Belmont High School, where he maintains a 3.5 GPA
while fulfilling responsibilities to his family.
These responsibilities are not chores, Luis said, but
“priorities in life” that can be transformed into
lessons he can apply to college.
“Picking up my sister from work will help me as I learn to
stay up late in the dorms,” Luis said.
This year, 700 UCLA-admitted high school students and their
parents attended Saturday’s Academic Advancement Program
Scholar Day. AAP Scholar Day is the university’s largest
recruitment effort before the May 1 deadline, when students must
mail their letter of intent to register.
The event was held at the Ackerman Grand Ballroom in conjunction
with the Alumni Association and the Undergraduate Admissions
Office.
Kimberly Hernandez, a peer counselor in the AAP, said to the
visiting students her motto for life and education consists of
“10 little words.”
“If it is to be ““ it is up to me,” she
said.
A second-year business-economics student, Hernandez called the
AAP the backbone of her education at UCLA.
“In high school, you had your friends and parents for
support,” she said. “AAP empowers you to do and
think for yourself.”
According to Hernandez, the easy part is getting into UCLA.
“Getting good grades, managing your time ““
that’s the hard part,” she said.
The chairs of both the African and Latino Alumni Associations,
Richard Verches and Bernard Usery, were on hand to speak to
students and parents.
“My degree has opened more doors for me than I could have
ever imagined,” Usery said.
On Friday, the Alumni Association flew 65 admitted
underrepresented students down from parts of Northern California
for Bruin Experience 2001, a weekend event pairing high school
admits with dorm students.
Seventy-five alumni scholar volunteers lead campus tours and
workshops throughout the day.
Christine Flores, chair of the association’s Educational
Outreach Committee, said because the Bruin Experience overlapped
the mission and goals of many other university outreach programs,
they decided to coordinate the events to include Scholar’s
Day.
“EOC thought it was important for the university to come
together in this effort,” Flores said.
EOC was created when talks of Proposition 209, which ended the
use of affirmative action in California, first surfaced.
Flores said UCLA alumni have a vested interest in maintaining
and improving the academic and social standard associated with
UCLA.
“The value of our degree is increased by the caliber of
students coming out of the university now,” she said.
Scoring 890 on his SAT, Inocente said he’s aware the
admission’s office may have considered his family situation
and environmental challenges which he wrote about in his personal
statement.
“Other students (not admitted) did work hard, but you have
to consider what else they did,” said Inocente, who worked on
the campaign of Los Angeles mayoral candidate Xavier Beccera this
year. “I would probably have straight A’s and a high
SAT score too if I came from the suburbs.
“In my neighborhood, I have to watch my back because I
could get shot,” he added.
Bulmaro, Inocente’s father, came to the United States from
Oaxaca, Mexico in 1979, having only attended four years of school
his entire life. He said he’s proud knowing his son is going
to college.
“I hope the kind of studying he will get here will be a
great learning experience,” he said. “Hopefully, the
professors here are respectful and understanding and will be able
to communicate well.”
Inocente said he’s not discouraged that Latino admits at
UCLA have been consistently low in past years, since the
elimination of affirmative action in 1995.
At UCLA, Inocente said he will adopt a proverb he heard Friday
during MEChA’s recruitment day: “Once you go through
that door, leave a hand behind and try to pull those others
through,” he said.
According to the Undergraduate Admissions Office, Latino admits
for the Fall 2001 class are 12.6 percent of total admits, up from
last year’s 11.7 percent. But it is still below the 15.4
percent in Fall 1997, the last year the University of California
admitted students under affirmative action. The rise in admits may
have also reflect the rising Latino population in the state.
Similarly, African American admits dropped from 3.1 percent last
year to 2.8 percent. In Fall 1997, African Americans made up 5
percent of UCLA admits.
Adolfo Bermeo, director of AAP, told students there were fewer
than 100 African, Latino and Native American students at UCLA
combined when he attended UCLA in 1962.
He recalled his feelings on the day he received his UCLA
admissions letter.
“It was a mixed moment of tremendous pride “¦ and
also anxiety,” he said.
“The very first day I set foot on campus, I thought I was
the only freshman on campus that the admission’s office had
made a mistake of.”
Bermeo told students he wanted them to be clear about why they
were admitted to UCLA.
“You’re the best and the brightest in the state of
California ““ you are one of the leading young scholars by
your academic record and potential to excel,” he said.
Using a line from playwright Luis Valdez, Bermeo told students
how they’ve earned their admission to UCLA and don’t
need to prove to anyone why they’re here.
“We don’t have to show anyone no stinkin’
badges,” he said.