Napa Valley College hosted its second annual Latina Luminarias Conference Friday afternoon, celebrating education and empowering young Latinas to earn college degrees.

More than 135 students from Napa Valley College and St. Helena, Valley Oak and Calistoga high schools came to the college to participate in workshops, hear from a panel of successful Latinas including Katya Rivas, Mary Salceda-Nuez and Martha Elizalde de Pereira, and talk about challenges facing young Latinas.

Three women, several challenges

Rivas was just 16 years old when she came to Napa in 1989 from her native San Salvador, El Salvador. Her parents sent her to America, along with her brother, after civil unrest made San Salvador unsafe, she said. In Napa, she stayed with her grandparents while attending Vintage High School.

"December of 1989 was filled with challenges and changes," she said. "I didn't know anything about the United States. In El Salvador, I went to an all-girl Catholic school. Being thrown into a co-ed high school was a challenge to me."

Eventually, Rivas' family joined her in Napa, but their stay was short-lived and they returned to El Salvador to anxiously await clearance of residency papers, she said.

In 1992 Rivas and her family returned to Napa and she graduated from Vintage High School. Then in 1993, the Rivas family established their permanent residency, she said, but it didn't make her time in the United States easier. Living in a small home with her extended family made for cramped quarters, so she found solace at Napa Valley College's library and cafeteria and spent many long hours studying for her degree.

After leaving NVC, Rivas attended California State University, Sacramento, and earned a bachelor's degree in business administration. Today, Rivas serves as an account manager at insurance brokerage firm Sitzmann Morris & Lavis Inc.

"In May of 1998 I left the classroom. ... I remember thinking to myself, 'Mom and Dad, I did it. I'm done,'" she said.

For Pereira, it was seeing her parents' 20-year marriage fall apart that propelled her to get an education.

"I saw my mother being stuck without a career," she said. "We never know what's in store for us. I was sure that I wanted an education. I wanted to be prepared for anything. College prepares your for hard work."

Pereira's hard work got her bachelor's and master's degrees in Spanish literature from CSU Sacramento, along with a degree in foreign language teaching from Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara, Mexico. Today, she works at NVC as a Spanish instructor.

"The satisfaction of getting a degree is hard to explain," she told the crowd. "You have to have patience and determination."

Salceda-Nuez's story is similar to her counterparts. She grew up in Napa and spent most of her life making trips to her native Mexico during the winter. When she was in sixth grade at McPherson Elementary School her parents made a decision that changed her life and set the stage for her career in college.

"I remember the day when ... Mom and Dad said we were going back to Mexico," she said. "I was like 'Wow, all of my friends are going to Silverado (Junior High School).'"

In Mexico, Salceda-Nuez experienced a bit of culture shock. On her first day at Catholic school, she wore jeans and a sweatshirt bearing only her father's last name of Salceda and was tongue-tied when her teacher asked her if her mother had a last name, she said.

"I told her Mary Salceda Moreno," she said. "I had gone to church, but I had never been around nuns."

She said she wanted to get back to the United States and go to college. After returning to Napa, along with her family, she enrolled at Vintage High School and embarked on a path to higher education by visiting with a counselor.

"Nobody in my family could tell me what classes to take," she said. "I had to work really hard."

After graduating from Vintage, Salceda-Nuez's attended NVC, UC Santa Barbara, Sacramento State University, and earned a bachelor's degree in Spanish and Latina American and Iberian studies, an master's degree in counseling, and a Pupil Personnel Services Credential. Salceda-Nuez is a counselor at NVC.

Workshops empower Latinas

Latina Luminarias Conference showcased several workshops designed to inspire Latinas to get degrees.

At the leadership workshop, run by Chicana Latina Foundation Director Olga Talamante, several young Latinas were posed three questions including what leaders do they respect, what leaders do they not respect and what type of leaders they would like to be.

Michelle Mendoza, and Adriana Cortes, both 19, both said they respected their mothers. Other attendees said they respected their parents, Mother Teresa, Cesar Chavez, Frances Ortiz-Chavez and Martin Luther King.

Among the responses to which leaders the women did not respect, answers varied from President Bush, Pete Wilson, Governor Schwarzenegger, Dick Cheney and Adolf Hitler.

Mendoza, who attends NVC and is studying business, said she wants to open up a boutique in Napa and that the workshop will help her with that, she said. Cortes, who also attends NVC and studies nursing, wants to work at a local hospital, she said.

At the health issues workshop, Latinas learned about obesity, sexually transmitted diseases, screening for breast and cervical cancers and domestic violence. "Three Periods in Mexican History as Seen Through Feminine Eyes" examined the ever changing roles of Latinas through history and "Creating the Healthy and Whole Latina" took a look at values and traditions of being Latina and addressed the demands placed on them by mainstream America.