Horizonte — where dreams come true

Candelaria Ramirez never had a first chance at a high school diploma.

Her father died when she was 12. So Ramirez finished the sixth grade by splitting her days between school and working the fields with her brother. Then she dropped out.

Now, with years and miles separating Ramirez from her small-town youth in the Mexican state of Guanajuato, she smiles. "This is my chance," says the 42-year-old mother of six, who wore a cap and gown for the first time this June.

Ramirez, who re-started her education at the Horizonte Instruction and Training Center with a basic English class, is completing her final credit for high school graduation this summer.

And she's saving money for college. Her eventual goal: a career as a social worker.

"I always think, may I help somebody; that is my chance," she says. "I think everywhere I go if I need help, I may ask help, and somebody may help me. … I feel very good when I help somebody."

As a child, Ramirez had wanted to become a teacher. But her life took a different turn. With little education, she struggled to support her young children.

"There is not enough work for us there," she says of Mexico. Her brother went to the United States to work and sent money home to Ramirez and her mother. Eventually, she followed him.

First she went to California, where she met Hermilo, now her husband. For years the family lived off her husband's minimum wage job, sometimes together, sometimes separated by a border. They came to Salt Lake City in 1998 at the invitation of relatives.

Macromedia Flash fileListen to Candelaria Ramirez — her story, her voiceRequires Macromedia Flash Player.

"Now we both work, and we have a little more money for the family," she says.

It was at her job in a hospital cafeteria that Ramirez learned about the English program at Horizonte, a nontraditional public school. When Ramirez enrolled, she spoke very little English.

"It's not easy. When you begin, that is a puzzle. You confuse everything," she says. "Maybe it would be easier had I had high school in Mexico. I lived in an area of Mexico, a community where they speak very poor Spanish."

Horizonte spokeswoman Joanne Milner said about 4,500 of the nearly 10,000 students at Horizonte are adult high school completion students.