Oral History Interview with Yazmin Cruz

Oral History Interview with Yazmin Cruz

Yazmin Cruz, a college freshman at UW-Milwaukee, graduated from Ronald Reagan High School in July 2020. In this oral history interview, she discusses how the pandemic affected the last few weeks of her senior year, her transition to UW-Milwaukee as a first-generation college student, and the importance of advocating for herself at school and within her community. She explains that staying positive is the key to her continued success as is understanding that hardship and struggle are about learning how to problem-solve. Patience, motivation, discipline, and dedication are all important tools in her pandemic survival kit. In reflecting on what she has experienced during the pandemic, she said: “Knowing what I know now, I’d probably tell myself to have grace and to know that it will be okay and it will turn out because in that moment in March, I felt like everything was just out of my hands. I’d tell myself to be resilient, have control over what you can, and let go of what you cannot.” As Cruz explains in the interview, her year-long journey from high school to college was a learning experience. She learned that she was much stronger and much more resilient than she thought.

Jamee N. Pritchard

May 7, 2021