The First to Graduate
Yadira Cabrera (COM’24) is one of a growing number of first-generation college students at Boston University. When she graduated, her mother Maricarmen was sitting in the audience. But Cabrera also carried her mother onstage, deep in her heart, knowing that her mom’s sacrifices were instrumental in making the journey possible.
Students like Cabrera are increasingly experiencing a strong sense of well-being, belonging, self-efficacy, and academic accomplishment, thanks to University initiatives like the Newbury Center for first-generation students, creative and ambitious financial aid programs like affordableBU, and the hiring of faculty experts such as Associate Professor of Higher Education Leadership Anthony Abraham Jack, whose scholarship is bringing new understanding of the first-gen experience.
Growing up in a Dominican American community near Inwood Hill Park in New York City’s upper Manhattan, Cabrera was raised by her single mom and older sister. Her mother worked seven days a week, year-round, rising at 5 am to make Dominican dishes that she would sell at construction sites around Manhattan. Workers would wait to take lunch until Maricarmen showed up. In the summer, she would also make pastelitos, a Dominican snack, which she sold to visitors enjoying the local park. When Cabrera entered high school, her mother drove a cab to better support her family. It was a tough job and another sacrifice, one made to ensure Cabrera got her education.
As soon as she arrived at BU, Cabrera started giving back to the community, joining Students of Caribbean Ancestry, the Association of Latino Professionals for America, and AdClub. She served as copresident of PRLab, president of the BU chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America, and cochair of the Class Gift campaign. In addition, she held down two to three jobs every semester, including stints working the late-night shift at the West Campus dining hall, covering the front desk at the Fitness & Recreation Center and Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground, and interning with BU Productions.
In recognition of her academic success and contributions to the University, Cabrera received a coveted College of Communication Blue Chip Award, given to only a handful of graduates each year. She was also inducted into BU’s Scarlet Key Honor Society. And, above all, she became the first in her family to graduate from college.
Cabrera hopes to start her own PR agency serving entrepreneurs from various backgrounds. Her mother will never be far from her mind. “Commencement was full-circle for my mother,” Cabrera says. “This is what she’s been working toward her whole life. I still have a lot to learn. But it just feels like the biggest step of my life is going to be everything that I do from here on out.”