Froilan Malit's life journey has taken
him from flower farms in the Philippines to the Ivy League.
Malit, 19, of eastern Menlo Park, started working the flower
fields in the Pampanga Province when he was about 6 years
old. For 10 years, he would wake up at midnight or 1 a.m.
to get a jump on his competition and make 10 cents for every
pail filled with flowers.
He used the money to help support his 10-member family,
who lived in a cramped house without indoor plumbing. But
in 2005, when Malit was 17, his family immigrated to the
Bay Area, and he enrolled at Canada College. On Monday,
after a few years of hard study while developing a firm
grasp of the English language, Malit will begin attending
Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.
He has set his sights on going to law school at Harvard,
Yale or Oxford and then returning to the Philippines to
improve the working conditions there.
Malit said he never thought he would find himself where
he is now.
It paid off, everything I worked for," Malit said.
"I never had this opportunity."
Malit said that hard work included staying up until the
wee hours to hone his English skills and turning to the
Trio Student Support Services program at Canada, which helps
low-income, first-generation and disabled students with
additional support in college.
"I was really struggling here," Malit said of
his early experiences at Canada.
He will be majoring in political science and pursuing a
minor degree in economics.
"I think the biggest challenge will be how to reach
the top (of the class)," Malit said.
His professors at Canada are confident Malit has the drive
to succeed at Cornell.
"He was an excellent student," said Chuck Carlson,
his former African American history professor, adding that
he was impressed with how quickly Malit picked things up.
Carlson became a mentor for Malit. He helped him apply to
colleges and for scholarships. He credited some of Malit's
success to the work ethic he developed while laboring in
the flower fields.
Canada English professor Elizabeth Terzakis also got to
know Malit. He was in her reading class and English 100.
Terzakis said she remembers how Malit, by enrolling in summer
school, managed to complete in just a few months a series
of English courses that typically take a year or two to
finish.
"He learned so quickly. He was a phenomenal student,"
Terzakis said.
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