Dr. Lisa Ramirez – Named Texas Tech 2025 Distinguished Graduate Alumni Award Recipient
Lisa Ramirez, EdD. Lisa was a migrant child farmworker who grew up in Texas. She was kicked out of high school for punching the principal. Lisa left home to join the U.S. Army where she took to advanced education. Dr. Ramirez went on to earn her doctorate in education; served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Programs in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education atthe U.S. Department of Education for many years.
Available for Interview
John J. Pitney, Jr., Roy P. Crocker Professor of American Politics at Claremont McKenna College. His expert opinion work has been published in The Washington Post, Politico, The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times, among others – and carried on numerous TV news programs. His scholarly works include The Art of Political Warfare, The Politics of Autism and American Government and Politics: Deliberation, Democracy, and Citizenship. His most recent book is called The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.
“Bashing the bloodlines of Migrants is an American Presidential Pastime”
President Trump recently talked about undocumented immigrants and farm work: “You know, people that live in the inner city are not doing that work. They’re just not doing that work. And they’ve tried, we’ve tried. Everybody tried. They don’t do it. These people do it naturally, naturally.”The word “naturally” is a tell. Forgetting that Hispanic farmworkers often lack any alternative to sweating in the fields for little pay, he suggests their genes suit them for nothing but farm labor.
As an American historian, Pitney provides important perspective by pointing out that Trump is not the first President to bring such attitudes to the Oval Office:
Richard Nixon said in 1971: “The Mexicans are a different cup of tea … at the present time, they steal, they’re dishonest, but they do have some concept of family life.”
Grover Cleveland said that Chinese immigrants were “an element ignorant of our constitution and laws, impossible of assimilation with our people and dangerous to our peace and welfare.”
Theodore Roosevelt: “The average Catholic Irishman of the first generation … is a low, venal, corrupt and unintelligent brute.”
Woodrow Wilson, on immigrants of the late 19th century: “men of the lowest class from the south of Italy and men of the meaner sort out of Hungary and Poland.”
Calvin Coolidge: “There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside … biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. The Nordics propagate themselves successfully. With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both sides.
The Migrant Child Farmworkers-Now High-Profile Professionals, narrated by Xolo Maridueña (Star of Blue Beetle, and Cobra Kai) tells the real life stories of individuals who grew up amid poverty, neglect, and the punishing demands of a childhood of full-time farm labor. All of which was exasperated by society’s indifference and cold hearted insistence on telling them: “You will never go to a good college or make it in a white-collar job.”
Today they are engineers, physicians, medical research scientists and elected public officials. Their achievements showcase what the children of immigrants working in the fields with their parents are capable of, giving testament to the universal truth that every child is endowed with limitless potential. A reminder the indelible human spirit should never be underestimated. Their inspiring stories and others like theirs are destined to replace America’s tired-old cartoonish immigrant bashing myths. A welcome breath of fresh air for the entire world.
