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For a growing number of young
Latinas, the disciplined and
challenging environment of a
U.S. military academy offers an
attractive way to hone their
leadership skills, get a
fantastic, tuition-free
education, and make the most of
their individual talents.
Despite the fact that they are
in the racial and gender
minorities at all of the
academies, outward differences
are absorbed in the tightly-knit
communities that they join. Just
ask four Latinas in their final
year at U.S. military academies:
Maia Molina-Schaefer, at the
Naval Academy; Cindy Nieves, at
the Air Force Academy; Jessica
Tomazic, at the Army Academy at
West Point; and Lily Zepeda, at
the Coast Guard Academy.
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These four remarkable
young women, despite
differences in
background and
academy-of-choice,
surely have more in
common with each other
than they do with
students at other
colleges and
universities. They face
physical challenges and
grueling academic
schedules that would
make the average college
student shudder, and
they do it because they
are committed to serving
their country.
Naturally, the story of
any career at a U.S.
military academy begins
with the student’s
decision to apply and
the difficult process of
being accepted. With
free tuition at all of
the academies, the
requirements for grade
averages and SAT scores
are steep, and the
application process is
highly rigorous.
It was Zepeda’s guidance
counselor who suggested
she consider the Coast
Guard Academy. Although
she had never viewed the
riverside Connecticut
school as an option —
she grew up in the
Arizona desert, after
all — she was
enthusiastic once she
learned about the
benefits of a military
education.
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Maia
Molina-Schaefer,
22, is a
midshipman at
the Naval
Academy. With an
Ecuadorian
father and an
Irish and German
mother, the
midshipman
laughingly
labels herself a
“mutt.” The
passionate
musician and
political
science major
grew up in
Northern
Virginia and
Buffalo, and
hopes to become
a military
attaché.
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A member of the
Navy Boxing team
for two years,
last year Maia
Molina-Schaefer
was the first
woman in Naval
Academy history
to compete in
and win the
annual Brigade
Boxing
Championship. |
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Nieves was also
encouraged to apply by a
mentor — her mother.
Although she had been
planning on attending a
school in Pennsylvania,
when she took her mom’s
advice and checked out
the Air Force Academy,
she was hooked. It was
too late in the year to
complete the exhaustive
application
requirements, so Nieves
spent a year at the
academy’s prep school
taking classes, working
on her grades and
improving her SAT scores
in order to enter the
academy in the following
year. Since the prep
school was right on the
base, she also got an
early introduction to
campus life.
For Molina-Schaefer,
involvement in sports
was the key ingredient
to applying to the Naval
Academy. A rower in high
school, she was
recruited as a coxswain
for the Navy and
attended the academy’s
rowing camp one summer.
Impressed by the
disciplined midshipmen
she saw there, she
applied. Although she
didn’t get in the first
time — an experience
that left her
“devastated” — she
decided to go to
Northwestern Prep School
in California, raising
her SAT scores enough to
be accepted to the
academy the following
year.
Tomazic’s path to West
Point began early in
high school, when she
joined the JROTC and one
of her instructors
suggested she consider
the Army’s military
academy. By her
sophomore year, after
reading the school’s
literature and reviewing
the number of career
paths available to
graduates, she had her
heart set on attending.
Tomazic’s father, a
former Marine himself,
was initially daunted by
the distance of West
Point from her home, but
he came around once his
daughter was accepted.
“He’s someone that feels
like everybody should
have at least two years
of service to their
nation,” she says. |
Zepeda’s mother
had similar separation anxiety.
“My mom had always told me that
she knew I was going to be the
one to move away,” Zepeda says.
But when she found out just how
far away her daughter was
planning on going, “she wasn’t
very excited.” After a call home
from Zepeda’s guidance
counselor, however, her parents
were convinced. Since then, they
have been an important source of
support during her academic
career. “I wouldn’t have made it
this far without them — they
provide emotional support,
advice, help when stressed.”
By contrast, Nieves’ family was
enthusiastic from the beginning.
“My mom wouldn’t ever let me do
‘girly’ things,” she laughs.
“[She was a] typical Latin
mother, always encouraging me to
be independent.” And when she
surprised her father with the
news that she had been accepted,
“He loved it — he’s probably the
proudest father I know. He can’t
wait to salute me.”
Molina-Schaefer’s family, too,
was overjoyed for their
daughter. “My mother was behind
me 100 percent,” she recalls.
“She always tells me that she
wishes she could have done what
I’ve done.”
When they arrived at school, all
four young women found out just
how different the military
academies are from other
colleges. For cadets and
midshipmen, a typical day begins
at 5:30 or 6:00 with morning
inspection or group formation,
and sometimes leftover homework
or early-morning sports
practices. Afterwards is
breakfast, and generally classes
start immediately afterwards and
go until 4:00 in the afternoon.
Then come several hours of
practice for students on sports
teams. After practice is over,
cadets and midshipmen have some
time to eat dinner and study.
But there are no all-nighters —
the military academies send
students to their rooms by 10:30
or 11:00, and most require that
students’ lights be out by
midnight.
Dorm life is also more regulated
at the academies. At the Coast
Guard Academy, Zepeda says, “we
can’t have stuff on our walls —
all of our rooms have to be the
same.” And at West Point,
Tomazic explains that “you have
to have your room in a certain
order. Your bed has to be made a
certain way, shoes lined up in a
certain way, clothes folded in a
certain way. All cadets are
trained during their first
summer in the academy on how to
maintain their rooms. If rooms
don’t pass inspections, they
risk receiving “hours” — what
Tomazic jokingly terms
“detention on steroids.”
Furthermore, none of the
academies allow parties or
drinking in the dormitories. And
there is definitely no mixed-sex
interaction behind closed doors.
At the Air Force, Nieves
explains, the latest
manifestation of that rule is
that “you can’t be on the same
horizontal surface as a member
of the opposite sex.” And at the
Naval Academy, the letter of the
law is different, but the spirit
is the same: the door must be
maintained at 90 degrees when
male and female midshipmen are
in the room together.
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Cindy Nieves, a 22-year
old cadet at the Air
Force Academy, was born
in Puerto Rico. The
self-described “Air
Force and Navy brat” is
majoring in foreign area
studies with a
specialization in Latin
America.
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Jessica Tomazic, whose
Puerto Rican grandfather
gave her “a keen
appreciation for
cultural differences,”
is a philosophy major at
West Point. An Ohio
native, the 21-year-old
hopes to go on to
medical school.
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Lily Zepeda, 21, is a
first-generation
Mexican-American from
Yuma, Arizona. A former
migrant student who
spent her earliest
childhood summers on the
lettuce fields, she is
majoring in computer
science and management
with a business focus.
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Jessica Tomazic (front,
third from right) is a
member of West Point’s
cycling team and has
participated on the crew
and rugby teams and in
the Spanish and Russian
clubs. Photo courtesy of
www.usma.edu. |
Despite the
restrictions, most students
still find time for fun. At both
the Coast Guard and the Naval
Academy, all of the cadets and
midshipmen live in the same
dormitory building (at the Naval
Academy’s Bancroft dormitory,
that’s close to 4,000 people).
As a result, Zepeda says, “you
can see your friends just about
anywhere. There’s always someone
coming by to say hi. There’s a
lot of socializing and a lot of
instant messaging.” The
proximity builds bonds to create
“a very integrated community,”
says Molina-Schaefer. She and
her roommates, she says, “are
like sisters.”
Although the high level of
discipline at the military
academies might seem restrictive
to many college students,
military students are
philosophical about the need for
rules. “We know we’re held to
higher standards, and in order
for that to occur you have to
have these rules,” says Nieves.
“If I wanted the ‘college
experience,’ I would go to a
college.”
Discipline aside, the tough
academic schedule is a force to
be reckoned with. During their
plebe (first) year at the
academies, many students
struggle to adjust to their
workload. Molina-Schaefer,
Nieves, Tomazic and Zepeda each
felt overwhelmed at the
beginning. “Oh, man,” Tomazic
groans before reciting a litany
of all the classes she had to
take at West Point in her plebe
year. “Calculus, chemistry,
literature, philosophy,
psychology — it really was a
broad range.” Molina-Schaefer’s
academic career at the Naval
Academy also started out hard.
“Plebe year is overloaded with
work and with some very
difficult courses,” she says.
Freshmen at the military
academies are required to take
core technical classes, which
can be especially challenging
for students with a tendency
towards humanities or the social
sciences. “Even though I’m a
political science major, I’ve
always had to take engineering
courses like electrical
engineering and thermodynamics,”
says Molina-Schaefer. It helps
that all of her classmates have
to take the same courses. “We
all help each other get
through.”
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Cindy Nieves has been a
member of the Air Force
Academy’s parachute
team, Wings of Blue,
since 2002, competing at
national, regional and
collegiate levels. |
Camaraderie can
help freshmen get used to the
military academy system, but so
does the availability of
professors. At the Air Force
Academy the
student-to-instructor ratio is
very small — sometimes as low as
10 students per class — and
professors hold office hours all
day until 4:30 or 5. “You have
more opportunity to go see them
for extra instruction,” says
Nieves. “Anytime you have a free
period the professors are there
for you.” Tomazic agrees: “I had
instructors who have given me
their home phone numbers and met
me on weekends.”
An additional challenge for
Latinas at the academies is the
relatively small number of
others like them. Although the
Coast Guard has the highest
percentage of female cadets out
of all the academies — between
25 to 30 percent — Zepeda notes
the small number of other
Hispanics. “In my class, I think
there’s about four or five, and
in the classes under us there
are one or two of us here.”
Nieves estimates the number of
other Latinas at the Air Force
Academy at “maybe ten.”
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The Naval Academy takes
the prize for the
highest number of Latina
students. As of July 31,
there were 736 women in
the brigade, and 74 were
Hispanic.
Molino-Schaefer says
that these numbers are
reflected in the
school’s atmosphere:
“Our Latin American
Studies club is getting
bigger and bigger, and
we have a Latino week
once a year.” Latino
student organizations
like the Compañeros at
the Coast Guard Academy
and Los Padrinos at the
Air Force Academy offer
cadets and midshipmen
the chance to
disseminate Hispanic
culture on campus. |
For Tomazic, the
number of Latino cadets at West
Point is not as noticeable as
the low number of women — only
15 to 20 percent. “I feel I have
a little bit more to prove,” she
says. “I want to perform at the
level that the male students are
performing at.”
Low numbers of
women and Latinas might seem to
be a threat in places that have
historically been sites of
hazing and harassment. Yet all
four women were adamant that
they had not had any negative
experiences.
Molina-Schaefer and Nieves both
insisted that hazing was
nonexistent at the Naval and Air
Force Academies. “I’ve never had
anyone make a comment. This year
I’m the only female on the
boxing team, and they are like
my band of brothers,” says
Molina-Schaefer. Adds Nieves, “A
lot of people are looking out
for you. … It’s a very
supportive environment.”
Tomazic says that while some
hazing goes on at West Point,
it’s a friendly process that’s
“not directed at any particular
race or sex,” but rather serves
as an initiation rite for
incoming freshmen. At the Coast
Guard Academy, older female
students look out for the new
students. In her first year,
Zepeda recalls, older females
told her to come to them if she
ever had a problem. Now, she
does the same for incoming
students. In addition, the
academy has made its zero
tolerance rules very clear. As a
result, “the guys come into the
school knowing that the [hazing]
atmosphere isn’t here.”
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With or without
hazing, the challenge of passing
from the rigors of plebe year to
the responsibilities of senior
year are just a practice run for
the real test: life after
graduation. Although military
academy graduates are required
to pay off their free tuition
with a certain number of service
years, that doesn’t limit their
ability to choose from a variety
of career options.
Nieves, who is bilingual and
served as a translator for her
parachute team during an air
show in Chile, says that she
plans to “use my bicultural
background to every advantage
possible.” She is thinking about
being an Intel officer, and
she’s also going to interview
for the minority enrollment
office position in recruiting.
“Definitely, I’ve been involved
with the Latin community for my
whole life, and being able to
give back is one of the things
that my mom has always stressed.
I guess I’ve taken after her in
that aspect,” she says.
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Lily Zepeda
is the first
woman in her
family to
join the
military. At
the Coast
Guard
Academy she
is a member
of the
Hispanic
heritage
club and
team captain
of the
varsity
track team. |
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Zepeda
is contemplating a
career either as a
helicopter pilot or in
border enforcement. The
granddaughter of bracero
workers and the daughter
of immigrants, she says
that she initially felt
conflicted about
“say[ing] ‘no’ to
someone trying to enter
the country.” But when
she spoke about her
choice with her
grandfather, “he said
that he never felt any
anger toward the border
patrol,” and instead
supported her decision
to serve her country in
any way possible.
Tomazic
and Molina-Schaefer also
have big plans. Tomazic
says that her biggest
challenge has been
“gaining confidence in
myself and my own
abilities — and this
year, I feel 10 times
more confident than I
did as a freshman.” As a
result, she’s planning
on applying to medical
school. And
Molina-Schaefer hopes to
join the Marine Corps
and eventually become a
military attaché. “I
decided that I’ll get
out of the military when
it stops being
challenging and fun,”
she says, “and I think
that will be a long time
from now — if ever.” |
These Latinas
are still part of the
avant-garde: literally, the
“front-guard” of Latinas in the
U.S. military academies. But
they are hoping that others like
them will follow. For the next
generation of Latina leaders,
the military academy experience
is a compelling way to develop
leadership skills. And who knows
— with enough Latinas on the
academy campuses, perhaps those
infamous inter-school rivalries
will begin to fade away as more
and more cadets and midshipmen
become compañeras.
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Military Academy Facts
United States
Military Academy at West
Point
West Point, NY
Website:
www.usma.edu
Total number of cadets:
4153
Number of female cadets:
636
Number of Hispanic
cadets: 257
Number of Latina cadets:
47
United States Naval
Academy
Annapolis, MD
Website:
www.usna.edu
Total number of
midshipmen: 4,000
Number of female
midshipmen: 736
Number of Hispanic
midshipmen:
(unavailable)
Number of Latina
midshipmen: 74 |
United States Air
Force Academy
Colorado Springs, CO
Website:
www.usafa.edu
Total number of cadets:
4240
Number of female cadets:
762
Number of Hispanic
cadets: 274
Number of Latina cadets:
56
United States Coast
Guard Academy
New London, CT
Website:
www.cga.edu
Total number of cadets:
994
Number of female cadets:
243
Number of Hispanic
cadets: 48
Number of Latina cadets:
18 (9 in |
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