Certain Expectations is an enthnodrama based upon interviews with graduates of the McNair Scholars Program at the University of South Florida in Tampa. The McNair Scholars Program is a federally funded program that assists high achieving undergraduate students from low-income, first generation backgrounds and students from traditionally underrepresented groups to motivate and encourage them to attend graduate and professional school. The media tends to focus on the academic failure of "poor" and "minority" students rather than focusing on those students who succeed despite the obstacles they face. Certain Expectations is a vehicle to celebrate the success stories of those students who have succeeded.
Certain Expectations was written from the actual text of interviews in which the participants described their experiences growing up and going to college. The play has minimal requirements, and can be produced in the style of a Readers Theater.
I hope that Certain Expectations will inspire others to defy expectations and succeed despite the obstacles they face. I also hope depicting students from low-income backgrounds and underrepresented groups in a positive way will promote greater understanding and awareness and help in decreasing intolerance and discrimination.
Certain Expectations is available ROYALTY FREE for production thanks to a generous grant from the PUFFIN FOUNDATION.
Excerpts from Certain Expectations:
Lynda: My mother gave birth to me when she was a teenager, 15 years old. So, I grew up in a house with her, two of my mother's siblings, and grandparents... My mother and I are close but, growing up, it was difficult because she was very strict. She informed me in recent years her reason for being strict was because she did not want me to make the same mistakes she did and to have all that she did not.
Gavin: Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, I lived in a house by the projects. The environment was very tough and, unfortunately, I did not think that I would live to be age 19. I did not know if I was going to live from one day to the next, therefore, I did not plan for the future... My mother made the move from New York to Florida for safety reasons and a better living environment. For the first time in my life I got a chance to reflect on my future and try to determine what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
Justin: We were also eight in the family. My dad left Haiti in 1984. I was about six. We were very poor. My mother and all eight of us had to live in only a one-bedroom apartment until my father was able, after a few years, to send money for my mother to build a house. Nevertheless, we were all trying to make the best out of the situation and I was always happy as long as my mother could bring food on the table.
Sharon: My mother has really influenced me and allowed me to recognize the strength that I have as a woman and as a mother. Whenever she tells me the struggles she went through as a single mother with two children with only a high school diploma, it just amazes me how she was so strong and, more so, that I never knew as a child what she was going through.
Kallie: Go to school. Get a good job. Make money. I always heard that from my parents. They always said that I'll be much, much better off if I get an education. They used to say: "You'll be able to take care of your family. You'll be able to get the things that you want. And you'll just have that pride to say I'm educated; I'm in America and I did something, I accomplished something."
