For the first time since 2019 the Brownsville chapter of the Texas Exes alumni organization provided a hometown send-off to the members of next year’s freshman class at the University of Texas at Austin who hail from Brownsville and the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
Before the pandemic, the send-off had been a yearly tradition held at the International Bank of Commerce on Alton Gloor Boulevard.
The crowd that turned out Aug. 15 for this year’s event seemed ready to get back to pre-pandemic normal and excited about the start of classes that loomed a week later.
Ana Paula Gonzalez and her twin brother Diego said UT-Austin came highly recommended.
“A lot of our friends who are older than us really liked it and enjoyed it and said so many great things about UT, the football games and all of the things they have available for us,” Ana Paula, who graduated from St. Josephs Academy, said.
Her brother added, “What I’m expecting is the experience of living alone, being out in the world, you know, without my parents.”
Ana Paula will major in speech pathology. Diego, a graduate of Veterans Memorial Early College High School, said he’s in a pre-business program where he won’t declare a major until sophomore year.
Dante Barrajas from Los Fresnos will major in chemistry. He said he mainly wants to be a high school teacher and looks forward to studying under professors who do a lot of research
Barrajas will study under UTeach, a UT program that trains future teachers and about which he’s heard great things.
UT was his main post-secondary choice because his older brother Alex went there and majored in physics.
“We’re very proud of both of them and they’re going to a very good school,” their mother Claudia Barrajas said.
UT President Jay Hartzell made the trip to Brownsville for the send-off. He said he wasn’t surprised by the city’s welcoming and warm feel.
Hartzel said he would remind the incoming students that “we chose them for a reason.”
Admission to UT is is not easy, and Hartzel said the new freshmen should feel a sense of pride heading to Austin.
“There will be speed bumps along the way. We’re here for them, we’re going to support them and they’re going to do great,” he said.
Brownsville native Tony Gonzalez, a UT professor of plant biology and molecular biology and a regular at the send-off, said he brings a message of “I’m from here, I know what it’s like to kind of make the leap” to college life.
“I’m originally from Brownsville, born and raised,” he said. “I went to UT for my undergrad, stayed for grad school and was lucky enough to step into a faculty role right when I graduated with a Ph.D. in plant biology.”
Gonzalez said he stayed in Brownsville a couple of years after graduating high school, went to Texas Southmost College “and then finally transferred when I felt a little more ready,” he said.
“My message is basically if you’re feeling apprehensive about leaving the only home you’ve ever known, your family, if you feel like you’re severing ties, I found the opposite. It actually intensified my relationship with my home community. It showed me how special it was, it gave me a fresh perspective on growing up here and the values it instilled in me, and so I was able to take that to Austin and benefit from that so it gave me an appreciation of what it’s like to be from here, which wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t left.”
