Vonekham Guthrie

Twenty-three-year-old Vonekham Guthrie graduates this spring from the School of General Studies with a degree in English literature and writing. It is an achievement she never thought she would accomplish just five years ago.

At the time, Guthrie was a new mom. Having a baby had made her give up on her plans to go to college. But staying home with her little girl, Destiny, also gave her plenty of time to think—and to write.

"I'd always wanted to write a novel based on my family's experience coming to Long Island from Laos," she said. And there was certainly enough to write about.

Vonekham was 3 when she and her mother and two sisters arrived in the United States from Laos, having made their way through a refugee camp in Thailand first. They thought her father, a high-ranking Laotian soldier, had died during the Communist takeover of Laos. But in fact he had fled to France, before he could even get word to his family.

A friend saw him in France and contacted Vonekham's mother, who was working and living with her girls at the Pius X convent in Plainview, Long Island. In 1987, Guthrie's family was able to bring her father over from France, though Guthrie's mother had to struggle to find documents to prove to U.S. immigration authorities that he was indeed her husband. The story was reported on the front page of Newsday in February of 1987.

Vonekahm did well throughout high school, but in her senior year, she became pregnant. She thought that was the end of her college hopes.

"A lot of people put labels on young girls and I kind of believed it for a short time," she said. "But then I realized I needed to get up and do something with my life."

She enrolled in Nassau Community College, where she graduated 16 months later with a 3.75 GPA; she became a member of Phi Theta Kappa. All this, while working in banks and restaurants and writing her novel.

She was all ready to go on to State University of New York at Stonybrook, when she received a letter inviting her to apply to the School of General Studies, which had learned of her from her induction into Phi Beta Kappa. She decided to apply, she says, "just to see if I could get in."

Not only did she get in, but she was the first recipient of the Program for Academic Leadership and Service (PALS) scholarship. PALS targets students who are the first in their families to attend college, and who are members of traditionally underrepresented minorities.

Throughout her years at GS, Vonekham has been a motivational speaker, visiting the Long Island public high schools and telling students they can achieve their goals with hard work. She has also worked part-time in GS' admissions office and worked with Barnard's Liberty Partnerships program, tutoring and counseling middle- and high-school students from the community. She'll continue her work there following graduation, running her own seminar next week called Dream Building 2001.

Vonekham is graduating with a degree in English literature and writing. She's married, with another child—three-year-old André. She plans to travel to Laos this fall to finish research on her novel. She's had her poetry published in anthologies and hopes to teach.

"The initial transition to GS was difficult," Vonekham says, "but I met amazing students, professors and administrators."