DIANE MAKAR MURPHY 'Guided by God,' Latino mother of 4 pursues dream

"Life for me ain't been no crystal staircase," goes the Langston Hughes poem. "It's been hard and bare and rough places on the floor."
I sit across from Ana Belen Harris, a first-generation American whose parents came from Puerto Rico, a New York City export to Youngstown, and I think, "Her life ain't been no crystal staircase."
But don't let her hear you say that. She'll have none of it.
We are in a small room next to the Youngstown State University language lab, where Harris works to help pay tuition. She has short dark hair with red highlights, large hoop earrings and pink-tinted glasses.
Two degrees: At 44, she is chasing down a degree in Spanish and one in social work. If all goes well, Harris will be working in a school system next year, counseling Spanish-speaking students.
"Latinos don't go in much for counseling because they feel people won't understand them," she explained. "There just aren't enough Spanish-speaking counselors around. Now, with me as a counselor, we'll have something in common."
Harris was born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx. "I didn't speak English until I was 5 or 6," Harris said. "I read Spanish before I read English."
Her parents split up and, when she was 14, her family, minus her father, who left for Puerto Rico, moved to Philadelphia. When she was 17, after her mother visited relatives here and liked the area, they moved to Youngstown.
That year, Harris attended school, worked at Head Start and helped find her mother custodial work with the Youngstown Board of Education.
"I hated being uprooted. I feel the reason today I have trouble making friends and keeping them is because I didn't learn how," Harris continued. "All my cousins were back there [in Philadelphia]. We were very close, and now we don't keep in touch as much. My friends are my children."
Her children: Harris, who lives on Youngstown's North Side, has been a mom for 27 years since the first of her four children was born. Her oldest child, Angeline, is an Ohio State University graduate of psychology, now in Army basic training.
Her son Robert, 18, is enrolled at Columbus State Community College with plans to transfer to OSU in the fall. Still at home with her are India Evita, 11, and 6-year-old Armand.
Harris started working toward her degrees in 1984. Through the years, a recurring dream haunted her. "I literally had a dream that I couldn't find my classroom," she said. Finally, she decided upon a career in counseling.
"I've had so many bad experiences. That may have led me to social work," she added. She mentions her ex-husband in passing, then stops herself.
"I've worked it out. I don't let myself dwell on it."
Instead, she "plays tapes in [her] mind" that keeps her focus positive. "I still have a lot of growing to do. Being at school has helped. I fell in love with sociology, and that led me to social work."
Her children also help her maintain a positive outlook.
"I don't really have a lot of free time," she said. "But what I have I spend with India and Armand, watching TV, reading, singing, dancing. I like them with me as much as possible. You know, I said a prayer one day about Armand's reading, and that prayer must have gone straight up to heaven, because he started reading better just like that. And India made the honor roll. I framed the certificate."
The future: Once she graduates, Harris may move to find a job and is considering Columbus, where her oldest son is. "I would probably work with kids in the schools, interview the person and try to figure out what it would take to empower them to help themselves. I believe in working with the tools you have."
"I don't know how I do it all," Harris said, acknowledging that financial aid has been a lifesaver. "I told my mom the other day, God is guiding me."
After years of scrimping for college and to make ends meet, she dares to share a dream with Armand and India -- and this time it is not of Harris' searching for a classroom. Some day, she says to her children, maybe we'll have a nice house in a nice, family neighborhood.
"Querer es poder," she said in a recent interview in YSU's student newspaper, The Jambar. The phrase means "to want is to be able." Or, in Harris' words, "Go out and make it yours."
What Langston Hughes said was, "Don't you quit because it's rough."
Harris hasn't, and some day, if her plans materialize, she'll help others to succeed as well.