UCLA student gives hope to Talented 90% in Compton

Deanna Jordan was alone in a hospital room in May 2008, with her newborn cradled in her arms. After giving birth to her third child, Kingston, at 22 years old, Jordan realized that she needed to turn her life around.

At the time, she was young and unemployed. Jordan was worried how she would be able to support her sons if she didn’t have a college education to fall back on.

“I made the decision there that I needed to build a dynasty and legacy for (my sons) – something to say that they come from greatness,” Jordan said.

Five years after graduating from high school, Jordan decided to pursue her journey for higher education, which led to an undergraduate degree in Afro-American studies and her current studies as a master’s student at UCLA. While at UCLA, she founded the Compton Pipeline Task-Force, an educational outreach student group, to help low-income children with their academics.

Growing up in a household where her father was a drug addict and her mother was the sole breadwinner of the family, Jordan said college education was rarely a topic of discussion.

Resentful toward her parents and apathetic toward her education, Jordan said she misbehaved at school and was expelled from numerous schools she attended from seventh grade to her senior year in high school.

Debra Wilson-Page, Jordan’s mother, said she was busy financially supporting a family on her own. At one point, she said she couldn’t afford to buy a $10 pizza for her family. Her children’s college education was not the most urgent concern on her mind.

Jordan’s father, who was struggling with drug addiction, was absent from her life throughout much of her childhood and teenage years.

She remembers the first time she saw her father coming off of a drug high, as he stumbled into the house when she was 8 years old. He pulled out all the packaged meat from the freezer and told Jordan to lock up the back door as he left the house.

“That was the moment I realized my dad was leaving me – whether it was mentally or emotionally. I was a die-hard daddy’s girl,” Jordan said.

One thing that kept her grounded was the close-knit community she lived in. She still remembers getting spanked by an older neighbor, who she thought of as a grandmother.

“We loved hard and fought hard. You knew that there was love in that place,” Jordan said.

It wasn’t until she enrolled in West Los Angeles College, a community college in Culver City, at the age of 22, that Jordan truly realized her passion for learning. Back then, her plan was to get a job as a social worker and pay off her student loans.

After she was encouraged by a UCLA counselor to apply to the Afro-American studies major, she decided to set her goals higher. She transferred to UCLA in 2011, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Afro-American studies and is currently finishing her master’s degree in the same subject.

In 2008, Jordan began developing the foundations of the Compton Pipeline Task-force, which UCLA’s Community Programs Office has managed since last year.

She said she sees her sons in the other children she helps with the task force she created.

The student group pools together resources offered by local organizations, such as the Zeta Rho Foundation and the Afrikan Education Project, a UCLA student group that teaches students about African-American history and culture.

Jordan and other UCLA students reach out to schools and communities in the city of Compton and provide students with academic help and parents with career development assistance.

Six days a week, they work with kids attending Carver Elementary School, Willowbrook Middle School and the King/Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science. During weekdays, they teach the high school students how to tutor younger students in math and English, while the volunteers focus on reading comprehension and writing on Saturdays.

The Talented 90%, one of the programs offered by the task force, conceptually challenges W. E. B. Du Bois’ Talented Tenth theory. Du Bois claimed that higher education is necessary for developing the leadership capacity in the most talented 10 percent of the black population.

Jordan said she created the program to help the remaining 90 percent of the population who lack the education and support they need to succeed.

“Most of the people I know in my community are not in the top 10 percent. We’re labeled as sad, angry or very aggressive, or dangerous or criminals,” Jordan said.

Jordan said she thinks she relates to many of her students because, like them, she didn’t receive all of the resources she needed to pursue higher education.

A 14-year-old boy who has been attending the Saturday classes, said he appreciates Jordan, or “Miss JD,” taking the time to teach students like him topics about African-American culture and history that they normally don’t learn at school.

Jordan admits that life in Compton was tough and meager, but she said she wouldn’t be where she is today had she lived anywhere else.

“Coming from Compton made me who I am. I know I’m a product of Compton,” Jordan said. “Good things come out of Compton.”