Longtime immigrant activist continuing her work

Guandique said every job she has held has been about helping people move out of poverty. The only way to do that, she said, is through education.

“All I had was a high school diploma all those 24 years when I worked with farmworkers,” she said. “Then I tried to get another management position and didn’t have the education.”

In 1999, at the age of 50, Guandique graduated from Western Washington University with a bachelor’s degree in business management.

Before retiring in June, Guandique spent seven and a half years working at Skagit Valley College as a retention transition specialist, where she helped students remain in school and transition after they graduate.

Many of the students she worked with, she said, were children of farmworkers with whom she had previously worked.