Students Find More than Education at FCC

Students attending Fresno City College to pursue education often find the love they never knew they needed.

James and Felicia Graham had no idea that FCC would be the beginning of their story. They met a few months into their first semester when they were 17-years-old in 1989.

James was a criminology major and hoped to one day have a career in law enforcement or education.

“We met at the cafeteria, I walked in, we caught eyes, and it was over from there,” James said. “I knew that this was the woman I was going to marry. I think, as a guy, you have a mental picture of the woman you want to marry; when I saw her, I knew; I just knew.”

At the time, Felicia was unsure of what to major in. She was just attending college to complete her general education.

“When I first saw him [James], I thought he was cute, but just not my type,” Felicia said. “It took a while for me; he had to win me over.”

Hours after catching eyes in the cafeteria, they had their first date.

“He came over to my friend’s apartment to hangout; we made tacos. It was far from a traditional date,” Felicia said. “After that, we started seeing each other off and on; it got serious about two years later. I knew he was the one.”

They got married and started a family.

“It will be 24 years this February,” James said.

James has been working for Fresno County for 19 years, and Felicia is a stay-at-home mom. They have three children and one grandson.

“We did not accomplish all that we set out to accomplish when we first started at Fresno City College, but this is better than any plan we had back then,” Felicia said.

25 years later, the FCC love bug bites again.

David Alvarez was the President of FCC’s Native American Indigenous Student’s Association when Marisa joined the club in 2014. When they first saw each other, nothing sparked. They were just members of the same club until their paths cross outside of school.

“I was actually in student government with her cousin,” David said. “We were all hanging out one day, and I mentioned I wanted to go to the lake, and she said she wanted to go to the beach, so we went.”

“I had just met her and five hours later, we were at the beach together,” David said.

“After that first date, we spent every other day together,” Marisa said. “About two weeks later, we made it official.”

Marisa and David have been married for a year and a half, and she is currently pregnant with their fourth child. They both still attend FCC and are Sociology and American Indian studies majors.

Most students have no plans of starting a new relationship their first semester at FCC, but that did not stop Jose Romo from approaching Monique Jauriqui one day while she was sitting in her classroom waiting for her web construction class to start. They had seen each other around school, but were both too shy until a mutual friend helped.

“I would always see him around the graphics department, but I was always too afraid to talk to him,” Jauriqui said. “One day, I decided to ask a mutual friend about Jose, and that mutual friend ended up texting him and telling him that I thought he was cute.”

When Romo first saw her, he was intrigued by her beauty. She seemed like his type.

“There’s not just one thing that I’m attracted to about her; I’m attracted to everything about her,” Romo said. “It’s all the little things that make her the person that she is, from her beautiful hazel eyes to her loving heart. I’m attracted to it all.”

After their first date, Jauriqui knew Romo was the one for her.

“I was so nervous before he arrived at my house to pick me up for our first date but once he got there, I sort of calmed down,” Jauriqui said. “We went to the movies and watched ‘Annabelle’. After that we sat in front of my house just talking about anything and everything. I knew right then and there that he was the one. He was so perfect for me.”