May 22, 1998
CONTACT: Shirley Hulett, (619) 594-5204
Cupcake Brown: Home: (619) 263-6623
Pager: (619) 975-CAKE
Office: (619) 515-1806.
Former Gang Member to Receive Degree in Criminal Justice At SDSU Commencement Ceremony, Sunday, May 24
When cup Cupcake Brown "turns her tassel" Sunday, May 24, signifying graduation from San Diego State’s College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts, it will signify the latest in a long list of life-changing experiences that have taken the 34-year old from a "gang-banger" to an honors graduate in criminal justice.
She will be among some 1,800 receiving degrees in the 8 a.m. ceremony in Cox Arena on the SDSU campus.
After her mother died suddenly when she was in elementary school, she became a foster child. She was abused, ran away from foster homes, was dubbed a "problem child" and eventually got into juvenile prostitution to support herself.
She joined a notorious Los Angeles street gang. At the age of 14, Brown was wounded in a drive-by shooting. She promised herself that if she survived, she would give up the gang lifestyle and change her life. She recovered and quit the gang. After years of heavy drug and alcohol abuse, she achieved sobriety at the age of 25.
Eventually, she entered college, without having graduated from high school. She has worked as a legal assistant in a San Diego law firm for ten years. On Sunday, she will be honored as a Magna Cum Laude graduate (at least a 3.65 on a 4.0 scale). She will be attending law school at the University of San Francisco in the fall.
Paul Sutton, professor of criminal justice and Brown’s faculty and advisor, said "Cupcake Brown is the kind of person that we study every day in the field of criminal justice. In every respect, she appeared to be one of those ‘throw-away’ kids whom nobody wants and everybody fears. She was precisely the kind of kid whom society turns its back on. As a child she had everything going against her -- child abuse, gang violence, alcohol, drugs, prostitution. Her youth was a nightmare of horrors that we, as parents, dread our children should ever be exposed to. For Cupcake, that nightmare was her life. Miraculously, however, she not only survived it, she excelled.
"Her struggle offers a powerful lesson to us all: no kid is beyond redemption; with the right kind of attention, opportunity, and support, even the toughest of our kids can rise to positions of responsibility and distinction. Cupcake is living proof that we can never afford to give up on any of them."
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