JENNIFER SICKING
Mayra Esquivel
AFTER A SEMESTER at UAFS, Mayra Esquivel registered for only one class in the spring. When her concerned adviser asked why, she refused to answer. “I didn’t want to be termed a criminal,” said the pre-med major. Fear kept her in the shadows, bound by secrecy. At 3 years old, Esquivel’s mother brought her north from Mexico to join her father, who had taken the same trip to find work to care for his family. She grew up celebrating the Fourth of July, studying U.S. history and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, dreaming of a bright tomorrow. She earned straight A’s, joined clubs and made the honor society. But a dark cloud shadowed her future. “I needed that magic nine-digit number to go to college,” she said. Even without a Social Security number, Esquivel’s
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faith kept her believing that she would go to college. She applied to UAFS. While she had good grades, her lack of citizenship made her ineligible to receive scholarships. It also meant she must dig deeper into her pockets to pay out-of-state tuition. Her parents’ savings paid for her first semester, but she could only afford one class in future semesters. Each semester she kept her secret wrapped close. Then came 2012. She stepped out of the shadows and shared her story at the Catholic Campus Ministry. “I realized it’s not my fault. It’s nothing bad that I did,” she said. In telling her story, she found others hiding in the shadows too. They, too, were caught in a bureaucratic immigration web, unable to get visas or green cards or to apply for citizenship because of their immigration status. In August 2012, she jour-
neyed to the White House with other Arkansans to speak to President Barack Obama’s administration about changes to immigration law. That fall she led a vigil at the UAFS bell tower. “When your life’s at stake, your family’s at stake, you come out fighting,” she said. Also in 2012, Obama issued the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, allowing people in Esquivel’s position to work. Esquivel found a job to help pay for her schooling. Through speaking out, she met people she refers to as “my angels” who volunteered to help pay her tuition. Esquivel plans to continue her studies to become a neuropsychology researcher. She also will continue her fight for immigration changes. She comments simply: “We’re Americans.”
KAT WILSON, ’96
Finding Her Voice
OUT OF A RUT
AFTER HIGH SCHOOL, WIL MOON knew he didn’t want to go to college, especially after a couple of semesters enrolled in one. So he went to work as a bartender. Then he worked in construction to help rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina submerged the city. And the years passed. Then he drove past a church with its sign proclaiming, “The only difference between a rut and a grave is time.” “I’ve thought about that a lot,” he said. “I knew I had to do something different.” At 32 years old, he enrolled in UAFS and found a passion for learning and a way out of the rut. In the spring of 2014 at 35, he completed his bachelor’s degree in marketing and prepared for entering the University of Arkansas School of Law in the fall with a desire to study business law. “The College of Business definitely breeds confidence. I went from being cocky to confident,” he said. “There’s a huge difference between the two. Cocky, you think you know everything. Confident, you know what you know. I thought I knew a lot when I got here but the amount I learned is astonishing.” Besides continuing to work while attending UAFS, Moon married, became a stepfather and then a father. He also interned with Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), served as state president for the business fraternity Phi Beta Lambda and as treasurer for the UAFS Student Government Association. “As a nontraditional Wil Moon student, I think you get a lot more out of your educational experience. One reason is you know how crappy it is out in the real world,” he said. And that can motivate a person with a full life who returns to school. “If you make it important, you’ll find time,” he said.
BELL TOWER fall/winter 2014
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