Brave dreams: An interview with María Marroquín

Update: According to the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, María and the six other undocumented students arrested in Georgia on April 5 have been released. "ICE agents interviewed the students, but ultimately declined to get involved," said the e-mail release PICC sent out April 8.

When María Marroquín first came to the United States at the age of 13, she thought she’d be seeing Mickey Mouse. She was excited and anticipating her first visit to Disneyworld.

That’s what she told the Transportation Security Officer at Miami International Airport who asked which tourist sites she and her family planned to visit during their visit from Lima, Peru. And, in fact, she stayed long enough in Miami to see palm trees for the first time, to swelter in the near tropical heat she had never experienced before and to notice “how clean and beautiful” the streets of this American city were.

Her family did eventually board a bus but it didn’t take them anywhere near the Orlando resort. Instead, it deposited them in New Jersey and into a life María didn’t expect.

That is — the life a regular American teenager. Except for one thing. They were undocumented.

María’s father had a job lined up already — doing laundry and cleaning at a hotel. It was very different than the work he had done in Lima. The family owned a restaurant there — a going venture for 10 years — and María’s father drove a taxicab at night to make ends meet. But he came to realize that without radically changing the family’s economic circumstances María and her two siblings wouldn’t graduate from high school.

The fact that work as a cabbie during the night shift was becoming increasingly dangerous helped to finalize the decision to come to the United States on visas — which the family overstayed. They moved to Pennsylvania not long after their initial foray north. María was enrolled in a high school in Cheltenham.

“I didn’t realize what being undocumented would mean,” María said. “None of my friends knew. I felt really isolated (and) like I couldn’t trust anyone. I thought they wouldn’t understand if I told them about my status. I felt embarrassed and ashamed.”

María’s parents took English as a Second Language classes, they paid taxes, they enrolled their three children in school, and took them with them to Spanish-language Masses — especially the ones at St. William Parish in Philadelphia, at which the community of Philadelphia-area Peruvian immigrants celebrate feast days together. María’s mother started working as a nanny, and the family settled into building their lives.

They consulted with lawyers early on to see if there was a way to legalize their status, but it proved a fruitless pursuit. After that, María and her siblings stopped talking to each other about their irregular status. They lived with it, in silence. Even so, she credits her family and her faith with getting her through .

She lived, María said, scared.

Her junior year in high school was marked by depression. She never knew what to answer when her friends asked her why she didn’t drive or have a driver’s license, or why she couldn’t participate in the many activities that seemed so normal to her peers. Nothing that required a social security number or government I.D. was open to her.

“It was so difficult,” she said. “And I knew I couldn’t build my life on lies. I don’t blame (my parents) for bringing me here. I don’t know what I’d be doing if I were in Peru. They wanted us to have a future.

"They are just regular people who work hard and want to take care of their children.”

In 2004 she graduated from high school and enrolled in Montgomery County Community College. She attended part-time, paying international student tuition rates — much higher than in-state or out-of-state ones — out of pocket. No financial aid was available to her. Then, like now, she earned money by babysitting and at odd jobs, and put it all toward her tuition.

It took María five years to get her associate’s degree while she worked and saved money and took what courses she could. She maintained a 3.98 GPA, and majored in social science. She’d like to continue on to get a four-year-degree — she’d be the first person in her family attain that — and to some day go to law school.

But no matter how hard she works and what she accomplishes academically, María knows the future she faces is limited by her undocumented status.

“I consider myself an American,” she said. “Everything I know — all my friends, my ideals — come from this country. I want to make my life here.”

María had hopes that the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act) — bipartisan legislation that would have made an estimated 65,000 young people eligible for permanent legal status upon completion of two years of college or two years of honorable service in the military — would pass in Congress. That dream was dashed in December of 2010, when the Senate rejected the bill.

The DREAM Act would have not only given María an eventual path to legalization, but would have made it possible for her to continue her education at an in-state tuition rate.

“My parents sacrificed everything for me to be able to continue with my education,” María said. “To know I couldn’t felt like I was letting them down.”

And, she had tired of hiding.

March 19th she and six other undocumented youths “came out of the shadows” and told their stories at a rally at of Philadelphia’s Independence Mall.

“We decided to share our stories,” she said. “All we want is to continue our education. We want to do the right thing, we want to contribute. This is the only country we know and we consider it home, and we wanted to put a face to the immigration issue.”

“I know that there were undocumented youth listening” in the crowd of 150 people that gathered, she said. “I wanted to talk to those (in the crowd) who feel as alone as I had.

"A state DREAM Act bill would be great — then (young people) could afford to go to college and not be dropping out of high school.”

The crowd at the rally, mostly high school and college age people, according to María, were receptive. “They give me hope,” she said.

Her advocacy for a pathway to legalization for immigrant youth (she is the co-founder of DreamActivist Pennsylvania and DreamActivist.org) has been supported by many people — the representatives from Catholic organizations who have stood by her at press conferences, her Filipino boyfriend (who is also undocumented) and her siblings.

María’s sister, 21, dreams of becoming a pediatrician; her brother, 20, a Navy SEAL. Both are experiencing the same frustrations María has, and the same thwarted desire to give back to the nation they love.

Her parents, though proud of their eldest daughter, are scared for her, she said.

And now they must be panicked.

Yesterday (April 5) María was one of seven young people who delivered a petition to the president of Georgia State University asking him to keep the institution's doors open to undocumented students — something GSU is slated to stop doing as of the fall semester.

The seven proceeded to engage in civil disobedience — including marching through the campus and disrupting traffic. An hour later, according to the Dream is Coming web site — which is tracking their tweets — all seven were arrested and placed in an Atlanta jail.

It is quite possible, maybe even likely given the jail's alleged working relationship with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, they will be turned over to ICE.

“(Deportation) is always in the back of your mind,” María said during our interview March 24. “But this is something that is much bigger than myself. Our cause is just and it is right. That’s enough for me.”


A Philadelphia vigil for María Marroquín and the other six undocumented youths who participated in the civil disobedience at GSU will be held tomorrow (April 7) at 5 p.m. at Senator Toomey’s office at 1628 JFK Blvd. in Philadelphia.

Photos of the March 19th rally courtesy of María Marroquín.