A Spanish-born North Carolina teacher is helping dozens of undocumented high-school students fulfill their dream of pursuing university studies.
After just four years of teaching English as a Second Language at the Zebulon B. Vance High School in Charlotte, Madrid native Cristina Sanchez has already changed the lives of at least 80 Hispanic youth.
“These were young people who had no support or information about how to go to university without papers. Many had already resigned to working and giving up their dreams despite being excellent students,” Sanchez told Efe.
The Spaniard came to North Carolina in 2008 to teach ESL after gaining experience at private schools in her homeland, where she provided English instruction to employees and executives of multinational companies, as well as working in Ireland and Britain in the summers.
“I’ve wanted to be a teacher since I was little,” she told Efe. “We’re four sisters and for my parents our studies were the most important thing. My father is a mechanic and my mother stayed at home to raise us. I come from a very hard-working family.”
She said she spent her first two years at Vance adapting to the new school and getting to know her students, most of them unauthorized immigrants who were facing problems at home and depressed and unmotivated due to their uncertain future in a new country.
The 32-year-old educator said she realized these adolescents had no support and she decided to “do something to change the system.”
With support from the Latin American Coalition, Charlotte’s leading Hispanic organization, she founded “College Access para Todos,” a program that provides information about access to higher education.
In April 2011, the Spaniard selected a group of students with excellent grades from Vance and other high schools and took them to an initial meeting at Johnson C. Smith University, a historically black college founded 145 years ago in Charlotte.
“They gave scholarships to all of them. These young people have improved that university’s academic level. The administrators are satisfied with the results and the kids are responding,” she said.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 65,000 illegal immigrants graduate each year from U.S. high schools but only between 5-10 percent attend university.
Because of their immigration status, these youth are not eligible for federal and state financial aid and most public higher-education institutions consider them international students for tuition purposes and require them to pay rates double those for in-state students.
One of Sanchez’s students at Vance, 19-year-old Salvadoran Sarai Marquez, aspired to attend university and become an accountant, but she thought that dream was out of reach due to sky-high education costs until Sanchez took her to Johnson C. Smith.
“I’d already given up on continuing my education, but Ms. Sanchez insisted. She showed me it was possible, that with my grade-point average they’d give me a scholarship and I wouldn’t have to pay anything. She changed my life. She’s an inspiration to us,” Marquez told Efe.
Victor Medina, a 19-year-old Salvadoran who will receive his high-school diploma in the coming days, has a similar story to tell.
“I didn’t think I could go to college but my teacher told me how to do it, where to look for financial aid, and I’ll begin soon while I’m working,” Medina told Efe.
“Now I help (Sanchez) give talks to other students about the process of enrolling in university, preparing for the entrance exam (SAT). It’s a question of getting good grades and having the desire to do it,” Medina, whose dream is to become a pediatrician, said.
Sanchez’s program not only reaches out to students nearing graduation but also those just starting high school.
One of these students, Evelyn Muñoz, a 16-year-old Mexico native, has already started preparing for university by taking advanced-level high-school courses and paying close attention to her GPA.
For her efforts on behalf of undocumented youth, Sanchez has been nominated for the Charlotte mayor’s 2012 Mentor of the Year award, the Vance High School’s 2011 Teacher of the Year prize and other honors.
“The next step will be to seek out scholarship money for undocumented students from companies that wish to donate funds to that cause. There’s now a culture of ‘yes it’s possible’ to go to university. Now it’s about expanding access to other youth,” she said.
After just four years of teaching English as a Second Language at the Zebulon B. Vance High School in Charlotte, Madrid native Cristina Sanchez has already changed the lives of at least 80 Hispanic youth.
“These were young people who had no support or information about how to go to university without papers. Many had already resigned to working and giving up their dreams despite being excellent students,” Sanchez told Efe.
The Spaniard came to North Carolina in 2008 to teach ESL after gaining experience at private schools in her homeland, where she provided English instruction to employees and executives of multinational companies, as well as working in Ireland and Britain in the summers.
“I’ve wanted to be a teacher since I was little,” she told Efe. “We’re four sisters and for my parents our studies were the most important thing. My father is a mechanic and my mother stayed at home to raise us. I come from a very hard-working family.”
She said she spent her first two years at Vance adapting to the new school and getting to know her students, most of them unauthorized immigrants who were facing problems at home and depressed and unmotivated due to their uncertain future in a new country.
The 32-year-old educator said she realized these adolescents had no support and she decided to “do something to change the system.”
With support from the Latin American Coalition, Charlotte’s leading Hispanic organization, she founded “College Access para Todos,” a program that provides information about access to higher education.
In April 2011, the Spaniard selected a group of students with excellent grades from Vance and other high schools and took them to an initial meeting at Johnson C. Smith University, a historically black college founded 145 years ago in Charlotte.
“They gave scholarships to all of them. These young people have improved that university’s academic level. The administrators are satisfied with the results and the kids are responding,” she said.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 65,000 illegal immigrants graduate each year from U.S. high schools but only between 5-10 percent attend university.
Because of their immigration status, these youth are not eligible for federal and state financial aid and most public higher-education institutions consider them international students for tuition purposes and require them to pay rates double those for in-state students.
One of Sanchez’s students at Vance, 19-year-old Salvadoran Sarai Marquez, aspired to attend university and become an accountant, but she thought that dream was out of reach due to sky-high education costs until Sanchez took her to Johnson C. Smith.
“I’d already given up on continuing my education, but Ms. Sanchez insisted. She showed me it was possible, that with my grade-point average they’d give me a scholarship and I wouldn’t have to pay anything. She changed my life. She’s an inspiration to us,” Marquez told Efe.
Victor Medina, a 19-year-old Salvadoran who will receive his high-school diploma in the coming days, has a similar story to tell.
“I didn’t think I could go to college but my teacher told me how to do it, where to look for financial aid, and I’ll begin soon while I’m working,” Medina told Efe.
“Now I help (Sanchez) give talks to other students about the process of enrolling in university, preparing for the entrance exam (SAT). It’s a question of getting good grades and having the desire to do it,” Medina, whose dream is to become a pediatrician, said.
Sanchez’s program not only reaches out to students nearing graduation but also those just starting high school.
One of these students, Evelyn Muñoz, a 16-year-old Mexico native, has already started preparing for university by taking advanced-level high-school courses and paying close attention to her GPA.
For her efforts on behalf of undocumented youth, Sanchez has been nominated for the Charlotte mayor’s 2012 Mentor of the Year award, the Vance High School’s 2011 Teacher of the Year prize and other honors.
“The next step will be to seek out scholarship money for undocumented students from companies that wish to donate funds to that cause. There’s now a culture of ‘yes it’s possible’ to go to university. Now it’s about expanding access to other youth,” she said.
