From undocumented immigrant to national award recipient

From undocumented immigrant to national award recipient, ISU student uses her past experiences in her research

By David Mullen Gannett

Alot has changed for Iowa State University doctoral candidate Maria Alcívar-Zúñiga since she first arrived in the United States from Ecuador in 1999.

She’s graduated from college, finished her master’s program and is working on a PhD. She’s become a citizen of the United States, was married and had her first child. Three days before giving birth to her son, Ricardo, in December, she opened her email account and found an email that only seven other graduate students across the country received.

The email notified Alcívar-Zúñiga that she was needed in Washington, D.C., in six weeks to accept the prestigious, K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders award, which is awarded to graduate students “who show exem plary promise as future leaders of higher education; who demonstrate a commitment to developing academic and civic responsibility in themselves and others; and whose work reflects a strong emphasis on teaching and learning,” according to the Association of American Colleges and Universities website.

“I was shocked,” Alcívar-Zúñiga said. “It took me the whole day to realize what had happened. … I was like, wow, people actually think that my leadership skills on my work is something to be recognized, I was honored.” To many of her colleagues and professors at Iowa State University, the award personifies Alcívar-Zúñiga’s work in immigration policy and empowering those in the Latin community in Iowa.

“The description of the award is exactly how I would describe Maria,” said Tera Jordan, assistant provost for faculty development and associate professor in Human Development and Family Studies.

Alcívar-Zúñiga will soon become a doctor in human development and family studies, which is something she never thought was possible as an immigrant arriving in New York City at 11 years old.

Her focus is on community empowering within Latin youth and families in Iowa, and her past experiences, are what drives her, she said.

“My personal experience and my journey as a former undocumented immigrant to now a U.S. citizen, my aca demic background and the research I’ve done so far is what drives my desire to know and learn more about immigration policy and families in general,” AlcívarZúñiga said.

Maria Alcívar-Zúñiga, right, holds up her award with a fellow recipient of the K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award in Washington, D.C., in January. Contributed photo

ISU and the Iowa Department of Human Services collaborate each year on a research training project. Alcívar-Zúñiga’s created a specific webinar that assists social workers who work with immigrant families and immigrants who are survivors of domestic assault.

Although most of these training projects are only temporary for DHS, Alcívar-Zúñiga’s has become a per manent webinar for their staff members. Growing up as an immigrant Coming to a new country at any age is never easy, especially when you’re 11-years-old and have to learn an entirely new school system, language, culture and social norms.

When Alcívar-Zúñiga arrived to the east coast in 1999 with her mother and brother, they moved into a one-bedroom apartment with their cousins that already had three people occupying it, until they could afford rent.

And although it was hard for Alcívar-Zúñiga and her brother, their mother had the hardest time, she said. “My cousins helped my mom figure out the school system, had to connect her with people to get a job, and how to get an apartment,” Alcívar-Zúñiga said. “It was hard.”

During that transitional phase Alcívar-Zúñiga begged her mother to allow them to return to Ecuador, despite a terrible economic recession ongoing at the time.

“Moving to the U.S. to us was a downgrade for us because we were now living with all these folks, when before, we weren’t well off, but we had our place to live, we had our own bedrooms,” AlcívarZúñiga said.

A few years passed and her feelings began to change. However, when she was a senior in high school at Memorial High School in West New York, N.J, just across the Hudson River from Upper Manhattan, she saw her friends and classmates get accepted into college, but since Alcívar-Zúñiga was undocumented, college wasn’t even an option.

This is when she realized the limitations that undocumented immigrants have, but at the time there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Luckily, she received recognition as a stand-out soccer player and was able to start her secondary education at New Jersey City University.

But a torn meniscus ended her career there. After hours of thinking about her next step, she decided to pack her bags and move from the east coast to Ames to join some family members.

One of her aunts who graduated from ISU’s Veterinarian Medicine recruited Alcívar-Zúñiga and her brother to attend Iowa State University.

In 2011 she graduated from Iowa State University with a double-major degree in women’s studies and international studies. Four years later she received her masters and is now working to finish her doctorate by “hopefully” next fall, she said.

Alcívar-Zúñiga said she has learned through her experiences that the sky is limit and she’s aiming to be the second top adviser on immigration Latina women following in Cecilia Muñoz’s footsteps in the Obama administration, she said.

To everyone who’s experienced working with Alcívar-Zúñiga, it’s not a just a dream, but it’s a possible reality.

“She’s an amazing young woman,” said Janet Melby, a child welfare research and training project director and adjunct professor at ISU. “She just received this national award and at the same time she’s creating progress towards finishing her PhD, and she’s a new mother, so she’s juggling a lot, but she’s passionate about the work she does, and really anything she puts her mind to can be accomplished.”