All It Takes Is Courage

STORY BY ANIKA LJUNG PHOTOS COURTESY OF TERESA SEGURA

Teresa Segura, a dance major at CSULB, believed it was destiny that her visa didn't work.

At 11 years old, Teresa Segura was deported.

Twelve years later, she can still recount the moment as if it were yesterday: walking toward the heavy door labeled Tijuana, the immigration officer’s presence looming behind her like a wall separating her from her life in the United States.

Left with only her brother, she walked opposite a line of people waiting to cross the border into the United States, where her mother and other siblings were.

“It was humiliating,” she says. “They had us on display as if we had been arrested.”

That same day, she and her brother flew back to their birthplace of Guadalajara, Mexico, and moved back into their grandmother’s house.

She didn't know it at the time, but it was the beginning of the trials and triumphs that would bring Teresa to her current place in life, as a senior dance major at Cal State Long Beach.

Like so many of her fellow students, she got here through a combination of determination, faith, and family.

Born and raised by a single mother in a poor community, she knew struggle from her earliest days. The streets in her neighborhood were made of dirt, and delinquency was the norm. She lived in her grandmother’s house with her mom and three older brothers: Gerardo, Rogelio and Oscar. There were four families under one roof, sharing a single bathroom.

Her life began to shift when her middle brother, Rogelio, wanted to take advantage of his American citizenship and find better education by working in California, his birthplace.

Teresa was 7 years old when she first obtained a visiting visa and crossed the border to start her new life in the United States with her family.

“I remember not liking it right away,” she says, laughing. “I was so young and missed the interaction I had with my cousins and friends back home. Nobody here played outside like we did in Mexico.”

The family moved around a lot; at some point they even lived in a garage. Finding affordable housing that allowed five people was impossible, and with the scarce job market, her mom and brothers had to work “I was so young and missed the interaction I had with my cousins and friends back home.”

at multiple factories just to keep the family afloat.

They often traveled back to Mexico to visit family. It was during one of those trips when Gerardo, Teresa’s eldest brother, decided he wanted to stay in Mexico. They made a plan for him to escort her back to their mom in the U.S. before he would return to his hometown for good.

At the border, they ended up going to different immigration windows, something they had never done before. That’s when Teresa was stopped by an officer.

As she was taken away to be interrogated, her brother was already crossing the border into the U.S. When he realized his sister had been stopped, Gerardo rushed to her aid, and they were both questioned, their documents checked and baggage rummaged through.

“I was so well trained to handle immigration officers that I knew what they were going to ask, precise things like what street I live on, where my parents work and where I eat lunch,” Teresa says. “I already knew what was going to happen as soon as I was detained. They even started speaking to me in English. We had been caught. And I was going back home. I’m a big believer that I have a guardian angel. I felt it through all

my life. So I felt a protection—I didn’t feel scared.”

As an 11-year-old, Segura had only her brother to take care of her. She coped with the pain of losing her mother, who had made the heart-wrenching decision to stay in America with Rogelio in order to obtain citizenship, so she could eventually bring

Teresa back with the best opportunities possible.

Teresa rarely saw her mom in the years following. They would sometimes go two to three years without seeing each other. In her mom's absence, Gerardo had a significant and lasting impact on Teresa’s life.

“I became his daughter," she says. "The way the bond developed, he became my dad, mentor and biggest influence. He encouraged me to start dancing. Although he was only 24 at the time and couldn’t provide money for me to take class, he always gave me support. He found me a place to work, a place to train and waited for me at the bus stop every night to walk me back home.”

Gerardo went to all of his sister’s school meetings and dance events. With his guidance, she graduated high school and obtained papers with the help of her mother, and it was time for their goodbye. Left to right: Rogelio, Gerardo, and Oscar with Teresa.

“I remember walking through the gate at the airport to board my flight back to my mother,” Teresa says. “I turned back, and he was crying. He was the only emotional stability I had for most of my life. When I think of him, I think of home. ”

It was living in Guadalajara that allowed Teresa to find her life’s passion—dance. Since money and resources were tight for her family, she never would have been given the opportunity to connect with her culture and develop her artistry in the U.S.

“I like to think it was destiny that my visa didn’t work,” she says. “I always felt an emptiness of not fully knowing my culture. I felt like I was living a double life while bonding with my roots, because there was a heavy side of me that felt abandoned and alone.”

Moving back to the U.S. as a college student proved a culture shock to Teresa. Guadalajara had few resources: one computer for her whole school, middle school teachers without degrees, music instructors who knew how to play only a few chords and dance studios without stages or even opportunities to perform.

At Cerritos College, she was greeted with a library full of computers and a theater to dance in. The days when she had to travel three hours round-trip by bus to take a dance class were gone, replaced by a hope she always knew was possible.

Teresa emphasizes that she never felt like a victim. The perspectives she gathered from living with only her brother as her guardian, guiding her through challenges, led her to the independence, compassion and deep understanding of the world she has today.

“If it had been the other way around, if it was Gerardo who got stopped at the border and not me, he would have told me to keep going, and I would be on a completely different path,” she says. “The human spirit carries on very far if we know how to manage it. I lived both worlds, and this journey was my destiny. "You change the world by becoming the best version of yourself, and that, in turn, affects others. All it takes is courage.” “The human spirit carries on very far if we know how to manage it.”