Anabel's Story
Anabel's Story as told to Carrie Brown-Wolf
At the age of seven, Anabel Vicuña crossed the US-Mexican border and began a new life. Adapting to American culture while maintaining her Mexican heritage hasn’t always been easy, but her experiences and challenges have shaped her life's philosophy: work hard and reach high.
After Anabel’s father landed a job in Colorado, he secured papers to bring over his wife and two daughters to join him. Anabel was seven. Her sister was only a year old. They said good-bye to their cousins and grandparents in Chihuahua and moved to the United States. That time, the trip was relatively easy, and the only part of the journey Anabel remembers being difficult was the heat in Arizona. (Before joining their father in Colorado, they spent a month in Phoenix with family members.) To cool off, Anabel lay on the grass under a sprinkler, promising herself she’d be happy living the rest of her life in the United States - just not in Arizona!
When she began school at Breckenridge Elementary, Anabel was one of only three Spanish speaking kids in the school. Everything about school was different than in Mexico, but the greatest challenge was not speaking English. Her mom, who also didn't speak English, couldn’t help Anabel with her homework and often cried, wishing she could do more for her daughter. Not wanting to fuel her mother’s guilt, Anabel stopped asking for help and became determined to learn English on her own. She did. Within a year, Anabel was on her way to fluency.
By the time she entered Summit Middle School, Anabel had lots of friends, spoke English, and excelled in math. When she turned 14, just before her eighth-grade year, Anabel’s father asked her if she wanted to have a quinceanera, a Mexican celebration held on a girl’s fifteenth birthday. In order to have enough money to pay for the party, her father realized his wife and daughters would need to return to Mexico for a year while he moved into a small room and saved money.
Anabel spent her eighth-grade year in Mexico with family—that is, everyone but her dad. To make him proud, Anabel earned top marks at school. Once a week, she went with her mom and sister to an aunt’s house to use the telephone and talk to her dad. True to his word, he saved the money and brought them back a year later. However, this time her mom was unable to get the papers that would allow her to enter at a border crossing. Determined to be with her husband and children, she risked the long and dangerous walk across the desert, joining them a couple of months later.
The challenges Anabel experienced moving between countries, learning a new language, making new friends, and adapting to a different culture, have built character, independence, and determination. During her junior year of high school, Anabel got pregnant but refused to drop out. She took summer school classes, had the baby, and graduated a semester early. She and the baby’s father are now married and are raising their daughter, an eighth-grader at Summit Middle School, and their son, a second-grader at Upper Blue Elementary.
By the time Anabel graduated from Summit High, she had learned that she was an undocumented immigrant. She knew that because she was undocumented, she didn’t have many opportunities after high school, so she did not pursue higher education. “I wasn’t eligible for many scholarships, or government grants. I couldn’t even obtain a driver’s license or a credit card, let alone school loans. I focused on being a good mom, which I don’t regret.” When the Obama administration created the DACA program, Anabel applied and was accepted, which gave her a work authorization and protection from deportation. She says that "obtaining a social security number and being able to freely decide where I can work changed many things for me and gave me more opportunities. It gave me the freedom to grow and create value in myself, and to want to succeed in life."
Today, Anabel works at a dental office in Dillon, and lives with her husband and two children in Breckenridge, not far from where she grew up. She continues to take courses online to keep up to date with changing medical practice. As she raises her children, she expects them to follow in her footsteps—working hard and doing the best they can. "I tell my daughter, 'You can’t get very far without an education. If you work hard, you will get what you deserve.' I want the best for my kids. I want everything for them.”
More than twenty years since first coming to Summit County, Anabel is not yet a US citizen, but hopes to be one day soon, even though her DACA status does not provide a path to citizenship. “For a long time, I didn’t understand the benefits of being a US citizen, but now, I do. I was a good student who worked hard. I saw myself as any other American kid and never took ESL (English as a Second Language) classes. In fifth grade, I even received a certificate from President Bill Clinton, recognizing my achievements. When I was a student, I thought I had the same rights and responsibilities as other US citizens, so it wasn’t until after I graduated, I realized I was not the same. It’s a reason immigrants need immigration reform, or at least the Dream Act passed. I want to vote. I want to be eligible for benefits, especially now that the Coronavirus has made it so difficult. I want to travel in and out of the country. I’ve worked hard all my life...
And I don’t want anything to separate me from my children.”