I was born and raised in the slums of Bauru, in São Paulo, Brazil in the 1980s. I was one of over ten million people living in poverty. My parents had only elementary school level education, but they worked hard and they managed to give us–my older sister and me–a roof over our heads and food to eat.
Because my parents were always working, my sister and I were on our own to get to and from school and feed ourselves, but my mother made sure there were always enough leftovers in the fridge and fresh bread in the mornings.
On some weekends, my mother bought sliced ham and cheese for us to make misto quente and to this day, I make it for myself when I feel nostalgic. The weekend breakfast gatherings of my childhood are some of my favorite memories.
My world was turned upside down when I was 9 years old and my father died of pneumonia. His condition would have been treatable if we had had money to pay for private healthcare. Instead, he died at age 41 because we were poor.
Because my father was my role model and best friend, after his death, I felt disconnected. I wasn’t close with my mother and my sister soon left Brazil to live in Japan with her husband.
After high school, I started a relationship with a guy who was in law school. When I expressed interest in law he told me how hard it was and that I should try a different career. My sister told me how expensive it was and how I could not afford it. My mother told me it wasn’t a job for women.
Although I was discouraged, I committed to investing my entire monthly paycheck to attend law school because I wanted to prove them wrong.
To get a degree, I needed a second language. I decided to enroll in English classes and that’s where I learned about the Au Pair program –which places young women with host families in other countries to do housework and child care in exchange for room and board, usually for a year. I decided to take a break from law school and from my disintegrating relationship.
I moved to the United States of America as an Au Pair in 2008. I was different from many newcomers because I did not have an American dream. In fact, I knew very little about the United States. I joined the Au Pair program mainly to get out of Brazil.
Because the Au Pair program requires participants to get six college credits per year while in their host country I had to figure out how the American college system worked. I didn’t know where to start.
I needed to take classes to learn English as a Second Language so that’s where I started. I found classes at Mercer County Community College.
While my host family helped with $500 per year toward the six college credits, I had to pay out of pocket for the remaining costs associated with this program requirement and tuition was much higher for international students than those from in-county or in-state. My weekly stipend of $195.75 wasn’t going to cut it.
I considered moving back to Brazil, but a friend of mine, who was studying in the US at the time, advised me to stay and pursue higher education here.
I said, “It will take me another five years to get my bachelor’s degree!”
He said, “Five years will pass by whether you study here or not.”
He knew about my life back home and asked “What do you have to go back home to?”
His question hit me in the gut like life was saying “Are you seriously considering leaving this opportunity behind?”
I pondered the experiences that had shaped me up to that moment: losing my father, trying to get an education, and leaving my abusive boyfriend. Becoming an Au Pair. I realized I had grown too much to go back home.
Ultimately, to earn a much-needed scholarship, I joined the women’s cross-country team at MCCC in 2011 as one of the team’s first runners. Being on the team helped me develop discipline and leadership skills.
In the classroom, my professors challenged me to do my best work and encouraged me into the Honors program where I was able to work on actual academic research. To this day, I fact check information I hear or read on the internet looking for scientific evidence to confirm accuracy.
In 2012, I decided to try something new and joined The College VOICE student newspaper. I didn’t think of myself as creative or as a writer, but one of my friends who wrote for the paper convinced me to join.
This new endeavor ignited my passion for communication, prepared me to receive feedback without taking it personally, and gave me a taste of what working in the real world is like, which many 4-year universities fail to do.
The opportunities I created at MCCC opened doors I never thought I would be able to walk through. When I was applying to transfer to a 4-year university, I had plenty of recommendation letters from my professors and coaches. Although unsure of what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, I felt prepared to enter the workforce after graduating from MCCC in the Spring of 2013, and that is exactly what I did!
I found my passion in the corporate world and landed my dream job in corporate wellbeing.
Over the years I’ve learned how people look down on community colleges. People assume community college is a place for individuals who were not accepted into a traditional four-year university, had a bad academic record, or no ambition.
That’s not what I found. For me, community college was opportunity. From lower tuition costs to more friends to transferable credits, community college can be life-changing if you make the most of it.
For me attending MCCC was the best financial decision I ever made.
I now have my dream career and it allows me to give my son more than I ever imagined as a child. There are trips to Disney, swimming and piano lessons, gifts under the Christmas tree. He can pick whatever he wants from the grocery store.
Sometimes I get us sliced ham and cheese and make him misto quente and tell him about Brazil and my mother, and the path I made for myself to get here.
This article was produced as part of MCCC’s Community Reporting “J Lab” certificate program made possible by grant funding from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and The New School: Journalism + Design. To learn more about the J Lab program, contact Prof. Holly Johnson at johnsonh@mccc.edu.
