FIELD NOTES Miguel Celeste (Compiled April 20, 2011)

Transcription

1 FIELD NOTES Miguel Celeste (Compiled April 20, 2011) Interviewee: Interviewer: Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) Linda Herrera Interview Date: Wednesday, April 13, 2011 Location: Davis Library, Chapel Hill, NC THE INTERVIEWEE. Miguel Celeste is a UNC alumni who graduated not too long ago. He majored in English and hopes to one day be able to teach preferably in the United States, but if that is not possible then possibly teach back in his native country Mexico. He and his family are all originally from Tuxtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico and migrated in 1998 to a small rural town in the state of North Carolina called Siler City. Miguel came to the United States when he was ten years old and since then has lived in North Carolina. He lived in Siler City till he finished high school and then moved to the Chapel Hill area to pursue a four year degree. Miguel is the oldest of two in his family and is the first one to have been able to graduate from a four year university. Miguel has had to face many obstacles, such as the language barrier and the struggle of living as an undocumented student in the Chapel Hill community. Though Miguel has had to go through a lot and has had to push himself a lot more than others, he has not let his status or anything else stop him from graduating from UNC Chapel Hill. Miguel admits it has not been an easy process for him here in the United States, especially the process of going college as an undocumented student; but that he values his four year experience because it was a great learning experience and because he also enjoyed it very much. Unfortunately now that Miguel has graduated he has not been able to do anything with his degree and has had to settle for lower paying jobs, such as waitressing because of his undocumented status in the United States. He says that maybe something in the future will work out so that he can pursue a career as a teacher, but that he honestly has little hope for anything and meanwhile will settle for those lower paying jobs that a lot undocumented immigrants in the U.S. have to settle for. THE INTERVIEWER. Linda Herrera is an undergraduate student in her third year at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is majoring in Psychology and Spanish with an African American studies minor. This interview is going to be used for a class that focuses on Latin American migrant perspectives (INTS 390), which is taught by Professor Hannah Gill. In this project Linda is researching about undocumented student's experience in college. As a Latina student herself, she has also been able to see the struggles that many Latino students face; but is interested in further understanding specifically the struggles that undocumented students' face while in college. The purpose of this interview is to learn about their concerns for when they graduate among other things, since a lot of times these students unfortunately go unheard of in many of the universities across this nation.

2 DESCRIPTION OF THE INTERVIEW. The interview was conducted in a study lounge in Davis Library on UNC's campus. Since it was done in a separate room in the library it was very quiet and it gave us the necessary privacy to ask any question of interest, so very appropriate for the interview. The interview overall went very well and Miguel seemed very engaged when answering all of the questions. Before the interview Miguel was a little hesitant to be interviewed because he had participated in other projects similar to this already and because he was also very busy with work, but eventually agreed and said it was fine with him because he would work it into his schedule. Though Miguel at first was not hundred percent sure to be able to participate in the interview due to various reasons mentioned above, he appeared very relaxed throughout the entire interview and seemed comfortable with all the questions he was being asked. I think Miguel was very honest in his responses and answered them to the best of his knowledge, without limiting anything that he had to say. CONTENT OF THE INTERVIEW. This interview includes some background information on Miguel's life and his family. At the beginning Miguel talks about when he and his family migrated from Tuxtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico to the United States and how that process was for all of them. He goes into a lot of detail of how this process was and depicts exactly what all they had to do and what their reasons were for migrating to the United States. The interview then focuses more on higher education and the difficulties he had to face as undocumented student in a four year college. Miguel first talks about his experience in high school and how difficult the college application process was for him since he really didn't have any plans of going to college nor was he familiar with the process itself. He also expresses how he didn't really have anybody to help him besides his teachers and one professor who really supported him and had faith in him. Though Miguel had to face a lot of obstacles when applying to college and while in college as well, he was able to graduate from UNC with an English degree and appreciates the opportunity of being able to do that. Miguel explains that for him to go to college was a miracle because there was no way his parents could ever afford paying for his post-secondary education, even at the community college level. Therefore he is very thankful and considers it a miracle the fact that he was fortunate enough to have found someone like his professor who was able to find the necessary resources so that he could get a full ride to UNC. Miguel says that he is appreciates and values the opportunity of pursuing a four year degree, but that now that he has graduated he is stuck without being able to go beyond being a waitress or a cook just like any other undocumented immigrant in the United States. Miguel says he would like to be able to become a teacher some day since that has been his dream job ever since he was a child and lived in Mexico, but that he really doubts something will change anytime soon. So he will have continue to work as a waitress or cook as way of living in the United States. NOTE ON RECORDING. I used an Olympus digital voice recorder, VN-5200 PC. The interview was recorded in file A using only one track, which was forty-six minutes long. The tape quality is quite good, with no main interruptions involved. Overall the interview went smoothly with no background noise. Once the interview was complete it was imported into the computer and with the use of WinFF it was converted from a WMP (Windows Media Player) file to a WAV file, which is the one needed in order to work with it.

3 D# TRANSCRIPT Miguel Celeste (Compiled April 20, 2011) Interviewee: Interviewer: Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) Linda Herrera Interview Date: April 13, 2011 Location: Length: Chapel Hill, NC (Davis Library) Audio recording, one CD; approximately 46 minutes START OF AUDIO RECORDING, CD # 5 Linda Herrera: Hi my name is Linda Herrera and I am interviewing Miguel Celeste. Today's date is April 13th and the current time is 12:14pm. This interview is taking place in the Davis Library and now I'm going to let Miguel consent. Miguel Celeste: I agree to all the terms specified and I consent to this interview. LH: First of all thank you very much for accepting to participate in this project and for your willingness to share your story with us today. I would like to start off by asking you a little bit about your family, such as where they are from and where they currently live today. MC: We are all from Mexico. My dad lives in Siler City, North Carolina, but he will be leaving later this Friday. He's going to leave to go back to Mexico and I probably may not see him for a very very long time. My mom and my younger sister live in a small town in Georgia and I currently live in Carrboro by myself. LH: Were you born in Mexico as well? MC: Yes I was born in Mexico. I was born in 1988 and lived in Mexico till 1998, so I lived there for ten years. LH: Is there a specific reason why you all migrated to the United States?

4 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) 2 MC: My dad migrated first. For economic reasons he couldn't take care of me, my sister and my mother, so he migrated here a year or two before I did [he couldn't exactly remember when]. He migrated here to Siler City and lived there a year or two by himself and other family members. Then he decided that he wanted us to come here [to United States] because he thought that we were going to have a better future here and so that's what we did. In August of 1998 my sister, my mom, and I came to this country by migrating here. LH: How was the actual process of migrating here? MC: The process itself was very hard, we came undocumented obviously. So it was decided early in the year that we were going to do that so my mom started saving money and my dad started sending more money so that we could prepare for the trip. It was a one week trip from Tuxtepec, Oaxaca, where we lived, to the border in Augua Prieta, Sonora. From then on we were attempting to cross the border with coyotes or polleros (smuggler of migrants) and that took a week actually, so it was not that long. We did three attempts, twice we were caught. The first time we were caught it was in the middle of the night when trying to walk through the fields and stuff. Then we attempted either the same night again or the night afterwards. In that attempt we were actually walking a lot more all during the night and it wasn't until dawn that we were caught again by INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service). That time we were taken to a detention center and processed. I don't think I was processed since I was like ten, but I was told by my mother that we needed to get fake names and lie; so I was probably very scared. I actually don't remember much about how I felt at the time. I do remember my mom talking to my dad on the phone afterwards that me and sister were very scared and

5 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) 3 that we didn't want to do it again and that we would not try a third time. Just because we were there and a lot of money was put into it, a couple days later we had our third attempt. This one was different since it did not really involve that much walking. The town Agua Prieta in Douglas on the U.S. side was basically divided by a big yellow fence. There's ( Outside of that is ( ) there's a point where the countries meet and there's the road. ), it's very--. Outside of that are gates and fences, so it was decided that we were just going to jump the fence from one side of the town to the other. This was much riskier because a lot of INS cars were patrolling the area, but our coyotes decided to do it anyways. I don't think they were in their right state of mind at the time. They didn't look healthy, they were pretty much looking high, but that's what they said so that's what we did. And we waited till there were no INS trucks around and we jumped this fence that to me at the time when I was ten looked like two floors high. My sister could crawl under it, but I could not because I was already too big and so I had to climb it up and just jump to the other side. Not from the top because that would have killed me, but climb down and jumped. From then on we were on the Douglas side and we ran through neighborhoods until we got to an abandoned house where we stayed a day. The coyotes who do the border crossing left us with other coyotes who deal more with transporting migrants from the abandoned houses. Those coyotes left us and they took us to Phoenix to a safe house where there were a lot of other migrants who were just waiting for more money to arrive so that they could send them on a plane trip to whatever their destination was. My mom, my sister, and mine being Charlotte, North Carolina where my dad's friends were going to meet us there so that they could take us back to Siler City

6 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) because my dad was at work so he couldn't actually be there. We meet with him [referring to his father] when we arrived to Siler City. LH: It definitely sounds like a very difficult process for just a week. [Interviewee laughs a little]. You said you don't remember a lot but, how did this affect you emotionally and psychologically? MC: The one big thing that came out of that is the fact that I'm afraid of heights now. I looked down at the ground when I was at the top of the fence and I don't think I have ever forgotten because ( ), but it was very high up for me. Ever since then I have never been comfortable with heights, so I always try not to look at windows and stuff because it just does not go well for me. So that was for me the biggest psychological thing. The other thing is that ever since then and I've been living here since 1998,1 don't think I have ever wanted to go back to Mexico because I don't want to go through that again. I did it as a child and it's different to do it as an adult, there's a lot more risks. Especially now with the ramped up immigration enforcement, the routes are a lot more riskier now and I don't think I could do that again or want to do that again. For instance my dad has left the country and came back once, but I myself could never risk something like that because of what I went through so I never have left. So in my mind is that the day I leave the U.S. it will probably be the day I leave forever and not come back because it's not something that I would like to do again. I don't remember how I felt, I probably was very scared and I manifest that through the fact that if I leave I am never coming back; not like that at least, so that's one thing.

7 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) 5 LH: Definitely understandable as to why you wouldn't want to go through that again. So you said you came to the U.S when you were ten, how was integrating yourself into the American culture? MC: I remember this very clear, I arrived on a Wednesday and I was put in school on the Friday of that same week [interviewee laughs]. So there was no real waiting time between crossing the border and going to school. So they put me in school that Friday and my name was messed up. In this interview I am going by Miguel Celeste, so let's say my name was Miguel Garcia Celeste. In Mexico the Garcia would be the real last night, but because we took my schools--. So when they asked you for a last name we took that literally, Celeste became my last name and that's my mom's last name. So ever since then I basically changed my name when I came here and now I go by my mother's last name. That was the first change and it was curiosity for me. I was put in school and I did not know any English at all. I went through classes not knowing what the hell was happening and what was going around me because I had only one block of ESL class where I could actually understand the people around me. Outside of that I was in classes where I had no idea what was going on and I didn't like it. Coming from school in Mexico where I was very smart and very academically oriented to not knowing what the hell I was doing was not very good for me. I remember that as soon as I got into the car when my mom and dad came to pick me up [from school], I was crying [interviewee laughs] telling them that I could not do this and that I wanted to go back. I felt like I had no friends and like I had nothing, I just really wanted to go back at that time. My dad and my mom told me that that was not possible and I just had to suck it up and go back on

8 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) 6 Monday, so I did. It was hard in many ways to integrate myself into American society; I don't think I have ever really fully. It took three years for me to go from ESL classes, English as a second language to being a full fledge student and just in normal classes like everybody else. So fifth and sixth grade I just stayed in ESL classes sheltered there and being taught a lot of basic stuff. Then when seventh grade arrived they told me I can no longer do that because I had progressed enough so that I didn't have to, so I didn't. Ever since then I sort of have been just a regular student in middle school and in high school. I had a lot of migrant friends because of my time in ESL and because I spoke Spanish. I also had a lot of American friends and this became very much I separated myself a lot actually because I felt like a lot times I could not fit with one group or the other. I was too different for my American friends and then I felt like I was too smart for my migrant friends. I was among the only migrant there was only one other migrant person who in high school for instances took AP (advance placement) classes. Those classes were very very small and I was the only immigrant there or there might have been someone else. In that way I felt different, I just never felt like I could fit in with other people and I didn't in either way. LH: Besides the language barrier, what other difficulties did you face when coming to the school system here? MC: Outside the language barrier not much. There's a lot of background information that I didn't know and still don't know. For instance, just regular American things that other people take for grant it like I don't know. I can't think of any at the moment but sometimes it just comes up and even now with friends they are like you are supposed to know this and I'm like no I don't know anything about that so whatever. So

9 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) 7 it's just little common cultural stuff that I'm not sure about, but I integrated myself very well in that sense. Like in all I read a lot to keep up with everything so it was not really that difficult for me. It was just making friends what was slightly a little bit more difficult. Aside of that it was all fine, it was all fine really until the end of my junior year and senior year when things got different because like I said I was very smart and everybody sort of expected me to go to college. That is when there's the expectation of everybody doing their college applications, where they are going and all this and that. Then I~at least my teachers all expected that from me, but I was like well I'm not going to apply to college because I don't think I can go. That's when my teacher's decided to force me to apply to college, especially my librarian in high school. They told me that I needed to apply and there was only one school that they told to apply to and that was this one. Because they she said that if there is one school that was going to be at the time willing to accept me despite everything else that I had going on against me with the whole documentation thing. They were going to be the only ones willing to accept me, so I was literally forced to apply because I didn't want to. I graduated high school in 2006 and in 2005 there was someone else who was very very smart and that I cannot remember her name, but she was I think number two in her class after one of my friends. She applied to college and stuff and she didn't rejected, but she could not afford it because no school was willing to pay for her. So it was just about the same as getting rejected because she could not pay in state for North Carolina and would have to pay the out-of-state-tuition so that I could go to college and there is no way that I could afford

10 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) that at any college what so ever and even a community college for me was out of the question so that's why I didn't want to apply to any university or college. LH: I'm going to go back a little bit. How was transitioning from middle school to high school? Did you expect certain things from high school? MC: No. For me it was just worrying a lot about my home life and stuff going on there to ever really care that much about transitioning from middle school to high school. It was just going to classes and learn my ( ) and hanging out with friends whenever I could. Not that big of a deal for me, it was for a lot of my friends and I realized this because they had this big expectation. I didn't really feel it, it was just changing from one location to another and I didn't feel any different at the time, so it was not that big of a deal for me. LH: When you got to high school, how did you know what classes to take and what direction to go for? MC: I basically just picked what I liked. I didn't really have any direction, so I just picked classes that I liked, honor classes usually and that's because I could get to them. Then when I was a junior I started picking up AP classes because at the time in my head I was already sort of defeated in that I was not going to go to college and I said to myself that AP classes were going to be as close to college as I was ever going to get. So I decided to take those classes even though a lot of my especially my good migrants friends told me that that was stupid because why was I going to do that to myself when I was not going to go to college. You're just trying to be ( ), so I so that didn't matter to me and I took them anyways. I liked the challenge and it's just something I felt like I wanted to do.

11 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) 9 LH: So did you take these classes just for the challenge and not because you were thinking these would help you go to college? MC: No, I never really thought about it that way. I never thought about any class like oh this would look great on my going to college resume. I never had any type of thinking ever in my life, even when I was a senior. I mean I just took those AP classes because I thought it was a good thing. My thinking really was that that was as close to college as I was ever going to get and I should do that because I wanted to go to college but I knew or I thought at the time it was not a possibility so that's why I did it. It was never really a thought of oh this is going to look great. In high school I never had any extracurricular activities outside of the beta club and the quiz bowl. Unlike a lot of my other friends who had like hundred other things, they were doing a lot things because it was going to look good. See for me that didn't really matter because I wasn't going to do any of that and I wasn't going to go to college so why bother so I just--. Instead of doing extracurricular stuff with projects, I would go home and play video games or do my homework and that's all. So I never thought anything about classes and extracurricular or anything like that. LH: Did you have an understanding or some sort of knowledge before coming here that you wanted to go to college? Or maybe not here, but in Mexico? MC: No, I mean I always heard that smart people went to college and they got good jobs in offices, but in Mexico it's not really that big of a deal. LH: So it wasn't something that your family really pushed for? MC: No. Not in Mexico and actually not here either. When I started doing the whole college application process here, they never really said no don't do it, but at the

12 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) 10 same time they were not really encouraging either because they'd seen what had happen to other people and I guess in a way they didn't want me to end up getting disappointed like everybody else I knew that had tried before me at the time. As I said the girl before me, in the previous class who was very very smart, smarter than I was couldn't go anywhere so in a since my parents I guess they never said no don't do that, but there wasn't much else they could do with any of that. So it was never in the plans for me to go to college. The plan was for me to finish high school and get a job to start earning money. They just never sort of got the whole college thing and I know a lot of my friends had their parents doing research about this and that. When I came to UNC I did not know where Chapel Hill was while I was applying. I didn't know what UNC basketball was, I didn't know about any of that before [I came]. The first time I visited UNC was in November of 2005 and I really really liked it and enjoyed it, but before that I had no idea anything about college or about going through applications. It was never in my radar at all, it's just never going to happen for me; it never was. LH: You said that you were almost force to apply by your teachers, so how was that college application process for you? MC: I basically did everything they told me to do because I had no idea how to fill out an application at the time and nor did my parents. So I basically had to rely on them and they were--. A lot of the standard stuff like filling out the application and doing the essays was fine, but then it came out to how do I do a financial aid application like the FAFSA (The Free Application for Federal Student Aid). I didn't do a FAFSA because I was told not to do one because I was not going to get any aid, so why bother. So I didn't do for instance that, but I had a lot talks with a UNC admissions person about my

13 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) 11 situation and how that was going to work. They basically what I was told in the end and what was going to happen was that they were going to put my application with the eighteen percent of out of state students that they had and to compete with them. I was told that if I could actually get myself into UNC and get accepted then someone was going to find me a scholarship. There's a professor, a very good friend of mine who I met in 2005 during my senior year. Peter told me that he was going to do whatever possible thing he could do to find me a scholarship that would pay for everything, as long as I myself through my own strengths was able to get myself into UNC. I did not have great extracurricular activities, so that shot me down there; but I did take seven AP classes. They also told them he [referring to Peter] told the admissions people that I did not do that because I was thinking of going to college, I did that just because I wanted to. They valued that because they know a lot people are taking all these classes to because it makes them look good in an application. I did it because I had a lot of time on my hands basically [interviewee laughs] and that's what I thought was the best thing, so that actually looked great. I took seven AP classes; I was in the top five percent of my classtop ten, so they accepted me. Peter, my professor came through with what he said and he gave me a full ride scholarship here. I still don't know how that happened, I consider it a miracle quite frankly because I had never known of anyone else before me who had done it from that high school and I was probably the first. I have met others, but to me it was the first. In that high school now there's a mentoring program that helps out students like that, but I had nothing. I had no idea what I was doing, I had no help, and I had no mentors. I had my teachers and that was it. It was different because I didn't want to do it because I

14 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) 12 knew~i instinctively knew that I was not going to get in because those things happened to other people and not to you and then somehow it did. I visited Chapel Hill in November and really enjoyed it. Then by the time I visited again it was April and got a tour from my teachers in high school who were UNC alumni because they were also involved in the process of getting me here. That day I was like I am coming here and this was going to be my place. Somehow and someway it was and then it ended up being my place for four years. The time here was great, I loved it. LH: How was finding out that you were going to come to UNC? How did your parents feel about it? MC: I was just quiet when I was told. My high school counselor got the letters of who got it in and you didn't because she knew of everyone that had applied. In that class only five people got into UNC and I was one of them. When I was told I couldn't believe it because--. For me getting into UNC it ended up not being the problem because despite of the problems I still couldn't believe it because it was a lot of money. It was 120,000 dollars paid for, it's just a lot of money and I could not believe that that was going to happen. So when I got the news I took it quietly because I was like well I get in, but it's going to be the same thing as with the girl that got in and didn't get any financial aid or anything like that, so why bother. But the real excitement for me came when Peter told me that I was going to get the money. That's when everything sort of became real in a way. I had been planning finishing high school and start looking for jobs. Then it suddenly became finishing high school and start preparing to go to college, which was not in my mind and it was just crazy in a way. For my parents when I told them I got in, they also had the same skeptical mind that I did. They were like "oh you get in so who's

15 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym), 13 going to pay for it because we can't," they don't have that kind of money. It wasn't the shock didn't come until Peter actually came through with and said I have the money and you have your scholarship so you can go. That's when things were really shocking to them because they could not believe it since they had never heard of anyone like that before. So it was as I said they considered it a miracle and so did I. So it was just shocking. By August I was both of my parents came up here and they are separated so it was a big deal for them to come together. Well in different cars, but they came together on the same day to leave me in the dorm because I was going to live on north campus. It was just very bizarre; I could not believe it until the moment I was just there by myself and with a roommate. I was like this is really it, this is me here and it's kind of shocking in a way and it still is. LH: Definitely a great accomplishment. How was transitioning to college coming from such a small high school? MC: It was very challenging because I come from a small high school where everybody sort of knows each other and at the same time I felt very comfortable with being undocumented at that high school because it wasn't a big deal. Coming here suddenly I didn't feel very comfortable at all being what I am. See the thing about me is that unlike a lot of my friends who don't believe in sharing what they are and they keep it that way with everyone they know, even their best friends don't know. I believe that you cannot form a real friendship until they know that about you and they accept you for who you are. That was going to be a big challenge for me because it was very difficult for me to trust people in the beginning. I didn't make friends that easily, so I felt very lonely at the same time. In high school I knew I was not the only one, I was not the only person in

16 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) my situation. I had a lot of friends who were in the same situation, so it was sort of a comrade of people in that same type of situation, whereas here I did not meet anyone in my same situation till my sophomore year. I went through a lot of digging and a lot of prodding, through a lot of different sources who wouldn't tell me the first or last name. Then I actually found out who it was and that to me was a great relief to know that I was not the only person here in that same situation. We were the only two I believe for the longest while, until recently when things started to open up and thanks to the mentoring program at the high school more students in that situation have been here, but at the time we only knew of ourselves and then she graduated. Yea it was difficult to trust people. I felt like I was out of my place because in high school culturally there's a lot of the same type of people like me. Here there was no one and even the Hispanic people that are here it's different because they are legal or they come from another country so for them everything is fine and for me everything is not fine. So I felt very lonely for the longest time, until I found the other person and then even after I did there were still those friendships that were still sort of different in a way. Friends would say let's go drive to some place and I would say well I can't drive so. They would say let's do this and do that and I'm like no I shouldn't do that because I can't do that and I can't get in any sort of trouble because that would be bad with any sort of situation. For instances you know friends do drunk things and then if the police gets them well it's a slap in the wrist they are college students, but if it's me then it's slightly more difficult because I'm not just a college student. Then there was also the ( ) stuff with the university and financial aid. I myself have never been a quiet person about who I am so I gave out a lot of interviews to a lot of media and the university did not like that.

17 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) 15 So a lot times I just didn't feel comfortable with sharing this stuff. I've been interviewed by a lot of newspapers, I've done radio interviews, been part of magazines like Newsweek and The New York Times, but UNC never really liked it. There was a time when they brought me down to South Building and I had certain people there that scared the crap out of me by telling me that if somehow the University's name and my name and I being undocumented became an issue or people knew about it in a very big scale and if there was an investigation that basically they would let me burn. Not only that, they were also going to let my friends who were undocumented like the friend I meet, they were also going to burn because they would rather throw me under the bus than to let the university be part of some sort of investigation. So they would rather deny me than to take any chance. So typically I always thought that I didn't exist at UNC. I was here, but I didn't exist in the grand scheme of things. I don't know things have changed now with other students. We are going to see with the especially a friend of mine who is coming here this coming year he is even more out there than I am so I'll see how things have changed, that will be interesting to see. LH: So did that change your experience here at UNC? MC: Yeah I mean when you get told that--. None of my friends ever got told or marched to South Building being told that they couldn't talk about themselves because they were going to not kick them out but they were like if there's an investigation by a certain immigration agency we are going to let them have you. So you know I had that experience, when most of my friends say I have a bad day such and such thing. When I have a bad day, it's very very bad. Things are far more different when I have a bad day, but when my friends have a bad day that's usually a good day for me. When I have a bad

18 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) 16 day that's usually the worst nightmare because I have had to deal with a lot of other things that they have not had to deal with. I also kept a blog for the longest time about my experiences of being an undocumented student and then not here at the university obviously because I'm not that out there, but I met a lot of people through that. Some of those were good people and a lot of bad people as well. I got constant attacks there and death threats online. People who don't know me at all and my friends don't have that. You know you get up to look at your laptop and look at the s. They get stuff from classes and I get threats from God knows where. I got every sort of death threat that you can possibly imagine and I had to live with that. Yes I put myself out there, but just because you put yourself out there that doesn't mean you have to get threaten by everyone. The other side of that is that I met a lot of other undocumented people throughout the country. Then coming to college and actually having internet here allowed me to see that I was not the only so that helped out a lot too, but at the same time I also saw how a lot of us are a very depressed group of people [interviewee laughs a lot]. We are a very depressed group of people and because I put myself out there in the internet with my blog and talking, a lot of people somehow thought I was happier or had figured out how to live here. So I got a lot of depressive friends who just--. I had to talk to a lot of suicidal friends who were just it was bad. Eventually it ended up with one of the people I knew committing suicide my senior year here. That was I can ask my friends how am I different. I can ask my friends how many people they know who have committed suicide and none of them will answer or raise their hands to say one. I can say I know three, so that's different. How many people have been threatened by the administration that if there was some investigation

19 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) there were going to let them go? That would be me. How many people get upset with the political situations here like back when the community colleges were going to be closing to undocumented students? I was very upset, but they had no idea about any of that. They had no stack in the manner, I did. I was very insulted and very upset by that. It was different, they had their words and I had my own words as a student. I had my friends, my relationships and classes, but on top of all of that I also had all this other stuff that was going on. Stuff with family, stuff with the administration; stuff with the friends online and with interviews that came out from that that I had to deal with. It was very hard to keep it all together and my grades at UNC suffered as a result. I was never kicked out thankfully, but I never felt as smart as I used to be in high school. Yes, it was very very tough being here and doing all of this. I wouldn't recommend anyone ( ). In many ways I was very happy here, but in many ways I was very sad to be here [interviewee took a big sigh when saying "sad"]. LH: Definitely understandable after going through all what you went through. You said you have graduated, so how has life been since you graduated and what difficulties have you faced since then? MC: Graduation for many of my friends I have this quote on my facebook some place, it means being able to move on, get a better job and start a new life. My life had I graduated high school and not gone to college it would have been the same. I work as a waiter at a Japanese restaurant, that's not any different than anyone graduating high school. I worked as a cook at another restaurant and that's the kind of job I'm ever going to have here. Despite all my connections online that I have made, I have never met a single undocumented person actually be able to use their degree in whatever it is that they

20 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) 18 might have it in. To actually use it, like their degree actually matters in what they do; never have I met anyone like that. I have met people who have gone through law school, who are doing med school, who are doing post undergrad, they still can't do anything. They still end up as janitors, cooks, and waiters. So after graduating my life is the same, it was sort of what I was expecting after high school. It was great four years, I really enjoyed it. It allowed me to be an undocumented student for longer than I imagined myself being, but now I'm just as I said an illegal immigrant and now I'm doing the same thing that parents would be doing. So graduating doesn't really change anything, you know my friends have gone off to do other things like grad school, but I'm not doing any of that. LH: Do you have plans of doing any of that? MC: No. As I come to find out it's not very hard actually or in comparisons to ( ). It's not that hard to get into undergrad as an undocumented student, a lot of people do it. You have to be very tough and lucky, but a lot of people do it. A lot more than I originally thought do it, but you have to be extremely extremely extremely lucky to be able to go pass that. You have to be super genius, which I know of some people who are that go to law school and stuff like that or have a guardian angel who is willing to pay for it. Yes UNC paid for my UNC tuition and everything, but no one is going to be willing to pay for me after that. I don't know of many people who actually have been able to make plans after that and I myself am not one of them. What I've seen out there are people who are living at home with their parents because that's cheap and doing waiter jobs and stuff like that or living by themself like I am and doing waitering jobs. So [small pause] it doesn't really change anything. I am probably never going to get past

21 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) 19 being a waiter or a cook here. So as long as I remain here, that's my choice. This is what I know so that's why I am doing this and why I live like this. I could easily probably go back and be a teacher over there that's actually what I always wanted to be, always. Ever since I was in Mexico I always have wanted to be a teacher and I can't do that here. I guess when I do have enough courage and get fed up enough with the system and people here, I may go back and do that over there; but until then I'm stuck here doing waitering jobs and looking for other jobs like that. LH: Since you are in that situation where you can't really do anything with your degree. What would you want to tell the people in charge like the senators or just the general public about undocumented students and letting them pursue a higher education? MC: We are not to blame for what are parents decide for us, I didn't just come here and yet I'm here. I'm pretty sure I could do a much better job at teaching than I am doing waiting tables. I could be a much more productive member of society anyways and could pay more taxes. I think it is wrong to keep us like this for as long as we have been because--. I know a lot of people just a lot of people who have degrees; I'm an English major so I know a lot of people who are English majors and history majors. My friend who went here and who graduated already, she was a bio major and she could be doing something. She was really smart and she was doing something with ( ), she could be doing research some place God knows where, yet she's I think at best working as an interpreter in a hospital somewhere in Seattle. So you know really smart people are just being janitors and waiters. I had one friend who was actually very lucky, he went to Canada and he is working for them over there; instead of being here. He didn't want to leave, but he was rejected by the UNC dental school or some school here in the UNC

22 Miguel Celeste (pseudonym) system. So someone came and said "hey we'll take you" and so he left. Last time I heard about him, he was buried under twenty-five feet of snow, but he was very happy. He was doing something with his degree, something more than just being a waiter. I think that we all want is to be more than waiters and cooks and living at home not being productive. To do more than that. LH: Well I think we have come to the end of this interview. I don't know if you would like to add anything else? MC: No, I don't know what else I could add. LH: Well thank you very much for taking the time to participate and for sharing your story more than anything. You're a great example of a great student who has pushed yourself way more than a lot of other students just because you have had to and I think that's a great accomplishment in itself. I hope the best for you in the future and hopefully things will change for the better. MC: We'll see [both interviewer and interviewee start laughing]. We'll see. LH: Thank you. MC: No problem. END OF AUDIO RECORDING (CD # 5) AND END OF INTERVIEW Transcriber: Linda Herrera Date of Transcription: April 20, 2011