Mother's Sacrifice Fuels South Senior's Success

Family Flees Guatemala

Nerlin, her mother and her grandmother fled to El Salvador after they realized the young girl was at risk in Guatemala. But when they arrived in El Salvador, they still weren’t sure if they were safe.

“Once we got to El Salvador, we were basically hiding from the guys,” Nerlin said. “My mom decided to illegally immigrate to the U.S. Obviously, I couldn’t come with her because it was too dangerous.”

92 Pounds, But in the U.S.

Nerlin’s mother met up with a group of people trying to sneak across the border into America. It took her eight tries before she successfully arrived in the United States. During this time, young Nerlin had no contact with her mother. The young girl was staying with her grandmother, and they feared the worst.

“We didn’t know anything about my mom for eight months,” Nerlin said. “We thought she was also dead. … She was basically dying. She weighed 92 pounds. It was really bad.”

The trip to the U.S. was done with one water bottle that was passed from person to person, just to get their lips wet. They had no food, Nerlin said, and sexual abuse on the trail was a common occurrence.

But her mother survived and worked three low-paying jobs, staying under the radar as an illegal immigrant. She sent everything she had home to her daughter.

A New Family for Nerlin

Things started looking better for the family when Nerlin’s mother met and married a man from Wisconsin. Finally, Nerlin could be reunited with her daughter.

U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement had different plans. When the government agency learned that Nerlin’s mother had illegally traveled into the U.S., they deported her to El Salvador. During this time, Nerlin was legally allowed entry into the country to live with her new stepdad.

“At that time she was pregnant with my sister,” Nerlin said. “She ended up having my sister in El Salvador – and her dad is from here. It was a really hard situation. When I came to the U.S. they sent her back. So I was in the U.S. and my mom was in El Salvador.”

Her mother was allowed to return to be with her family a year later with the Nerlin’s baby sister.

Nerlin and her mother are now U.S. citizens. They are currently saving money to help Nerlin’s grandmother join them from El Salvador.

“It is like, ‘Wow, Mom, you did all of that for me,’” Nerlin said. “She wanted to get me out of there because I was in danger because of what happened to my dad.”

A New Life

Nerlin recalled traveling to the U.S. with her new stepdad when she was 12 years old. Children were speaking English on the seat behind her. She told him, in Spanish, that she wished she could understand them. He responded that she would one day, but she was unsure if she ever would.

“I didn’t speak English whatsoever,” Nerlin said. “I didn’t know anything about here. I didn’t know how to say ‘Hi, how are you?’ I was scared, I didn’t know what I was going to do or how I was going to learn the language.”

She spent a short time in Rhode Island before the family moved to Wisconsin – first Beaver Dam and then Waukesha. She was quickly acclimating to her new country, speaking fluent English within a year. She also appreciated fast food restaurants more than the typical pre-teen.

“When I had McDonald’s, it was like ‘Wow.’ I thought it was the best food in the world,” Nerlin said. “I honestly thought it was the best thing. Now McDonald’s is just McDonalds. It is fast food. You have a dollar, you buy McDonalds. It is so crazy now that I think back. So many people over there wish they had a little bit of what we have here – opportunity.”

Nerlin worked hard to get good grades as she attended school in the Waukesha School District, including her time at Waukesha South. Her drive is fueled by everything her mother did for her to bring her to the U.S.

“I just feel like it is an accomplishment for me to be here and to be a 4.0 student and to be so good at school,” Nerlin said. “Many kids don’t take advantage of the things they have. It is really hard over there. Some people don’t have food. I had to wake up at 5 a.m. because my school was an hour and a half away from where I lived. It was a little town, it was really small, and we didn’t have a car and we didn’t have the money. We had to wait for the bus at 5:30 a.m. and the bus would take me to a place and then I had to walk three miles to school.”

So it’s hard for her to understand why her classmates get involved with drugs and make other harmful decisions when they are faced with difficult life situations. Nerlin’s focusing on her hard work to help create a better life.

“I took advantage (of opportunities), especially when my mom tells me her story and what she went through,” Nerlin said. “I don’t think it would be fair to her for me to come here and not do anything and to be bad student or to do drugs. That is just dumb to me, that is not even a choice for me.”

Nerlin, who is a top student at the Waukesha Academy of Health Sciences, currently works in the Moreland Medical Center after school. After she pursues a degree in nursing from Carroll University, she hopes to advance her education to become a nurse anesthetist. When she is done with her education, she wants to work in the Waukesha area to help give back.

She also has a personal plan – to one day buy her own home through her hard work.

“My dream is to buy a house,” Nerlin said. “I am not thinking about kids anytime soon. … I have to be smart about that. All I am thinking about is becoming an independent woman.”