Nuria Mejia

Student

“People say to me, ‘Ah, Nuria. You’re full of dreams.’ And I tell them ‘That’s true. Now watch them happen.’”

Nuria Mejia lives in a very dangerous neighborhood where, she reports, “I don’t have anything at all to say to the people on drugs.” She takes three buses to arrive at SMC. And then her day begins to brighten. “SMC has been my own perfect little world,” says Nuria who arrived from El Salvador in 1981. “El Salvador punishes its students really hard. They hit you and call you ‘stupid’ if, actually, you’re just being quiet. At times in my life,” she continues in perfect English, “I felt like all the doors were closed for me. But the college has thrown them all open and I’m going to continue to progress and never look back.”

Nuria’s transition to America was a trauma in and of itself. “I was illiterate. I couldn’t read or write at all,” she says. “And then my mother—who I hadn’t seen for years—had me and my two brothers flown in to LAX. But we didn’t know what our mother looked like!” says Nuria. “We just sat there on the bench, waiting-like a bunch of E.T.s.” But finally, the family was reunited. “And everything that’s happened since is like being reborn.”

Nuria is extremely involved with CLUE and with the Latino Center on campus, where she recently won a scholarship. “I was really, really shy,” says Nuria. “But all my activities at SMC have made me more sure of myself, more vocal and outspoken. I feel like I’m part of the campus and that I belong.” Nuria plans to take her BA at UCLA and then go on to medical school. “I really think I’ll be a good pediatrician because I’m really good at connecting with people and listening. And in my experience,” she adds, “listening is a skill that most doctors could really work on a lot.”

Nuria has come a very long way from the fearfulness of El Salvador and being an “E.T.” on an airport bench.

Back