https://wifmradio.com/features/people-doing-good/680-marty-driver-mariana-vasquez
Hi everyone! With everything going on in North Carolina and the current political climate, I decided to be a little more vocal about my experience as a DACA recipient. I normally like to keep my life private, but I believe this is important to talk about .
In 2021 I was interviewed with my then boss, Marty Driver, by Gary York, then owner of a local news station, to share my story growing up in rural North Carolina with DACA and doing work in the community working at a free medical clinic.
I was born in Oaxaca, Mexico and I was brought to the US at 2 years old. I am the PROUD daughter of two farmworkers who left their home country to provide a better life for me. Although this audio was recorded 4 years ago, lately I am reminded that I am still in the same situation.
When you hear of undocumented people in the news or simply scrolling on Instagram or Facebook, it is easy to skip by and ignore. People may become desensitized. However, I believe that once you put a face to immigrants it becomes so much harder to ignore the reality we face in this country.
This is so much more than a political issue… it is a human rights issue. Throughout my life, I have had loved ones who have voted both blue and red. While I may not always understand their reasoning, I respect all people the same.
I may always be stuck in this limbo and I have accepted it. There is no pathway for citizenship for me and that is just the way it is.
I will continue advocating for my community in the ways I can and continue relying on God to provide me with the strength to help the most vulnerable and sick of the world. No matter what happens to me and other undocumented people, I have to trust God will protect us no matter where we go. No, we are not all criminals. We are your neighbors, your friends, your loved ones… we are the backbone of this nation and we are also HUMAN. Please remember we are all God’s children and deserve the same respect as everyone.
Best,
Mariana
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Transcription
Gary York – Good morning friends in the Yadkin Valley. We bring you People Doing Good for Others every Saturday morning. Thank you for being with us and your genuine interest in those who truly matter.
My guests today are Ms. Marty Driver. She’s a person who’s had significant influence in the years that I’ve been here with nonprofits, and she serves a nonprofit in Yadkinville called Hands of Hope, and we met or was chatting at a function several weeks ago at the Lake Hampton, and we were… and she says, I have a an assistant in our program that you must meet, and so I said, well how about tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock, and so that’s how quickly we were involved, and I’m so honored to have Ms. Mariana Vasquez with us, and she lives near between Boonville and Yadkinville. She’s a graduate of the Yadkin Early College, and on the way to UNC where she’s earned a full scholarship, so good morning to you, Marty.
Marty: Good morning, Gary.
Gary York: Ms. Vasquez.
Mariana: Good morning, I’m happy to be here.
Gary: It’s an honor to have you here, and through Marty Driver, this is gonna be an incredible experience for the Yadkin Valley, so tell us about coming to the states, and where your mom and dad are employed today, and working that through that, if you will, just becoming part of us, if you will, Mariana.
Mariana: I would say it all started when my dad came to the U.S. in his early 20s. He came because of financial hardship.
His mother had breast cancer, and so he started working immediately for the Smiths, and then he returned to Mexico and met my mother and had me, and we came back to the U.S. when I was two and a half, and so my parents have always worked. I can’t remember a day they haven’t worked.
Gary: That’s a good thing. Oh yeah, yeah, hard working is a good thing. Do we need to go now, maybe, to Head Start? Is that a good place to, following your journey, that we’re here today to talk about your contributions as an individual who matters in special ways to people, and we’re going to concentrate on that this morning, Mariana, so tell us about Head Start.
Mariana: I started Head Start when I was about three, and truly, Becky and Jeffrey Smith were the ones that first initiated that.
They wanted me to have an education, and they wanted me to be able to speak for myself and learn things, so I went to Head Start, and they have a program for migrant children, children of farm workers, and I went ahead, and I started going, and I just loved it right away… loved school. I love school.
Gary: Wow, that’s a good thing. Yeah, so the role of Ms. Smith, Becky Smith, in the Head Start, helping you there.
Mariana: She’s always been like a second mother to me.
I remember she would always encourage me to be better, to do something, and she’s always been there for me. She’s taken me to my appointments since I was young, and she’s made it so that I never feel alone in this world.
Gary: Wow, what a great gift. Never feel alone, and reflect, if you will, on your heritage and how difficult sometimes those adjustments are to make, to learn the language, and those challenges, Mariana, if you will. Talk about that.
Mariana: So when I arrived to the U.S., I was two and a half. All I had known before was Spanish, and so when I went to Head Start, that was a big awakening. I didn’t understand the language, so when I went, it was a whole new world.
Gary: Whole new world.
Mariana: Whole new world. Teachers would speak to me, and I would only understand bits and pieces, and it was a little hard, but I’ve just grown to feel like this is my home. This is where I belong, and this is all I’ve ever known.
Gary: All right, tell us about that moment we, as we rehearsed, we talked about going from English as a second language to advanced placement virtually overnight. Will you do that for me?
Mariana: Yes. I was enrolled in Boonville Elementary for Kindergarten, and of course, when I got there, I could understand a little bit of English, but I had a very big accent, and people couldn’t understand me very well, so it was tough, but I, of course, I love learning.
Gary: You hung in there.
Mariana: I hung in there. I tried and tried, and I never gave up, so initially they placed me in ESL classes, English as a second language classes, and of course then, I think in third grade, I took a test, and I got placed in AIG classes, so I was put in with kids who…
Gary: Advanced placement, wow. How about that? And then we had some great teachers. A lot of folks helped you through to storm out in middle school, and then someone came and wanted to talk about the early college, so share that with us, Mariana.
Mariana: Yes, so I’m a big believer, you know, to achieve great things, there has to… there’s always someone that has to believe in you and care for you, and so, of course, I had great teachers in elementary school, and they believed in me.
They believed in all of their students, and they believed in us, and they believed that we could accomplish everything, and of course, I went to middle school, and over there, someone came, a representative from the early college, and they spoke to us about how the early college had this great program, and how it would make things more affordable.
Growing up, I knew college would not be easy. It would not be easy to get into college.
Gary: It would maybe not be affordable in that dynamic, if you will, that reality, and so the early college was a great fit for you.
Mariana: Yes, it was a great fit for me. It was a path that I knew I had to take, and it was a path.
Gary: Path… Wow, what a great description. You paint a great picture there. Thank you for that, a path.
So now, as we speak today, you’re certified in four or five different areas. Tell us about your accomplishments or your ability to do today.
Mariana : It took a lot of hard work, and there were several classes I had to take, but I’m happy to say that this May, I graduated with an Associates in Arts degree, an Associates in Science degree, and I received a Spanish interpreting certificate, and thankfully, I passed my CNA certification.
Gary: CNA, and the high school diploma, too, so you have you have five certifications, as we speak, and I want to talk about your sister. There’s been such a wonderful influence, and you’re part of this drive that you have is to be to take care of your sister, so tell us about her.
Mariana: Yes, I was five when my sister was born. My sister has some disabilities. She has cerebral palsy, and she has several other conditions, and so I’ve always known growing up that my sister will never have a career.
My sister will never have a family of her own, and she won’t be able to do a lot of the things I have sort of taken for granted in my life, so growing up, she has influenced me to do all of those things for myself, and when I do those things, I’m not just doing it for myself. I’m doing it for her.
Gary: So you sense she’s right beside you all the time.
Mariana: Yes, she’s been right beside me, and she’s been such an inspiration. She’s the happiest person I know.
Gary: Happiest person you know.
Mariana: Yes.
Gary: Wow, way to go.
Mariana: She’s been there for me. She’s always there for me, and through growing up with her and her conditions, I’ve gone with my parents to many appointments. She’s had several surgeries, several therapists that have helped her, and through that path, I have seen how much need there is in health care for minority doctors, minority nurses, people in health care that want to help others.
Gary: So you’re the go-between, the interpreter for both sides.
Mariana: Yes.
Gary: Wow. So you go to, every time we go for an assessment, or you’re there as the person who lets folks know this is what was said.
Mariana: Yes, that’s what I strive to be, you know, because I understand people want to advocate for themselves, but they don’t always have the tools to do so. They don’t have that language, and I want to be there to facilitate that. And so your sister’s the happiest person you know.
Mariana: She sure is.
Gary: Way to go. Wow. You developed a relationship with Hands of Hope, and that, how did that happen?
Mariana: So about three years ago, I was talking to a friend, and she sort of mentioned that there was a need for interpreters at a free clinic, and so I just went on a Tuesday night, and I started volunteering at Hands of Hope as an interpreter. It was very busy, and there was a large shift.
Gary: As a volunteer? Yes.
Mariana: I started volunteering at Hands of Hope as a Spanish interpreter, and so what I would do is I would interpret for patients when they would speak to the providers, and then after that, Marty Driver arrived, and she’s been my biggest mentor.
Gary: That’s in 2018.
Mariana: In 2018.
Gary: In the fall of 2018. So you just really connected with Marty when she she came on the scene, and you became, two became one, kind of. Yes.
Mariana: And so we’ve been there for three years, and we’ve seen it all.
Gary: You’ve seen it all. Wow.
Now, then UNC became a driving force in your life, so let’s talk about going to Chapel Hill, and how you, you learned about diversity, and a lot about the programs there. Tell us that story.
Mariana: Yes. So of course, I’ve been volunteering and working at Hands of Hope for going on through three years, and through that, I wanted to be an advocate for people, not only as an interpreter, but I decided that I wanted to be an advocate in the future for patients. So I heard about this program, Latinx Ed, and I applied. I was able to be awarded as a 20 under 20 list maker for Latinx Ed, and through them, I heard about UNC, and the diversity that they have there.
They have a Latinx Center, and I knew that that’s the type of thing that I wanted to be involved in.
Gary: You said, again, a Latin Center?
Mariana: Yes, they have a Latinx Center.
Gary: Okay.
Mariana: That’s what it’s called, and through them, I found out that they really had a commitment towards diversifying the community, and I just knew that I wanted to go there.
Gary: So you applied, and tell us about that day when you learned about being accepted and the scholarship.
Mariana: I was about to take my mom to her Zumba class.
She’s been going to Zumba for about five years, and I told my mom, you know, hold on. I think the decisions are out, and so we waited a little bit, and I opened the computer, and right there, it said, congratulations, and I honestly can’t remember the rest. I just remember it said I was accepted, and…whooo… it was the best day of my life.
Gary: How wonderful.
Mariana: Yes.
Gary: Wow. So our aspirations at Chapel Hill and thereafter, tell us your goals in life. Yes, so I’m going in as a biology major, and I’m hoping to be on the pre-medical track, and through that, my goal is to be a doctor one day, a physician, and my goal is to be able to take care of patients, and to truly advocate for them.
Gary: Your sister was part of that influence in your life, I’m sure.
Mariana: Yes, yes, she has been my biggest inspiration in that, and she has gone through so much in her life, and my parents really had to find a way to navigate through that. They didn’t understand the language, and my sister needed the help. She had amazing doctors, amazing physicians, amazing people on her team that were always wanting to help her, and wanting to get her to where she needed to be, and that’s what I want to do one day.
Gary: Marty Driver, a significant influence in the life of Mariana Vasquez, and we’re in the studios at WIFM this morning, and we’re talking about this relationship. When you encouraged me to meet Mariana, tell us this relationship that you have, Marty Driver, and it’s a significance. It’s more than just a relationship helping folks who come to the clinic. It’s like a bonding that is hard to explain. Tell us about it.
Marty: That’s right, Gary. It is hard to explain.
Well, when I first started, Mariana was already there, but she just shined. I mean, I could just tell when I was there how compassionate she was, how good she was to do anything that needed to be done, and I noticed how well she interpreted, you know, for the Hispanic population that came in, and so we had several interpreters each night, but I found myself always going to her if I needed one, and then as time went on, and I took the role of executive director, I realized that I couldn’t run this clinic the way I wanted to unless I had an interpreter there with me just about all the time to answer telephone calls, you know, to make appointments, you know, because I couldn’t speak.
Gary: She became your right hand. Oh yeah, oh yeah. So the two became one.
Marty: Two became one, and thank goodness there was a grant opportunity that came along, and so that was the most important thing to me at the time, and so I wrote for an interpreter. You know, that’s the way I phrased the grant, you know, this is what I need. So anyway, I’m kind of like Mariana.
One night, I went and checked my email, and there it said, congratulations, you have been awarded, and it was a $20,000 grant award from CVS Foundation. Right. So I immediately, you know, went back to talk to her in the pharmacy.
She was there with me that night. I think we’re probably the last two there, and I said, Mariana, I said, what would you think about coming to work for me and let me pay you? She said, oh no, Marty, I can’t do it. I can’t take money from the clinic.
I’ll just volunteer if you need me more, and I said, Mariana, I have to pay you. I’ve got a grant award to pay an interpreter. I have to pay you, and she said, well, okay then, but she reluctantly accepted the money because she thought she was going to be taking it out of the coffers of the, you know, the clinic, which, you know, we survive off of donations, fundraisers, and grants.
So she thought she would be taking money from, you know, what the clinic could do for the community. So I had to really work on her to convince her, no, I had to pay her with this money.
Gary: So you’re a medical clinic.Tell us about those two areas that most of the folks who come in need this kind of help.
Marty: Well, most of the folks who come to us, well, first of all, they are uninsured. They have no health insurance.
We have few rules about the patients that we’ll see, and one of those is you have to be a resident of Yadkin County and have a photo ID with a Yadkin County address, and the other is simply you have to be uninsured. No Medicaid, no Medicare, no disability. So that’s all we require, and then you can become a patient of ours, and we are seeing growth like we can hardly believe and barely manage in that we’re averaging about 20 new patients a month.
Since, you know, COVID changed things a lot, needless to say, and I’m proud to say that the clinic stayed open all through COVID. We never shut down, and since the beginning of this year, our census and our patient load has really gone up, and it just continues to. In the two areas, primary areas of diabetes and high blood pressure.
Those are the two that we see the most, but we, you know, see a lot of other things, you know, chronic lung disease, heart disease. I mean, all those chronic care illnesses we can we can treat. Just really intrigued by family.
Gary: Tell us about when your sister’s name?
Mariana: Jasmine.
Gary: Jasmine, and your mom and dad, their names again?
Mariana: Laurencio and Rosario. Okay.
Gary: Tell us about DACA, too. We want to make sure we do that. I guess anxious all the time about your citizenship status.
Mariana: Yes. Whenever I’m with my family alone, it’s not something I think about because that’s just my family, but it’s always at the back of my mind when I’m outside, you know, that my time here may be limited. I am a DACA recipient, which means that I was brought here as a child, not legally, so every two years I have to renew this permission to be here, and that gives me the ability to…
Gary: And Ms. Smith takes you to Charlotte for that?
Mariana: Yes. Right. Becky Smith takes me to Charlotte every year, every two years, to renew my application, and every year I have to do things like have my biometrics done, have my fingerprints done, and it’s limited, you know, but I try to do the best of it, and recently there’s been a lot of decisions looming.
There’s not an answer right now as to what will happen to us. All I know is that, as of right now, there’s no path to citizenship, even though this is all I can remember. This is the place I have known my whole life, and I don’t know anything else, but right now there’s nothing I can do. It’s all in the hands of people in higher positions.
Gary: Let’s revisit your sister again and this resilience that I see and hear that, you know, there won’t ever be any barriers that we won’t work through and around, so this courage that you have, this confidence, these things that your makeup is about, we’ll find a way, and share that as we end our session today.
Mariana: I think it’s always important for us to take into account the opportunities that we have and to do the best we can to accomplish something. You know, my sister can’t do all of those things that I can do.
Gary: And you said she never will be. I was impressed with that since she won’t be able to, so I’m gonna be that person for her.
Mariana: Yes, I want to be there for her and do the things that I know she would want to do if she were able to, and I want to be there for others the way that so many people in my life have been there for me. I want to give back to the community and pay it forward.
Gary: And your relationship with Ms. Driver, that must be an all-time high for you.
Just talk about what it is to have people that care about you.
Mariana: Marty has been of the biggest supporters in my life. She’s done so many things for me and I’ve learned so much from her.
She has so much wisdom and she’s been able to sort of guide me in my life and motivate me to try new things and not to set a limit for myself, and I think that’s what we need. And she has truly shown me what compassion is and what it is to care for others so deeply.
Gary: We say that all tremendous achievers are standing on the shoulders of people that help them along the way, so Ms. Driver’s been that person for you and the Smiths and your mom and dad and teachers.
I sense that folks have recognized your specialness and are willing to get on board for you to be the best person you can be. Thank you for being at WIFN today.
Gary: You want to close?
Marty: Well, I just have one quick story, Gary, if I could just to tell you the importance of our relationship and what we were able to accomplish.
I’ll never forget early on when we first started together and I was, you know, seeing patients or helping patients and we had a Hispanic man coming into the clinic first time.
Gary: Now you’re a nurse.
Marty: I’m a nurse, yes, and we had diagnosed him that night with diabetes and his blood sugar was over 600, which is tremendously high.
We couldn’t quite make them understand how important it was for him to go to the hospital, so Mariana and I stood there in the exam room and I said to Mariana, Mariana, you tell his brother that if he doesn’t take him to the emergency room tonight, then he may find him dead in the morning because his brother wanted to wait until in the morning to take him because it was nine, probably nine o’clock at night when all this was going on and between the two of us, we impressed upon him how important it was that he take his brother that night to the emergency room.
Well, they admitted him to the emergency room. He stayed for about three days and they got him on some diabetic medicine and got him straightened out and so he’s still one of our patients and he comes in and picks on me and Mariana every time because truly, Gary, between the two of us, we saved his life.
Mariana: We really did.
Marty: Yeah, yeah, and now he comes in and you know, he gives me a hard time and then he says, where’s Mariana, you know, and so then he looks for her, but literally, you know, that we did that and that’s the kind of thing you can do, you know, if you have a, you know, a team like we’ve been.
Mariana: If you work together and you have a little bit of compassion, there’s nothing you can’t do.
Gary: How about that? Mariana Vasquez and Marty Driver, they’re together are a force, a team at the Hands of Hope Clinic in Yadkinville. Mariana is awarded a full scholarship, University of North Carolina, where she wants to be a pediatric doctor.
Mariana: Yes, I would like to be a doctor.
Gary: And her driving force is her family, more especially her sister, Jasmine, and we’re grateful today that Marty would bring us together and the three of us could share your experience, your strength, and your hope, and for us to all remember that there’s that of God in all of us.
Mariana: Thank you.
Marty: Thank you, Gary.
Gary: Bye-bye.
Thank you for joining us for People Doing Good for Others, presented by Chick-fil-A of Mount Airy. Please join us again next Saturday morning and encourage your friends to listen as we highlight People Doing Good for Others, produced by 100.9 WIFM and Yadkin Valley Broadcasting.