Maria Arqueta

Broward County, Fl

I came to America from Guatemala.  I swam across the Rio Grande—there were snakes and I can’t swim. But I got a tube—from inside a tire—and the coyotes guided me across. 

I was hoping to find my mother—but when I did, she had a boyfriend and he was bad to me.  Eventually I was caught by the Immigration and Naturalization Services and ended up in detention in Miami.  It was hard.  I missed my mother.  But they had school every day and I liked to study. 

I met Soledad when she was doing a documentary on my story.  She followed my case as it went before a judge—and he granted me a visa!  I just got my green card and I am a foster child in the state of Florida.

When someone believes in me it makes me feel like—I want to keep going and going until I get to my goal.  And knowing that Soledad (and her producer Rose Arce) want to help—it makes me do good in school. This is a way for me to tell them thank you for everything they have done. I think God has been with me most of the time, and has put the right people around me, like my friends and social workers and Soledad and Rose and my attorneys.  My goal is to graduate from college.  Transfer to a university and do my classes to be a pediatrician.