Humans of NGU: Jose Correa
Rondo Thompson, staff writer
Photo credit: Rondo Thompson
Jose Correa is just like any other college student. He enjoys hanging with friends, going out with friends and just living the college dream. However, his story on how he got to this point in his life is a little different than most.
Correa was born in Mexico and at the age of 2, moved to the states to the small town of Pelzer, S.C. Correa and his parents came to the states as immigrants that have “crossed over”, meaning coming over to America illegally.
His parents’ plan was to come to America to work for a year to save enough money to go back to Mexico and to open up their own business. After the year had passed, his parents decided to stay and 22 years later, they are still here. Correa’s mother is a factory worker while his father works in construction. Correa speaks on how the transition was harder for his parents than him; being new to a country, only speaking Spanish and to moving to a town that barely had any Hispanic community.
Correa is now a senior biology major with plans to attend medical school to become a general family doctor. His status is still illegal immigrant, but thanks to the DACA (Deferment Action for Childhood Arrivals) which is the act established in 2012 to allow immigrants already in America to work or to get an education as long as they were here five years prior to the act, he is able to complete his education and continue living in the states. With Jose’s status as illegal, he is not able to receive financial aid and his parents must pay for his school completely out of their pockets.
Correa’s upbringing has made him appreciate his parents’ sacrifice for him. “I have always grown up humble, I always want to remember everything my parents have done for me,” he said.
Before I started to ask him questions, the first thing he told me was he is an illegal immigrant. His reasoning for this is that he feels immigrants all get a bad stigma. “I want to change how everyone see immigrants,” he said.
