Freshman Cristina Devia is ready to change a part of the world that is near and dear to her heart. With a big smile and bright eyes she passionately tells the story of her family and their journey from a politically unstable Colombia to the United States and how she must -- and will -- give back.
"I sleep very deeply, and one time my mom came into my room in the morning to wake me up. She asked me if I had heard anything the night before," Devia said. "I hadn't, and she told me that a bomb had gone off two blocks down the road at the new radio station in the middle of the night."
For Devia, this was a fact of life in Colombia. She explained that a local insurgency group receiving money from Europe was not happy with what the station was saying about them and was worried that it would lose its support abroad, so the group tried to blow it up. Furthermore, Colombia has rivaling insurgency groups, which create a spirit of competition, glory and diffidence, not only among the groups, but also between the groups and the state government. As a child, Devia remembers the insurgency groups stopping buses going to the capital, Bogota, and searching Colombian citizens and taking their money.
"Kidnapping is a big deal in Colombia because, if an insurgent member sees someone driving by who seems like they have a lot of money, they will kidnap them and then ask for a large ransom," she said. "Also, they will recruit young kids to their groups. They offer them food and protection but will tell them that they have to kill a friend or even their parents to prove they are loyal to the group. And they'll do it because they are uneducated and desperate."
She explained that, like most insurgency groups, they developed as a voice to represent the people but are now characterized by corruption. In fact, the insurgency groups support the drug cartels that dominate Colombia as a source of income.
When Cristina's father was threatened by one of the groups, her family decided that they had to leave the country. He moved to the Washington, D.C. area where he lived with her aunt and got a job in a restaurant. After six months, he applied for asylum for the family, but it was one and a half years before it was granted.
"The U.S. immigration system is terrible. It takes forever to do everything. My mother had to prove that we lived in Colombia before we could come," she said. "She had to get letters from our schools and church and take pictures around Bogota. Members of the insurgency noticed her taking pictures. They called my grandmother's house and said that if my mother didn't leave, they would kill her."
Devia and her family finally came to the United States in 2002. In November 2003, her family applied for green cards, and, a year to a year and half later, they received their conditional green cards, which meant that they could not return to Colombia until they became U.S. citizens. They had to wait five more years before they could apply for citizenship, and, this past fall, that dream became a reality.
"Coming to the U.S. was so wonderful -- seeing the order and the respect and that the law is the law," she said. "There are so many opportunities here, like free education and exposure to so much diversity."
Having had such a unique childhood experience, Devia possesses an equally unique perspective on the world. "I see things more globally," she said. "Even though I am a citizen of two countries, I feel this growing sense of identity. I live in the U.S., and I love this country, but I don't feel American. I love Colombia so much, and being here makes me more acutely aware of that."
Coming from a country where many youth are at a disadvantage, Devia is hypersensitive to the responsibility she feels to give back to her country. She references Frederick Douglass when she explains that it wasn't until she saw something different from Colombia that she understood how wonderful life can be and realized she has an obligation to share that with other people. "It kills me when I see students who don't value their education and don't understand that it's a gift and an opportunity that so many people don't have," she said.
A scholar with the Tisch College for Citizenship and Public Service, Devia wants to help the people who have not been as lucky as she. Her goal is to focus on the educational system in small villages and towns. "As a Tisch Scholar, you learn how to work with the community and foster a relationship with it. I want to bring these skills back to Latin America," she said.
A lover of travel, she plans to study abroad in Brazil during the second semester of her sophomore year and put the money she'll get through Tisch for her capstone project toward an education initiative in Brazil. "One huge problem in Latin America is that it's an export economy. It's not industrialized because its economic focus is on raw materials. Everything that happens here with the economy affects them twice as much because they're dependent on our economy," she said. "We need to attack the root of the problem, which is an undereducated population."
Devia looks to her father for inspiration. "He made a lot of sacrifices for us," she said. "He was here for two years alone. It really showed us how much he cared about and loved us. My parents don't know English, and sometimes he gets frustrated because he doesn't feel totally integrated in society. He longs for the familiarity of the country that he left. He's a fighter."
Also a fighter, Devia believes that people must take advantage of everything they have. "Ingrid Betancourt was a French-Colombian woman who came from a very well-known Colombian family. Betancourt was a presidential candidate in Colombia in 2002, but was kidnapped by the insurgency group, FARC," she said. "She lost everything in a second and was in captivity for six years. I keep this in mind and always take care to look at the big picture and value everything I've been blessed with."
