Marlen Fernandez is a Director of Development at Mixteca which is a non-profit organization based in New York City which tries to empower Mexicans and the Latino community overall by providing them access to services which could improve the quality of their lives by helping their social and economic development. Marlen was born in the state of Mexico in the year 1993, although her family was originally from Puebla, Mexico. She didn’t necessarily grow up in Mexico because she came to the United States at the age of three and was raised in the suburbs of Westchester County.
Having immigrant parents with little to no knowledge of this country, she struggled for a few years in elementary school because of the simple fact that her first language was Spanish and her parents only spoke Spanish so as years went on she started to teach herself English and became proficient in the language through school. Marlen had a decent childhood growing up and her parents did everything they could such as hiring tutors for her to master the English language in order to succeed in her studies. Being an undocumented student never affected her much in school until she grew up and started to notice that she couldn’t do certain things that her friends who were citizens of the United States could do such as get normal jobs, vacation, get a driver’s license and enroll in summer programs.
The moment that her immigration status started to really take a toll on her career was when it came time to decide what college she would go to. Unlike her peers, (who were in the top 10% of their class with her) who went to Ivy League or prestigious institutions, she narrowed down her options to only being able to attend a CUNY school because that would be the only thing she could afford. Marlen had to work up to two jobs at times in order to be able to pay for her tuition, books, and other essentials. One day she saw a flyer for the DREAM team in Lehman College and she took the flyer and went to a meeting. This DREAM team was the first club for undocumented students in CUNY schools which was a big step for undocumented students and it was created by a few of her peers. Being a part of this group gave her the urge to want to make a change for her Mexican and Latino people in her community because she felt tired of being different from the rest of her peers who had more support from their parents and CUNY overall. Being in this club made Marlen feel like for once she was exactly where she was supposed to be and to this day she is still friends with the people who created this group. Also, around this time the DREAM ACT was being passed and this encouraged her even more to keep on going because this would allow undocumented students to study and have a social security to legally work here.
During college, Marlen wanted to be a nurse but realized that wouldn’t work out for her because she wouldn’t be able to formally work here in the United States so she noticed she had a love for Anthropology which led her to go into the medical side of Anthropology where she graduated in this field at Lehman College in 2014. During her time as a student in Lehman College, Marlen had a class where she met Professor Alyshia Galvez, where she took a seminar course of hers, which then led her to working with Professor Galvez for the founding of Mexican Studies. During her time working for the Mexican Studies at CUNY she served as an Initiative Coordinator where she helped undocumented students in guiding them through providing information on things such as college admissions, financing college, setting up consultations, and workshops. Being a good student academically usually means good opportunities for the most part for high school and college students but for Marlen things were different for her no matter how much dedication and work she put into her studies. Marlen says “I just knew I needed to do so much more for the undocumented students. Say for example, I was a part of the Scholarship Program in Lehman and when you’re in the scholarship program you’re supposed to get a free ride but because I was undocumented I didn’t get the benefits I was supposed to like getting my tuition covered.”
A few years later she went back to school to get her Masters of Science in Education. While attending Baruch College she also worked at CUNY as a Scholarship Program Coordinator at Mexican Studies where she helped undocumented students throughout their college careers and worked with managing the Mexican Studies finances and assisting in grant writing for organizations. Marlen is currently in her last semester at Baruch College and she is a Director of Development at Mixteca where her role is to develop new ideas for services that could help immigrants or low income Latinos improve their lives. She also has to make sure that the organization has enough money to fund their services and that they will keep receiving funds in order to maintain their organization throughout the years and to ensure they have the money they need to make everything possible now and for the future.
Fernandez, Marlen. “Unfinished Business: The New York State DREAM Act.” NACLA, 26 Feb. 2019, nacla.org/news/2019/02/26/unfinished-business-new-york-state-dream-act. https://nacla.org/news/2019/02/26/unfinished-business-new-york-state-dream-act
Fernandez, Marlen. “Director of Development.” Linkedin, www.linkedin.com/in/marlen-fernandez-38766a89. https://www.linkedin.com/in/marlen-fernandez-38766a89/
https://www.mixteca.org/en/home
http://www.lehman.edu/cuny-mexican-studies-institute/about-us.php
