UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, October15, 1993
9
people
AMERICAN DREAM
Continued from Page 1.
Making enough money to buy the new house had taken almost all of Candelario Olivas' energy. He worked double shifts as a mechanic at the Sunshine Biscuit factory in Kansas City, Kan.
The house was the nicest they had ever lived in, Olivas said, and her father was proud that he could provide such a good home for his family.
Not long after the family had moved in, Olivas said she did the worst thing she had ever done.
She and her best friend decided to make french fries at home. They put some oil on the stove and went to watch television. Later they decided not to make the fries, but instead of turning the stove off, Olivas unknowingly turned the dial to the highest setting.
Left unattended, the oil went up in flames. The kitchen cabinets caught fire and by the time Olivas and her friend had extinguished the flames, the stove and the cabinets were ruined. The house was filled with oily smoke, and the walls and carpet were black and dirty. Garciela Oliva's came home to find her daughter's face covered in soot.
She knew she had to call her husband at work and tell him the news. Olivas said she had been afraid of what her father would do when he came home that night.
"I thought he might be really mad at me," she said. "My brother was saying, 'Look what you did! Dad worked so hard, and now you ruined it.'"
As she lay in bed that night, she heard her father come into her room.
"I didn't know what he would do," she said "He came over to me and kissed me on the cheek. Then he left."
Olvias father is her role model. She admires him because he has done whatever he has had to for his family, even risking arrest for crossing the border illegally.
Olivas is hopeful that she and her parents can become U.S. citizens some day.
Right now, the Immigration and Naturalization Service considers Olivas' case as an undocumented case which means that she is an illegal alien. She will remain so until she gets permanent resident status, which could take years.
Because Olivas had spent a year learning Spanish in Mexico when she was nine, she was not eligible for citizenship.
Olivas is now waiting for her number to come up on the list of applicants for permanent residency in the United States.
Until Olivaes gets permanent resident status in the United States, she cannot travel freely to and from Mexico. Each year she must apply for a new visa. And even though she pays taxes, she cannot receive any federal
financial aid for school. The thought that she might not be able to find enough local scholarships and grants to pay for her education is most disturbing to her, Oliva said.
Just before she graduated from J.C. Harmon High School in Kansas City, Kan., Olivas learned that she might not get the chance to study in the United States.
The week before her 18th birthday, she received a letter from the INS.
She was being deported.
"I said no way," her father, Candela- lario Olivas, said. He would not let her go back to Mexico.
She was told. The letter stated that she had one week after her birthday to return to Mexico. It seemed to Olivas that all the hard work she had done in school had been in vain. She was not going to college.
Olivas often eat breakfast on the go. She has just a half-hour break between KJHK and class on Wednesday.
The Olivas family needed help. They found it at St. Thomas Church in Kansas City, Kan. Carlos Murguia, the teacher of Olivas' confirmation class offered his assistance.
Murgia, who at the time was an attorney, managed to get Olivas' status changed to undocumented and got her on a waiting list.
It was a close call, but Olivas would be able to go to college as she had planned. She again began to get excited about the prospect of furthering her education.
"We had to teach the kids the hard life outside," he said. "The only way to get a better life is education."
Education was the thing Candelario Olivay wanted most for his children.
But once again Olivas ran into what seemed like a brick wall blocking her from that better life. She had gotten enough academic scholarships and grants from local organizations and private donors that she would be able to pay KU's in-state tuition. It looked like she would get to attend KU.
When it came time to enroll, she was told she would have to pay out-of-state tuition because she was not a U.S. citizen. She knew she could not come up with more money. So she enrolled at Donnelley College, a community college in Kansas City, Kan.
Murgua's sister, Janet Murgua, who also was an attorney, went with Olivas to speak with KU administrators and asked for a special exception
"I was so upset," Olivas said. "I wanted to go to KU, a real university. I did not want to go to Donnelley."
Coming to KU is the most important thing she has ever done, Olivas said. She is glad to have had the opportunities she had in the United States. But she said she would not forget where she came from.
Olivas assists Katie Korte, Kansas City, Kan., senior, the Wednesday morning news anchor for KJHK. Olivas works with Korte every Wednesday mornings from 6 to 9 for credit in her Journalism 388 class, Laboratory in Radio.
for Olivas. Because of her circumstances, Olivas was given resident status at KU.
"He said we had to speak Spanish at home and English at school so we would always keep in touch with that," she said.
She also inherited her father's tireless work ethic.
"When my dad was working all the time and he would never stop, we used to tell him to rest," Olivas said. "Then he would always say, 'I'll rest when I die. When I die all I will do is sleep. I be bored with sleeping.'"
Candelario Olivas said he still believed that.
"Use your time," he said. "Time is long, life is short."
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Tom Hedrick, Olivas' radio and TV broadcasting instructor, said he saw in Olvas the same kind of desire to succeed that must have driven her father, and also a natural talent for broadcasting.
"She's got a genuine sparkle," Hedrick said.
"She's gonna make it. I would bet the house on her."
"He always said he didn't want any money from us or anything like that." she said. "The only thing he ever wanted was a college diploma from us. And I want to do that more than anything."
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