Most seniors only hope to collect one piece of paper this time of year. But Daira Belen Melendez was determined to get two: her diploma and her certificate of U.S. citizenship.
“One of my goals was to get my citizenship before I graduated,” said Melendez, a Chilean immigrant who became a U.S. citizen just two months ago. “I get to celebrate two things now.”
The senior spoke about her experience May 8 at a naturalization ceremony held on campus, where 38 candidates took the oath of allegiance and received their certificates.
Melendez’s family came to America when she was 9, moving from Iquique in north Chile to Reno, Nevada. They wanted the American dream: good jobs for themselves and a college education for their four children.
Her mother cleans houses and her father works for a textile company. Neither has a college education. Melendez said she knew education would be the key to her success. She excelled in school, thanks to teachers who worked with her after class to improve her English and other subjects.
When it was time for college, she applied to several in the West, but only one on the East Coast – Carolina. She had never been to Chapel Hill, but her best friends’ parents both were Tar Heels and encouraged her to go. She arrived in 2011, having only seen campus online before. (Now she gives tours of the campus to prospective students as an Admissions Ambassador.)
The humidity surprised her, and so did the Southern hospitality. “People were always holding doors open for me,” she said.
Undecided on a major her first year, Melendez was drawn to the sciences, especially a challenging class on genetics. She wound up majoring in biology and environmental studies, with a focus on health and environment. A highlight of her studies was a semester she spent abroad in the Galapagos Islands, where she did field work and collected samples.
“That’s when I realized that’s what I wanted to do,” Melendez said. Having been a research assistant in the Gillings School of Global Public Health, she wants to continue to do research in North Carolina, preferably in microbiology.
At the same time she was getting her degree, she pursued her other goal of citizenship – filling out forms, gathering documents, taking a test, paying fees, passing a background check and, finally, taking the oath. Melendez may not have been the first to be born in her family, but she is the first to become a U.S. citizen.
After celebrating her citizenship with her roommate, who had a birthday the same day, Melendez quickly went for her third important document: a U.S. passport. That’s because she plans to return to Galapagos for more environmental studies.
“This will be my first time going as an American,” she said. “I love being a citizen of the United States.”
