{"id":10613,"date":"2015-05-13T09:06:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T14:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=10613"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:07:33","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:07:33","slug":"melendez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=10613","title":{"rendered":"Naturalized citizen, first in her family, shares her story"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_10614\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10614\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"\/\/casdev.unc.edu\/collegearchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2015\/05\/Melendez_Daira.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10614\" src=\"\/\/casdev.unc.edu\/collegearchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2015\/05\/Melendez_Daira-300x204.jpg\" alt=\"Daira Melendez\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\" srcset=\"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2015\/05\/Melendez_Daira-300x204.jpg 300w, https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2015\/05\/Melendez_Daira.jpg 650w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10614\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Daira Melendez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">M<\/span>ost 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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cOne of my goals was to get my citizenship before I graduated,\u201d said Melendez, a Chilean immigrant who became a U.S. citizen just two months ago. \u201cI get to celebrate two things now.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout\">RELATED CONTENT<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Melendez\u2019 message: \u2018America needs us\u2019<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p class=\"p3\">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Melendez\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">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. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">When it was time for college, she applied to several in the West, but only one on the East Coast \u2013 Carolina. She had never been to Chapel Hill, but her best friends\u2019 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.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">The humidity surprised her, and so did the Southern hospitality. \u201cPeople were always holding doors open for me,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cThat\u2019s when I realized that\u2019s what I wanted to do,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">At the same time she was getting her degree, she pursued her other goal of citizenship \u2013 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.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">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\u2019s because she plans to return to Galapagos for more environmental studies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201cThis will be my first time going as an American,\u201d she said. \u201cI love being a citizen of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-meta\"><em>By Susan Hudson, Gazette<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,16,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversity","category-global-programs","category-undergraduate-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47270,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10613\/revisions\/47270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}