Life lessons learned

Life lessons can be hard, especially when you're 18 years old and thousands of miles from home.

Marisol Soto, a 2011 Pea Ridge High School graduate, learned many lessons over the past two years, the most important of which, she said, is that family is important and that there are some friends who are closer than blood relatives.

Soto recently returned to Pea Ridge after spending two months in an immigration detention center and two years in Mexico.

The elder daughter of Martin Soto and Andrea Caldera Vazquez, Marisol went to Mexico after high school graduation to stay with relatives and attend college because she did not have American citizenship and did not believe she could attend college in America nor get a job once she graduated. She said she wants to be an ultrasound tech. She has lived in northwest Arkansas since she was 7 years old.

What Marisol found in Mexico was relatives who judged her because they believed her and her family to be wealthy because they lived in America. They charged her rent and berated her.

"They thought money grows on trees here in the States. They thought I was a mommy's girl, a spoiled brat.

"They didn't like the clothes I would wear, the way I would speak. The criticized the culture," she said tearfully, remembering the ordeal. "I'm not used to eating spicy food and they took it as an insult when I didn't eat it."

She said they began to ask for more money for rent. "I just slept there and showered," she said.

The first school to which she applied, she said, promised two years in Mexico and two years in the States.

"We thought it would be easy to get a student visa. They said it would be valid in both. We paid a lot of money," Marisol said. "Since it was the only way, we took it."

Her parents paid the $2,000, but three months later, Marisol learned it had all been a lie and she didn't get in the school even though she had paid the money. Then, she applied to another school and was given a similar story. Again, the family paid $2,000. Again, the promises didn't materialize.

"The third place was the Mexican Red Cross. It was bad from the beginning. At first they said I would come out as an RN, then two to three weeks later, the switched it to nurse assistant," Marisol said.

"I had an incident in school," she said, explaining that the mistress of the drug dealing group began stealing things from her at the school. She said they went to the same school. She said her identity was stolen and later she started receiving threatening phone calls and visits. "They threatened to stab me, to rape me and described the ways I was going to be tortured. They knew exactly where my bus stops were. They would wait for me at my bus stops.

Marisol said she quit school from the fear of the threats. "When they found out I was from the States, they targeted me."

Not knowing what else to do, Marisol joined a group called "Dreamers" who promised to help her return to the States. The group crossed into America and were detained in San Diego. She said she later learned that group was a pretense and the attorney promised to them disappeared.

"I was so desperate to come home ... I had tried everything legally -- to get a student visa, to get different jobs," she said.

After several attempts to be heard by a judge, Marisol was seen and released to return home for one year.

"It's hard to trust people," she said, her voice breaking. "I did a lot of growing up... It did affect me. I'm trying to be as positive as possible. I don't hate anyone. I don't wish them bad. I want to leave the past in the past."

General News on 05/07/2014