PHOENIX – Angelica Hernandez excelled in high school and did just as well in college, graduating earlier this month as the distinguished graduating senior in mechanical engineering at Arizona State University.
But Hernandez won’t have much of a chance to excel as an engineer, despite a recovery in the jobs market for the sought-after professionals.
That’s because Hernandez is an undocumented immigrant and can’t legally work. The 21-year-old Mexican native crossed the Arizona desert with her mother and sister when she was just 9. Her father was already in Phoenix, and her mother wanted her girls to be with him.
Hernandez started school here as a fourth-grader at Mitchell Elementary School in Phoenix, and by the time she transferred to Pueblo Del Sol Middle School as a sixth-grader she no longer needed to take English as a Second Language courses. Then at Carl Hayden High School, she became fully immersed as an American, participating in cross country, track and soccer, serving as the National Honors Society president and joining the junior ROTC and the robotics team.
All the while she knew her immigration status was an issue. Named 2007 Outstanding Young Woman of the Year for District 7 in Phoenix, she attended a luncheon at which Mayor Phil Gordon presided.
“It was kind of ironic in a sense,” Hernandez said. “Because, you know, I was up there with the mayor and other students from other high schools and I was undocumented, but I was still up there with everyone else.”
The robotics team focused her on engineering, and, with a presidential scholarship to ASU, she prepared to start college.
