Sacrificing for the American Dream

Gumaro and Maria Sanchez gave up a comfortable life in Mexico to give their sons—including Jose, a Northwestern sophomore—the opportunities available in the United States.

She holds three jobs as a cook. He works in the production line of a meat-processing plant. In Mexico she was an architect and he, a construction foreman.

Maria and Gumaro Sanchez of Orange City gave up a comfortable life and everything familiar to move to the United States for one reason: to give their four boys the opportunities available in America.

“We decide for them,” Maria says simply.

Now their oldest, Jose, is a sophomore at Northwestern, and Ed, a senior at MOC/Floyd Valley High School, is considering NWC as he decides where to attend college next fall.

“My grandpa on my dad’s side was a farmer,” Jose says. “My dad didn’t even graduate from third grade elementary, because where he was born, it’s just very difficult. Education wasn’t very available, so he started working construction at a very young age.”

Maria, meanwhile, graduated from college, where she studied architecture despite her parents’ protests that it was a man’s profession. She met Gumaro when her firm employed his company to build a mall in Puerto Vallarta.

In 1986, Gumaro’s brother, a U.S. citizen, applied for a visa for Gumaro’s family. After waiting 15 years, they were finally notified of the date on which they were to appear before U.S. immigration officials in Ciudad Juárez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas.

Weighing whether to stay or leave, Maria and Gumaro were encouraged to choose the United States by the principal of the private school where the Sanchez boys were learning English. “She supported the decision to come,” Maria says of the Mexican woman who grew up in the States but returned to her home country to establish the school.

A two-year construction job with his brother led Gumaro and his family to California when they first arrived in the U.S. in 2001. Two years later the Sanchezes moved to Orange City at the urging of a friend of Maria’s who had immigrated to northwest Iowa.

Maria, whose maiden name is Perry and whose ancestors came to Mexico from England, is now a U.S. citizen. Her citizenship automatically made her children under 18 citizens as well. Gumaro and Jose are permanent legal residents.

The couple continues to make sacrifices for their children. Jose, a religion major, became interested in the mission field after participating in a Spring Service Project at Northwestern last year. When he felt called to serve with a ministry in Alaska last summer, Maria took an extra part-time job to replace the money for college he would have earned through a typical summer job.

When asked what their hopes and dreams are for their sons, Maria answers, “The first dream is they are good citizens—and very, very great spirit ….”

At a loss for how to express herself in English, she turns to Jose. “Lo que ellos quieren,” she says.

“Whatever our hearts desire,” he translates.