Photos by Ralph Freso
Karen Velazquez Munoz’s parents were at her side on campus. Dad looked a bit uncomfortable wearing a tie as an auto body man, while mom slipped into heels for the photo.
“Sometimes, I think back and wonder, ‘How are we here?’” said Karen Velazquez Munoz, who will graduate today with a bachelor’s degree in government/legal studies from Grand Canyon University.
Eight years ago, when she graduated from Sunnyslope High School, she badly wanted to attend college. She had done well in school. So well that her parents gave her extra homework when she finished her school assignments, knowing that education was vital.
“We came here so that she would have a better future,” said her mom, Lucia Velazquez, who with husband Cesar moved to Phoenix from Mexico in 1998, six months after Karen was born.
But because her daughter was a Dreamer, the tag for children of undocumented parents who can maintain some legal protections, she couldn’t get in-state tuition.
“My parents didn’t have the resources for that. At times, we didn’t have a home. We were living in my dad’s (auto body) workshop,” she said of homeless stints for six months and one year at ages 14 and 16. “We were sleeping on a couch or on sheets on the floor.”
Karen instead took a job as a receptionist at a local law firm. “It was like school for me at that time,” she said, seeing people from her community in need of help with confusing immigration law. The job also allowed her to help financially, and eventually to secure an apartment for the family, which now included two younger brothers.
For five years, Karen never gave up the dream of college.
She clearly remembers the day in 2020 when she got the phone call from TheDream.US Scholarship, telling her she was awarded a scholarship for low-income, undocumented students.
“I started crying in that moment. My family is looking at me like I am crazy. I told them, ‘I got the scholarship.’
“Then we all started crying.”
GCU is a partner college for the scholarship, and 204 recipients attended the university this fall. Ten graduate today. Karen immediately dove into college. The first thing she got involved in was GCU’s Canyon Dreamers Club, and eventually became its president.
“At some point, we have experienced house insecurity and food insecurity because we are all from lower economic groups and most are first generation students, so navigating school is difficult,” Karen said. “But most of use are very motivated, top students. In the immigration community, education is very valued and instilled at a young age.”
What started as a safe space led to more involvement in immigrants’ stories, both at the De La Ossa & Ramos firm where she eventually became an immigration paralegal and through Aliento, a Phoenix organization that serves the undocumented population. She recently became its first Arizona’s Future Fellow.
She remembers the fears of immigrants who she served, which she hopes to ease in the future as an attorney.
“It brings up a lot of anxiety for me. It was something as a little girl I knew I was undocumented, so I was always scared,” she said. “As I grew into adulthood, that toned down. I just try to do my best; I know I am not doing anything wrong.”
She found calm and purpose at GCU – in the club, as part of student government and in her classes.
“GCU helped me a lot because we are a Christian campus. We are all created in the image of God,” Karen said. “I do appreciate there is a space for us here and our voices can be heard, regardless of what other’s opinions are.”
She did a fellowship with the UCLA Labor Center in the summer of 2022 and with the Hispanic Bar Association. All this while working and taking a full course load, writing a paper that was included in the Canyon Journal of Undergraduate Research, all while helping family finally buy their own piece of the American dream, a home in Peoria.
“I’ll rest when I am done,” she said.
She plans to take a few months to study for the law school entrance exam and work.
“It is something I really want to do, continue in higher education, for myself but also for my family. I value all the sacrifices they made,” she said. “And, for me, it is also representing my community.”
Karen still finds it hard to believe she is here, walking the commencement stage. But not her father.
“It was my intention that she graduate, and thank God, that is what happened,” he said.
“All the hard work is coming to fruition,” Karen added. “I am very thankful, mainly to God but also to the scholarship because I wouldn’t be able to do any of this without it.”
Grand Canyon University senior writer Mike Kilen can be reached at [email protected]
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