White House honors alumna who draws on her immigrant experiences to inspire students

The White House’s “Champions of Change” award recognizes how one voice really can shape the world. This July, a Fort Lewis College alumna received this honor for being an extraordinary agent of change in the classroom.

“It was a really awesome and overwhelming experience all at once,” says Marissa Molina (Political Science, ’14) of her visit to Washington, D.C. “I was so proud to get to represent Fort Lewis, the community in Durango, and the state of Colorado.”

Molina earned the distinction through her work with the Teach for America Colorado Corps as part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. DACA helps some young immigrants avoid deportation while they pursue legal residency. As a Spanish teacher, she strives for educational equality for immigrant and minority populations at the Denver School of Science & Technology.

For all her successes, her journey to being honored at the White House was not always a smooth one. “I didn’t just come to be a teacher, and I didn’t just come to do what I’ve done overnight,” Molina acknowledges. “It’s taken a lot of work. But it’s definitely been possible.”

When Molina discusses the immigrant experience in the classroom, she knows what she’s talking about. When she and her family moved from the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, to Glenwood Springs, Colorado, the only English she knew was “I don’t speak English.”

Molina’s Mexican background was one of her primary educational hurdles. As a teenage student, she often thought she wanted to fit in better in her adopted country. This desire resulted in the loss of her identity and culture, she says.

Then she was accepted to Fort Lewis College. She graduated in May 2014, the first in her family to earn a college degree. And she credits her FLC experience with illuminating her life’s path.

“I had the opportunity to have so many different experiences at Fort Lewis, whether that was outdoors or whether that was with the Native American Center or whether that was with the skiing group or the lacrosse team,” Molina says. “It didn’t matter what my background was or what I looked like. I was always welcome wherever I went.”

At FLC, Molina was able to meld her immigrant experience with her academic studies. “I studied political science and economics at FLC,” she says. “Policy and politics have always been a really important part of my life, because policy shaped the experiences that my family and I had as immigrants to this country.”

Molina discovered Teach for America in her senior year at FLC. The Teach for America program places high-achieving college graduates into low-income communities to teach in challenging environments. She was accepted to the program and began teaching the same year she graduated.

“I decided for myself that TFA was something I wanted to really pursue,” Molina recalls. “As a senior and as a DACA student, I saw the opportunity for me to have this great professional experience.”

Right away, she set out to fulfill her teaching philosophy.

“I wanted to bring into my classroom the idea that the learning you do within these four walls isn’t supposed to stay in here,” Molina says. “It’s supposed to make you a more informed citizen. It’s supposed to make you more engaged in your community. For me, teaching is a way to spark that fire and that interest in the world.”