We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mayra Medina-Nunez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Mayra, appreciate you joining us today. One of the most important things small businesses can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

The Mission of the Refugee Children Center is to provide a healing embrace and a dignified welcome to children and families who have come from countries south of the US-Mexico border seeking refuge through asylum in the United States.

Since its inception, the Refugee Children Center has supported over 1200 refugee children and their families with an array of services from legal resources to medical and mental health referrals, school enrollment, food and basic needs relief, enrichment activities, skill building, translation, interpretation, advocacy amongst other services. Through our work, we shed light on the roots of migration, children and families migrate not because they want to, but because they have to.  Our programming is given through a holistic  approach to support the needs of each family. One of the most immediate needs in our community is affordable housing. There are times when families who have recently arrived in the country with little ones have nowhere else to go and have slept in the cold streets for days. Through our networking with collaborating organizations, sometimes, families are able to secure temporary housing, get their work permits and save enough funds to move into a more long-term housing until their immigration cases are settled. Many children and their families have received support retaining an immigration attorney. I can think of Luz (pseudonym), who attended classes and skill training offered at the RCC. 6 months after her immigration attorney sent her asylum application, she was eligible to receive her work permit. Luz launched her catering and cleaning business to support her two young children and is currently waiting on the outcome of her immigration process. Luz often shares her experience with recently arrived mothers at our caregivers classes and these mothers find hope in listening to Luz and learning about what the RCC has to offer.

Mayra, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a Zapotec woman and like my community, there are 15 more registered indigenous communities. We are culturally diverse but our indigenous communities have continuously been exploited and socially marginalized since colonial times. I was born in Oaxaca, Mexico, and came to the United States when I was fourteen years old as an unaccompanied minor along with my fifteen year old brother.  After being apart for more than 3 years, there was no path for a safe reunification with my little brother and mother who raised us as a single parent.

I completed my undergraduate studies at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2012 as a former non-traditional, parenting-undocumented student. Having worked in the legal, social, and humanitarian non-profit sector for over ten years while receiving and providing immigration and social service resources to marginalized communities. As a migrant, Zapotec-indigenous mother, and woman of color, I am deeply empathetic to the plight of many of our minors and their parents looking for refuge in the United States because I have lived it. I lead an all-women (migrant, children of immigrant) staff  that provides services from a holistic view that encompasses social-emotional wellness, legal services, enrichment activities, and basic needs targeting specifically the needs of our children and their caregivers. I am grateful for all the collaborating agencies that ensure that our program and services are sustainable.  We hope to encourage others to engage in this humanitarian response, after all, humans need each other.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I joined the Refugee Children Center on July 1, 2019 as an Associate Executive Director, our small team surveyed and evaluated the impact of our current program as well as putting together a plan to increase capacity by joining forces with students from institutions of higher education. Fastforward, in January 2020, we set up a plan to lead us to sustainability because   our funds were enough to only cover 2 months of payroll at the most, in March as the Pandemic was imminent, we began our quest for collaborators. We realized that the needs of our population were so much bigger than we could have provided and instead of reinventing the wheels, we identified allies within our community that could support us in meeting the needs of our participants. Since July 1, 2019 to present, our programming and services have multiplied thus increasing our budget drastically. However, non-profit organizations such as ours continue to look for ways to financially sustain our work because there is a dire need for our services.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I am a former unaccompanied minor who crossed the border at the age of 14 years old to reunite with my mother who had come to the United States three years prior. Upon arriving in the US, I could not enroll in high school because my mom had a difficult time navigating school enrollment. Instead, my family began a street vending project to make ends meet. A year later, I finally enrolled in high school and after completing my senior year in 2001, could not go on to college because my family could not afford the international student rate required of students who did not have legal status in the US. Sadly, I had to drop out of school and only became a community college part-time student when AB540 was approved (an assembly bill that allowed students who attended a CA high school for 3 years and graduated from a California high school to pay in-state tuition and fees). In the Fall of 2010, I was admitted to UCLA to obtain my bachelor’s degree as a non-traditional, undocumented, parent student. Since I did not have access to financial aid, I applied to as many private scholarships as I could and received support from my inner circle, thus paying about 40%  of my tuition out of pocket. Since quarters are charged at a flat rate, I enrolled in up to 17 units per quarter and graduated exactly after two years.

Through my education and immigration journey, I have endured many hardships and have navigated many obstacles ingrained in institutional racism. I realized the uttermost importance of providing a dignified welcome and resources that ease the transition to life in the United states of children and their families, including immigration legal advice and education in low-income immigrant communities. I am currently employed as the executive director for the San Fernando Refugee Children Center, Inc. My life has come full circle and I am directly involved in supporting our in-house immigration program to educate and allow self-empowerment of children and their families from countries South of the US-Mexico border seeking asylum in the United States.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.refugeechildrencenter.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/refugeechildrencenter/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RefugeeChildrenCenter/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@refugeechildrencenter

Image Credits
Aimee Porter, Lane Farnham