Luz Argueta and Marcelo Valenzuela

 Luz Argueta, 18, and Marcelo Valenzuela, 20, are long-time residents of the Columbia Pike community. They both have served as volunteers helping families in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Luz Argueta - "I live near Carlin Springs Elementary School. I came to that location when I was one-year-and-a-half. It’s been my home my entire life. I've lived there since my parents came from Mexico and El Salvador. I grew up speaking Spanish. It’s the only language we speak at home.
 
I went to Arlington Traditional School. That's where a lot of my identity part comes from because it was not very diverse 10 years ago. I was one of two Latinas there. There was a program for low income students and that's the only reason my brother and I got in. I really felt like I didn't know what to do because there were mostly just white folks there, maybe only ten minorities, two Latinas. It was hard for me, but as years passed, I started finding a little bit more about my voice, showing and demonstrating how proud I am to be a Latina working with my community and not trying to shy away from it. When I went to Kenmore Middle School, it was the first time I saw so much diversity. It was a mix of everything, every skin color, every shape, size, so I was so proud of that. I met my first Latina friend in sixth grade and we started working together. We started talking in Spanish with each other. I felt comfortable in Kenmore for the first time after being in elementary school. Now I'm in Washington-Liberty [formerly Washington-Lee High School] which is also pretty diverse. I'm taking IB and AP classes, which don't have a lot of minorities, but this time I've learned from past experiences. Instead of trying to be like other people, the majority of people around me, I try to be unique. I try to show off my features, my hair, show how proud I am to be Latina, and my work with my Latino community. 
 
My dad had to work when he was still a boy, so he couldn't put school as his top priority. He was one of twelve siblings, and one of the first males. Back then in El Salvador, the females stayed at home and the males went out to work to the fields. My dad tells me he had scars from the machete when he was just ten years old, stuff like that. So school was never a priority for him not because he didn't want to, but out necessity, to bring money to support the family. Here, my dad's a porter at a Mercedes-Benz dealership. When the cars are sold, he brings them out, polishes them up, gets them ready for the customers. For my mom, education wasn't that necessary. My grandma worked for a lady in Mexico as a stay-in housekeeper. My mom was babysitting the family's children because the husband was a diplomat and they needed a babysitter. The diplomat family was sent to Springfield, Virginia, and mom just tagged along. She had her visa. She was 21 at the time. My dad was 17 when he got here; he came with an uncle to DC. Nobody knew a single word of English. And now 23 years later in their marriage, one of their kids is graduated, and I'm hopefully going to UVA now. My mom does Avon, she has a small beauty consultant business. My parents did not go to college, but they wanted us to. They work hard. They've been able to get me and my brother to college. Thankfully, with a lot of help. There's a staff member at W & L called Mr. Sample. He works for equity and racial justice, that's part of his title. He’s helped a lot of the students. We can go to his room anytime, he's there for us. Because of the language barrier, some of the students don't know a lot about the college application process, but they always are informed by him. Students say "We could talk to this teacher. We could go together. We could schedule a meeting for all of us to be there." They have always been by my brother s side and by my side together.

Marcelo Valenzuela - I live in the Pike neighborhood, too. I was born here. My mom's South American, my dad, too. I went to Carlin Springs Elementary School And then I went to Kenmore Middle School and then to Washington-Lee. I followed my dad's footsteps from Kenmore to Washington-Lee. When I was growing up I knew kids from different backgrounds. My best friend Rudy told me so much about himself. His mom came from El Salvador. It's been really hard for them during the pandemic. So me and my mom started helping them. It was difficult for him because his mom didn't know English and he has no dad, too; she's a single mother.
 
Luz Argueta: We were both involved in a community project for COVID. Everyone was affected during this time from all scales, all incomes, but especially our Latino community. A lot of people were not essential workers, so a lot of people did not have jobs. We already had a strong presence with the group that Ms. Valenzuela [Marcelo’s mother, Janeth Valenzuela] created, which has over a hundred people in it. We were seeing that people are struggling. When it was safe enough, a few months after the very beginning of COVID, we started distributing basic necessities such as gift cards, diapers. We gave out dispensa, bags of Hispanic food basics, anything they needed. 
 
Marcelo Valenzuela: Prices for everything in the markets were going up and that's why we have to get the community food and diapers for the babies.
 
Luz Argueta: We all got together and started helping those who reached out to us, but also people that we knew. Some people got laid off from work so they did not have an income or as much income as before. So they texted or called Ms. Venezuela, "Hey, I'm in need of something." Most things we gave were in the food pantry; beans, rice, oil. We gave flour, maseca, things like that to just go day by day, to try our best to work. We helped around 110, 120 families every month.
 
We had leaders that were already in our group from Wednesday Moms, which is the Kenmore school parents group and the Washington-Liberty group. We had a system. It's broken down by neighborhood. We each have our own little list, our small groups to cover. For example, my mom and a lot of adult ladies had their small groups that they each contacted and hand-delivered goods to people's houses. We’d drive to their houses. Different moms distributed to different people, each had their list. We started here in an apartment conference room. We organized the bags and got them delivered to people twice a week.
 
Marcelo Valenzuela: Since my mom has some physical limitations problems due to an accident she had, I picked up the bags that she couldn't carry and  put them in the car, then I drove them around to the families in need. I’d unload the items and give them to the families. I’d be talking to them when I was there. I know a little bit Spanish; I tried.
 

Luz Argueta: Some people who volunteered I know from before the pandemic hit, we all met at the weekly meetings in school and other conversations. We saw how they were affected and they were very thankful all the time.
 
They had an open vaccination program in Arlington during COVID. We signed a lot of people up to get vaccinations. I wasn't that much involved, but we received calls, coordinated by three adult women who set up schedules for people. When their time came in chronological order, they got their appointments. Ms. Valenzuela sent me links and information about locations where they were vaccinating without appointments. So I shared it to everyone I knew, everyone who asked for it, sending information out about where to get your shot.
 
Marcelo Valenzuela: We worked with about ten other young people, it was like a team situation.
 
Luz Argueta: Now we're doing hot meals. We received weekly donations from a restaurant in Shirlington, Tacombi. This month we started distributing hot meals biweekly, Mondays and Wednesdays, four to five hot meals ready to go per family. The restaurant brings the food here and we distribute it. Now they want to offer 200 hot meals That would be 400 meals a week we get to the people. It’s a community effort.
 
I started volunteering years ago since the time my mom first met Ms. Valenzuela. I was little so I just attended the meetings with my mom in the sidelines at first. As I got older I started translating for parents, doing documents. I loved volunteering so much. Anytime we did fundraisers for Hispanic parents, for our community, I helped out. I started being involved with this amazing community, even before the pandemic hit. It was natural to keep going.
 
Marcelo Valenzuela: I also have been doing this kind of work since I was little. I grew into it with my mom's help.  I'm in college now, at NOVA  [Northern Virginia Community College]. I'm studying to become a veterinarian. I hope to go to veterinary school. There’s a program in vet tech at NOVA, it's basically mixed with science. I can transfer to George Mason University as well. I'm going to do ROTC for the Army at George Mason, but I'm still going to do veterinary after that. I just got accepted into the Animal Welfare League, down at Four Mile Run. While I was in high school, I went to the Career Center. I've always loved animals. I watch TV shows like Animal Planet, but mostly what got me into loving animals was watching Steve Irwin, the crocodile guy from Australia. So I got a degree in pet sitting and I started doing pet sittings here in the area for whenever family pet owners go on vacation. I'm an athlete, too. I play soccer. I used to play basketball in middle school and I'm still playing soccer for fun. I used to be on a travel team and was on the undefeated Kenmore team with coach Papa Dia. We were really pretty good. 
 

Luz Argueta: I'm a senior at Washington-Liberty right now. I just got accepted to one of my dream schools, UVA, the University of Virginia. I got accepted yesterday, thankfully. Thank God. It's a blessing. My dad's from a very rural area in Salvador; it's very, very underdeveloped. From that to having their second child, the first daughter, going to college is a big step. It's a huge opportunity we might have not had back home. I'm going to study psychology. Most people when they hear the word psychology, they associate it with therapists, talking and having patients. But they don't understand a lot of psychology has to do with how the brain works, with neurons, how we think, how we process information, how we make decisions. It has much to do with a cultural aspect of our brains and the psychology behind it. Even when we go to shop, there's a psychological aspect of what we put in front of the customers so they could shop more, what we put at the back of the store. Everything's tied into psychology. It's not just clinical work.
 
I'm not sure if I will stay in this area. I know for the next four years I'm definitely going to be coming back and forth between my college and right here in Columbia Pike. I really don't know where I’ll be in the longer run. I do love the community here, though. I especially like the diversity, I feel like even though it's kind of separated between north and south Arlington, I feel like there's a little bit of everything. I feel home here. I was born in Arlington. I grew up in this exact area. For me it's going to be hard adjusting to somewhere else. I like the middle ground where it's not too urbanized like New York or DC, where the traffic's crazy. I'm also a person that needs socialization and communication so I love how it's pretty suburban in a way. There's a mix, it's not too isolated, not rural, but that's what I like. I know definitely that my brother doesn't plan on staying in Arlington because of the high pricing that's going on. He’s thinking about moving to the West Coast, a big change.
 
I have friends from different cultures here. I have a lot of Latina friends plus I have friends from the Middle East, Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Ethiopia.
 
A lot of things went into me growing into my identity and awareness as a proud Latina. If I'm being honest, starting to volunteer. I started when I was technically in third grade, but I didn't really get that involved with the parents during the meetings until I was in middle school. I just loved how thankful they were. It was this sweet sensation that warms your heart, like giving your heart a hug when people were so thankful. I feel like one of my Latina my friends helped me, too, because for the most crucial part of my life, I did not have a Latina friend or any friend of a diverse background. She made me see a different perspective, a different viewpoint. She made me see that you should be proud, to see how far you've come. Even though you were born here, your parents came from a country where they were not given many opportunities and now you’re achieving, you're bilingual, you're doing so many things. 
 
I was so inspired that now I've transferred into an after-school club in Washington-Liberty called LASA, the Latin American Student Association. I'm the president of this club at the moment, and we have over thirty members, We have Bolivians, people from Columbia, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, a few Salvadorians, Ecuador. We talk about our country, our experiences. We even have a few non-Latino people that are friends and join us after school. We do many fundraisers. What Ms. Valenzuela taught me during my childhood and my growth, I've now implemented to students. We are the future of this country. In this big school of 2,000 people, it's easy to lose your voice and to lose sight of what the things you're proud of. I'm still working on it by all means, but I want to make other people proud of who they are. We do activities as a community more than just to bond with each other. For Valentine's we're selling balloons to raise funds. We did tie-dyeing shirts. The beautiful thing is right now we have a big amount of money in our school bank account. We're going to give $300 scholarships to seniors who are in LASA, to help to get books and whatever they need.

Marcelo Valenzuela: I am also helping my mom in her work with housing, for renters, in the surrounding apartments. She's pushing so much for the County to basically do the right thing and to help the Hispanic communities, to treat them fairly. I want everyone here treated fairly. 
 
Luz Argueta: I am thinking about the next leaders of our community. We wish to have this great leader in Ms. Valenzuela for eternity, but sadly we're not. Columbia Pike in Arlington needs to keep this volunteer effort, to keep this warm community. We help a lot, but it helps to have someone to have your back. Right now we're working on molding and working with the next generation of volunteers such as myself. I grew up a lot from the example that Ms. Valenzuela set for me. Now I'm doing my part in my school. I hope that the next generation of volunteers keeps fighting for justice for the Latino community here.
 
The area is getting very gentrified at the moment. When they redrew the borders for the school districts, I feel the purpose was to create a distinction, a separation between minorities, low income. In North Arlington, you could tell there's a huge difference. I feel like the biggest example that opened my eyes was when they tore down the Food Star grocery and the shopping center where the new Harris Teeter is now. There were a lot of Hispanic minority businesses there before. I don't say we're getting kicked out, but they're definitely increasing prices, and other things that make it harder for minorities to keep living here. I feel we might not have such diversity if we can't keep up with the prices.
 

Marcelo Valenzuela: Just for me as a Hispanic American, my mom always tells me don't give up on helping people. You have to be strong. I’m going to be a vet. I think with my new job right now, I’m helping the community. It’s to do the same thing as my parents helping the Hispanic community, and for me it’s helping the pets and their owners, too. We're all a family, not just the north and the south Arlington, all of Arlington, we're all a family so we all help each other.
 
And I'm really proud of my mom for what she's doing. I'll never forget.
 
Luz Argueta: She's set an example for us. I want to help this hardworking community so much, but I feel like we have to work double sometimes. It’s not just the language barrier, but what people don't know. As a psychologist, the biggest thing for me is understanding the cultural concept, what's accepting and what's not accepting in cultures. To go from an underdeveloped country, for any Latino or any person from the Middle East or Africa, all around the world, and then coming to this new place where there's different cultural expectations of them, is a challenge. They have to work double to just make a living income. So we try to help them in whatever way possible. A lot of people in high school don't know there's many programs that their kids could do. There's so many applying to college programs, and AP, IB. Many immigrant parents don't know what AP, or IB is, and how it could help their kids in the college process later on. That's what I'm trying to do right now with LASA, to help the parents of the students, too, any way possible, 
 
I wouldn't be in the place that I am now if it wasn't for all the information and the Hispanic PTA that Ms. Valenzuela runs in Kenmore and Washington-Liberty. I learned a lot. I'm one of the examples of how far a person could come with the right information, with the right support. I feel like if there's one thing that we could learn about the minority community is how dedicated and how hardworking they are, how far they have come. I see so many parents, including my own, and I'm so proud of them. They don’t always know a lot, but they ask questions, they ask for interpreters, they go to the monthly meetings. I see people with their uniforms from work. These meetings are at 7:00. They may have left work at 5:00, they don't have dinner, but they're there at the monthly meeting, trying to help their children, trying to get them through high school. Trying to find the best thing and make their kids successful, to be there to support them even with the language barriers. Even if they don't have dinner, they sacrifice themselves for their kids to support them. That's makes me so proud to be a Latina. Before, I thought of having to live up to expectations as a burden, but I stopped seeing myself as a victim. I want to help others do the same as I'm doing. My parents are proud of me. They always said, "Please just get a bachelor's degree. Whatever you want to study." I don't feel like it's a burden. I feel like I'm making my parents proud, I'm doing it for them because I would have not gone to college if I was in Mexico. My cousins who live there, don't. It's a positive challenge rather than a burden. That keeps me going, motivated. My dad didn't have this opportunity. Like they say in the America phrase, I was handed a golden spoon of opportunities. Who am I to not take up this opportunity? I'll work hard. Thankfully; I appreciate everything.
 
Marcelo Valenzuela: I want to explore the world. I love history so I especially want to go to Spain, because I have a favorite soccer team there, Real Madrid. I've always loved that team since I was born, just wanted to go to that beautiful stadium. It's a dream for me. 
 

Luz Argueta: We say in our immigrant community that God did not put challenges for each individual person if we know we aren't going to conquer that, because we believe that every challenge that's put in front of us, we will learn from it. And we won't fail it because God knows that we can conquer. We have the strength enough to conquer and learn from it and be better."

Interview and photography by Lloyd Wolf.