Nancy Herrera sits at her desk where two framed photos of her three sons and parents face her. A poster of Frida Kahlo smoking — one of several of the Mexican painter in her office — sits behind her.
These faces mean something to her, symbolizing the strength she carries as she pursues change for Arizona's Latino and immigrant communities as the state director of Poder Latinx, a nationwide organization that aims to build Latino political power nationwide by pushing economic, immigrant and environmental issues.
“Despite numerous personal and physical challenges, Frida persevered, transforming her pain into powerful art,” Herrera said over an email. “Despite my own immigration challenges, I have persevered and found a passion for politics and community advocacy.”
Herrera uses her own story to help her community — immigrants and Latinos — to achieve a better life for themselves. She does this by helping undocumented immigrants through the naturalization process, or by encouraging Latinos to engage in and hold political power at the local and national level.
At the age of 3, her family migrated to California from Mexico. They wanted better opportunities for Herrera and her three sisters, but after living in the U.S. for most of her life, her parents were detained, and a year later, Herrera was too.
The experience of being separated from her home was one of the biggest challenges of Herrera's life, but she came out of it stronger, successful and closer to her culture and people.
“I am a Mexicana from Cuernavaca, Morelos, living my parents' American dream," Herrera said.
Undocumented and afraid
Like many undocumented children, Herrera didn't realize the reality of her status until it limited her at school.
Hands Across the Border, an international exchange program that sought to bridge the divide between U.S. and Mexican families, made it to Herrera’s school in Phoenix. The program consisted of having students go to school across the border for one week. It was something that Herrera's teacher had handpicked her to participate in, but as soon as she presented the idea to her parents, she was shut down.
"If she goes to Mexico, will she be able to come back?" That was the question Herrera's parents took to the principal’s office. The principal, oblivious to the family's situation, told them all she needed was a birth certificate to participate — a U.S. birth certificate.
Back home, Herrera remembers being confused. She had a birth certificate, but according to her father, she didn't have papeles.
“‘You're not legal here. You don't have papeles (papers) to be here,’” Herrera recalled her father telling her. “And I was so confused, and at such a young age, I don't think we can comprehend. All I knew was the United States. This is where I grew up."
“It changed my world completely," and, like so many undocumented people living in the U.S., she gained a new sense of fear that kept her from speaking the reality of her situation to anyone outside of her family.
She avoided telling anyone about her status for years. A week before she got married to her now husband, she spoke her truth.
“I grew up in the shadows, not speaking my reality, not being able to really say who I was,” Herrera said. “I always had to be this second persona, this second Herrera, who grew up in California and wasn't able to travel because her parents were extremely strict and they wouldn't let her leave.”
The fear of being deported was one thing, but the fear of rejection, especially from a life partner, was far more debilitating. Herrera didn't want him to think she was marrying for a legal pathway. When she finally spoke her truth, her husband was supportive and eased her fears.
But the threat of deportation still loomed heavy and one 2008 morning, she and her family experienced the separation that so many immigrant families go through in the U.S.
Forced separation from her parents and husband
When Herrera was a teenager, she and her family believed they were on the legal path toward staying in the country with authorization.
Her parents were working, paying off a home and had recently obtained work permits with the help of a notary. However, the person helping them submit their applications wrongly marked Herrera and her parents as asylee cases, which they did not qualify for. During their court case, they were placed in deportation status. Her family overstayed their time in the US until officers showed up at their home in 2008.
One morning that year, when Herrera was in her early 20s, three officers knocked at their Phoenix family home, forced their way in and failed to provide a search warrant despite claiming they did, according to Herrera. They arrested her parents saying they had overstayed their deportation order.
“They handcuffed them like criminals and took them in the car,” Herrera recalled that morning through tears, when she and her siblings had to watch her parents be taken away.
She recalled telling her parents that she and her sisters would find a lawyer and fix things, but seeing her mom, the pillar of her family, fall apart in tears was difficult. Herrera was unable to see or talk to her parents for 24 hours. By the time she spoke with her mom again, she was back in Mexico."You're 6 years old and you just don't know what's going on. And your parents the next day, they just disappear and you're kind of traumatized," said Alondra Espinoza, the youngest who was raised by her older sisters stepping in to fill that parental role.
A year later, Herrera took the trip to the border city of Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, to process her application for permanent residency. She planned to apply for her green card as the wife of a United States citizen, which according to immigration law, she fully qualified for.
She knew the risk — there was a 50/50 chance she would not be returning home and decided to take her kids with her.
“I had so many aspirations and goals that I wanted to accomplish ... having a status was the only way that I would be able to do that,” Herrera said.
Her status was declared pending, and she was denied reentry into the U.S. She was stuck in Cuernavaca with her 3-year-old and 5-month-old for three and a half years.
For the first few months, she would make constant phone calls to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, only to be answered by a machine that would declare her status as pending.
The experience of being back in her home country allowed her to connect with her culture and appreciate the risk her parents took to move to the U.S. She now sees it as a blessing in disguise, despite all of the difficulties that move brought on.
One day, her dad suggested she call and check her status again. She was reluctant to do so but was met with a pleasant surprise. “That same day, I called my husband and I went and bought my airplane ticket. I didn't think about it twice. I was gone, I was back to the U.S.," Herrera said.
Using her experience to help others
Upon her return, she knew she had to dedicate herself to “my immigrant community, my Latino community, the most vulnerable of our population. Because that's how I saw my parents,” said Herrera, hoping to share her story so that they could "become informed and become participants civically.”
She connected with Cristian Avila, a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, living in the Valley, over having similar backgrounds. Even though Avila was younger, he became like a mentor to her and helped her get involved at Mi Familia Vota, a national organization that promotes civic engagement among Latinos. She began hosting citizenship workshops and informing potential voters about the upcoming election, the 2016 presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Avila sees Herrera as a pillar in the community.
"She has an amazing story, but more importantly she has that drive. She has what we call 'las ganas' to make a change in the community," said Avila, who is now the national programs director at Poder Latinx. Even in the 120-degree Arizona heat, Avila said that has never stopped Herrera from doing her job and going out into the community.
While at Mi Familia Vota, Herrera went on to obtain her bachelor's degree in political science and government from Arizona State University. Her time there helped her break out of her shell and share her story even more.
“People sometimes see us sitting here in this desk. ‘State director? What struggle does that person have?’ ‘Look at her. She's educated. She has a master's degree.’ But, man, I have a lot of struggles. I had to navigate so many areas just to get to the point where I am now, and my struggles can motivate you to see things differently and pursue forward," Herrera said.
After Trump was elected, Herrera decided to take a step back from civic engagement work and became an international counselor at Grand Canyon University, where she began to help students with a similar background. Being a first-generation student means having to figure out a school system by yourself and she wanted to make sure they had a helping hand.
While working at GCU, she obtained her master's degree in public administration with an emphasis on government and policy. The degree would prove useful when she decided to go back to her advocacy community three years later.
She went to Avila again and asked him if he knew of any organizations that were doing good work. Poder Latinx was setting up shop in Arizona at the time.
Continued fight for Latino civic engagement
Not long after she started at Poder Latinx as the program director, she was hosting citizenship workshops, which remain some of her proudest work.
She remembers one particular day when she hosted an information session, prior to a citizen workshop, at the Southwest Carpenters Union. “I had over 300 attendees that day, 300 folks that came out to listen to this information session, and it just brought me so much joy. And it just reminded me as to why I needed to be back in this capacity, doing this work.”
As the head of the Arizona branch, Herrera sees to all bilingual programs offered in Arizona, from citizenship workshops and information sessions to the active voter campaign Poder Latinx has going leading up to the 2024 presidential race. Launched in early 2023, the campaign is focused on registering as many Latinos as possible in key states, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia and Washington.
Herrera is proud of her work and believes motivating people is a work of art. It’s not as easy as knocking on someone’s door and asking them to participate civically, because many people have been disillusioned with experiences from their home country, or even their experiences after migrating to the U.S.
“I'm passionate when I connect with individuals on the ground,” said Herrera, who experiences joy when she helps people at a citizenship workshop. "And then they come back months later and show us their certificate of naturalization, that they're now U.S. citizens, and then they come back with their ballot.”
From working at Mi Familia Vota to Poder Latinx, Herrera has never failed to be with her community, staying true to her commitment when crossing that border.
It’s been 16 years since Herrera's parents were deported. They have remade their life in Mexico, the same way that Herrera has rebuilt hers in the U.S.
Still, the sting of not being able to see her parents in their Phoenix home is always there.
“I'm a daddy's girl, and every single time I get on the phone with my dad, he says, ’I'm so proud of you, mija,’” Herrera said. “'For everything that you're doing, for everything that you have accomplished.'”
“We are living the dream that (my parents) dreamt for us."
Reach La Voz reporter Erick Treviño at erick.trevino@gannett.com.
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