Maria Elena White was born and raised in Mexico City as Maria Elena Santillan Victorica before coming to the United States as an adult. Both her parents are also from Mexico - her mother from Mexico City, and her father from Cuernavaca in the state of Morelos. Maria Elena came to Beloit in 1994, and when she married an American man, her maiden name changed to Maria Elena White. Maria has one daughter who works at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Currently, Maria Elena White is married to Hyojin Shim, who is Korean and has one daughter working on her PhD in Madison. Coming together, they became a family of four. 

In Mexico, Maria Elena studied sociology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, or, la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Her first experiences as a teacher in Mexico were very difficult. First, to complete a community service requirement, she gave alphabet classes for six months in a low-income neighborhood where she taught a group of ten women how to read. Her second experience as a teacher was in a school also in a low-income neighborhood with few resources. Maria Elena also gave sociology classes in a private high school, as well as classes at a dance school when working on her thesis for her sociology license: research in popular culture and artistic expression and how they communicate through verbal and non-verbal communication in dance, or “la investigación en la cultura popular y la expresión artística y cómo se comunican a través de la comunicación verbal y no verbal en el baile”, as said by Maria Elena. 

Once in the United States, Maria Elena studied for a masters in communication in Wisconsin and was interested in film, but the opportunity to give Spanish classes in Beloit arose. She gave communications and sociology classes at Blackhawk Technical College, and Dr. Sylvia Lopez from Beloit College invited her to teach Spanish at Beloit College for one year. Maria Elena then found a full-time job as a communications and Spanish Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. She obtained certifications to teach language as a second language, Spanish and culture. Currently, she teaches grammar classes for beginners and advanced students, translation classes, literature classes for Latin Americans, and Chicano Studies. 

Her biggest challenge in the United States was language. Arriving in the United States, it was difficult to express herself in a new language, even though she had studied English for five years in Mexico. In addition to facing a linguistic challenge, she also faced a cultural challenge especially with the various accents that exist. She studied and learned how to minimize her accent to communicate with others more fluently. 

During her life in the United States, Maria Elena White has had great success. Successful being having success in having a supportive family and being surrounded by love from the people that love her and she loves. She has also been academically successful; achieving the highest professional level possible at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Her great success is having achieved it without knowing English when she arrived in Beloit. 

Maria Elena White suggests that we all focus on the present in order to realize the wishes of the future and thinks it is important to help others. 20 years ago, White started La Voz de Beloit as a volunteer to help the Latin and Beloit communities. 

 

Interview done by Francisco Orbezo, Jr., Beloit College student.