Guadalupe Arce-Jiminez: CALS scholar and activist

I’m originally from Mexico. My family moved here when I was 11 years old. And I studied my back off — I did everything I could to learn the language, to master it, so I wouldn’t be behind other students.

My name is Guadalupe Arce. I’m a freshman at N.C. State. I am a biology major with a concentration in human anatomy.

I got the Dale Bone Scholarship. It’s for immigrant students, especially whose parents are working in the fields. I believe (there were) three candidates (who) were in the running for the scholarship, and Mr. Dale Bone was like, “Y’all are such good candidates,” he decided to give us all three the scholarship. He’s an awesome person. He is what I call my hero.

About N.C. State — I’m loving every minute I’m here. First coming in I was really excited because I saw there was a Latino community at N.C. State. So I went and went to Mi Familia, which is an organization, and right now I’m political chair.

I think the community is everything that we have. The community shapes us.

As I learned when I was young, farrmworkers give us food. Food goes everywhere. And so it’s kind of me giving back to everybody, you know? I feel like I need to give back to everybody because that’s how I got here.

It feels good to help. And it feels good that your accomplishments can be shared with everybody. And if there’s some way you can help, you should.