SCENE (online) :: The Magazine of Schreiner University

Ruben Marquina moved with his parents from La Plata, Argentina to Mexico City when he was 12, and like most youngsters plunked down in a strange place, he wasn’t too happy about his new life. “I made friends quickly enough,” he remembers, “but some of the kids made fun of me because of my accent (Argentine Spanish is quite different from Mexico City Spanish) and I remember some days I just wanted to go home after school and not see anyone.” Ruben went to middle school and his first year of high school in Mexico, riding over an hour each way on the subway from his home.

“One day I was just sitting there waiting for the train ride to end and I noticed a magazine someone had left on the seat across from me, so I picked it up and began looking through it.” The magazine was a copy of the Presbyterian Sun, and in it was a story about Presbyterian Pan American School in Kingsville, Texas. “That evening when my Mom and Dad got home from work I told them I wanted to go to school in the U.S. and showed them the magazine.”

“Predictably,” Ruben smiles, “Mom began to cry and Dad started listing all the reasons why this was a horrible idea. I was the baby of the family and both my parents thought that I was over-reacting to being a little unhappy with Mexico City. They kept telling me that things would get better, and I tried to tell them that this wasn’t about being unhappy, although I was. I simply saw a better life for myself if I could get to this wonderful school in the U.S., and I kept after them. Finally they agreed that I could write to Pan American and inquire about getting in. They also told me that I would have to get a full scholarship because they couldn’t afford to pay for anything. I guess they figured that would be the end of that.”

Ruben wrote to Pan American in April, got his application and sent it in, but by June he still hadn’t heard back. “My parents were, of course, delighted! School was out for the year and both Mom and Dad were busy making plans for how I would spend my summer. Then one day around the end of June Mom came into my room with a letter in her hand. It was from Pan American, and they not only accepted me, they offered me a full scholarship!”

Ruben remembers the mixture of pride and sadness with which his parents saw him off to the States. “I knew that I had a lot of hard work ahead of me, especially since I spoke very little English and the school made it clear that their offer of a full scholarship depended on my becoming fluent in English and making good grades from the beginning. Looking back it doesn’t seem that bad, but that first summer was really difficult and really fun at the same time. Luckily, about one week into the semester I broke my ankle and that helped me make a lot of new friends, and all the girls, especially, wanted to sign my cast.”

Presbyterian Pan American was an eye-opener for this adventurous young man from Argentina. “There were people there from everywhere, so nobody thought my accent was strange or that I didn’t belong. The faculty were all so nice and so helpful, and I quickly got involved in campus life, so loneliness was never a problem.” Ruben laughs as he tells about the cards he used to get from his mother. “Every week another card would come asking how I was doing, asking me if I wanted to come home, assuring me that it would be OK if I did. I would write back telling her that everything was great, that I had a lot of friends, and that my schoolwork was going just fine. After a while she stopped trying to encourage me to come home, and began to realize that this was my life now. I always told her that I had two lives—one in the U.S. and one at home with my family, so finally my parents came to accept that I was going to finish what I had started.”

In spite of his independent nature, Ruben did miss the closeness and warmth of his family, so when a New Braunfels family with close ties to Pan American began inviting him to visit them on weekends and during holiday breaks, he quickly formed a close bond with them. “Rudy and Connie Ayala were just wonderful—so generous and so loving, I really felt that I had been blessed with a second family. They encouraged me in my schoolwork and in my involvement with Campus Ministry and Vespers. I began speaking out on social issues on campus, and got very involved with student leadership. I give strong credit to the Ayalas, who always encouraged me to find ways to give back to others, just as I had been helped by so many people.”

Nearing graduation from Pan American, Ruben was in a quandary. “I knew I wanted to stay in the U.S. and go to college but I really didn’t know where I wanted to go. I still needed financial assistance, and although my grades were very good I wasn’t sure I could qualify anywhere.” That’s when Connie Ayala stepped in and introduced Ruben to her boss, Dr. Carlos Campos, a New Braunfels physician who was a trustee of Schreiner University.


Dr. Campos was fully impressed with Ruben and helped to set up his application to Schreiner. “He was very helpful and very encouraging,” Ruben remembers,” and when I left to go home to Mexico for the summer I was pretty excited. I took a summer job to save some money, and every day when I came home I would ask my mother if anything had come for me in the mail.”

	Weeks went by, then a month, then two months. “I was getting worried; Mom was getting excited. I could tell that she hoped I would be going to college in Mexico City, even though she kept telling me not to worry. Then one day I came home from my job and she told me that someone had called from the U.S. and asked to speak to me. She couldn’t understand what the man wanted and had told him to please call back that evening, but she wasn’t sure he had understood.” Ruben waited by the phone all evening. No call. The next day he called work and told them he was sick and couldn’t come in, and sat all day by the phone. Nothing. The next day—the same. “I was beginning to think that someone had played a trick on me. I was getting very nervous. Then the evening of the second day—it rang! I grabbed the phone and there was Chuck Tait, an admissions counselor at Schreiner University, telling me that I was accepted and was being given a full financial aid package.” Ruben was ecstatic. His parents were suspicious. “They knew that nobody in Mexico, or anywhere in Latin American for that matter, gets offered such huge sums of money just for being a good student. It took a few days for the letter and information package to arrive, and when it did, both my parents read everything in it, over and over. Finally they were convinced—at least, they admitted that it looked legitimate.”

The only remaining obstacle was obtaining a student visa, and Ruben’s first encounter at the American consulate wasn’t auspicious. “I remember there was this great big man behind a desk, and it seemed like he didn’t like me at all. He kept finding things in my application that raised his suspicions, and kept leaving the room to talk with other people down the hall. I was getting very nervous, but then a nice lady came into the room with my application papers in her hand and began talking with me. She said that she noticed that I had gone to Pan American and asked if I was a Presbyterian. When I said that I was, and that I had been very active in the church on campus, she smiled and told me that she didn’t think there were going to be any more problems with my visa—and there weren’t!”



The Ayalas were waiting for him when he got off the plane at San Antonio, and Ruben remembers his first view of the Schreiner campus. “I knew that this was going to be my home for the next few years, and I was so happy. The campus is beautiful, and from the very first the other students smiled and said hello and made me feel welcome. I never had any doubts that I had made the right decision, and I still feel that way today.” Ruben quickly made his way into the heart of Schreiner. “I was only seventeen when I came to Schreiner—the story of my life,” he grins amiably, “so I got kind of ‘adopted’ on campus and that made everything so much easier for me. I quickly learned that the professors aren’t distant authority figures but real people who love to teach, and I found that wherever I turned there were people who encouraged me, supported me, and offered me opportunities to learn.” And learn he did. Ruben expects to graduate in 2007, while maintaining high grades, serving in Campus Ministry, serving as the Social and Brotherhood chair of Phi Delta Theta fraternity and in other volunteer capacities on campus and in the community, and making friends wherever he goes. “I think the most important thing I’ve learned through my experiences so far in life is that I don’t need to be afraid to open any door, because there are always good people on the other side.”
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