The door to the American Dream is closed to this DREAMer

Sharley Mendoza is in many ways a living embodiment of The American Dream.

Mendoza, was born in Guatemala and immigrated to North Carolina at the age of 4.

A 2015 graduate of Patton High School, she later founded Good Books, a bilingual bookkeeping enterprise of the Industrial Commons.

She is also fluent in Spanish, is QuickBooks certified and is a Notary Public.

Sharley is also active in her community, serving on the City of Morganton Human Relations Commission and as a member of the Morganton Rotary Club.

 When she and I sit down to talk in the offices of The Paper, she lights up the room with her energy, her ideas, and her enthusiasm.

“Growing up in Morganton, I found it to be a welcoming community," she remembers. With the aid of her parents, she mastered the English language before even starting school, so she was never classified as an “English As A Second Language” student.

Today, both her English and her Spanish are flawless and to my Burke County ear she speaks without an accent, but she laughs and tells me, “I have a Southern accent in Spanish."

Sharley’s parents first worked in the furniture industry when they arrived in Burke County but they later went into business for themselves.

Her father first set up a lawn care business and Sharley started helping out at age 10. The business later expanded to include painting, roofing, and home repair, while her mother has also founded two businesses.

“My parents always set a marvelous example for me of working hard but also of looking out for family,” she said. “They definitely gave me a wonderful foundation to build my life on.”

And Sharley has certainly used that foundation to her best advantage.

Entering the workforce immediately after high school, she worked in health care settings and on the plant floor in pharma manufacturing before joining Industrial Commons three years ago. She was promoted to her current position as Director of Operations a year ago.

She sees her work with The Industrial Commons more as a calling than as a job and says, “I want to help my community through the work that I do.”

Housing, she added, especially affordable housing that is stabilized, is an important need in Morganton as well as affordable health care. She would also like to see our community more invested in language inclusivity.

Noting that 23% of the city’s population is now Hispanic, Sharley would like to see more diverse representation on both elected and appointed boards and commissions.

Overall, she noted, “Growing up and living in Morganton has been a very positive experience for me. I truly believe that we are moving in the right direction on many issues. At the end of the day, I’m here to help Morganton.”

But back to Sharley being the embodiment of The American Dream – hard working, community minded, dedicated to making life better not just for herself but for others.

In spite of her proven track record and in spite of her many attributes, the door to American citizenship is currently closed to her.

Sharley is a DREAMer, a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program designed to protect young people not born in the United States from deportation and granting them the opportunity to receive work permits.

But, even though DREAMers pay income taxes and pay into the Social Security system, they can receive no federal benefits, neither Social Security nor federal college financial aid, nor food stamps.

In North Carolina, DREAMers can not receive in-state college tuition and are ineligible for Medicaid except for emergency conditions.

DREAMers, no matter how involved they are involved in their community or how knowledgeable they are about issues, are not allowed to vote.

And DREAMers, no matter what “model citizens” they may be, have no path to obtaining citizenship in the nation which enjoys the fruits of their labor and which taxes their earnings and their property and every item they purchase.

I admire Sharley for accepting these conditions without rancor or bitterness.

But I do question the laws which treat her so unfairly and the motivations behind them.

Bill Poteat is editor of The Paper. He may be reached at 828-445-8595 or at bill@thepaper.media.