Oral history interview, Maria Velasco, 2013 (video and transcript)

Maria Velasco is the Program Director at Intercambio; a program that does volunteer-taught English classes for adult immigrants, classes and workshops on life skills and citizenship and cultural trainings and events for all community members. Maria is responsible for organizing Boulder English classes, coordinating resource workshops, and planning intercultural events in Boulder and Lafayette. She was born and raised in Salamanca, Spain. She has a BA in Business Administration from the University of Salamanca. Before being a part of Intercambio, she managed the Language and Cultural Services Department at a hospital in Washington where she spoke to patients about healthcare and she was an interpreter. She talks about the challenges of being a program director and the challenges that many Latinos face. She talks about the struggles that she faced while being undocumented and also the language barriers and the discrimination she faced because if her accent. She later discusses her thoughts about the immigration reform and the impact it will have on Latinos. She believes that it is very important to empower Latinos and educate and help each other succeed in this country.