For Mexican immigrant, first vote will be 'amazing'

Fabiola Castellanos, 26, a native of Mexico, was 6 when her family furtively crossed the Rio Grande. In less than two weeks she will cast her first vote as a naturalized U.S. citizen. Contemplating an election in which she finally has skin in the game floods her with tears.

"I always heard people arguing about who to vote for, and I was on the sidelines, just watching," she said. "Having my voice heard will be amazing."

Castellanos, an employment specialist with the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians, a nonprofit immigrant services organization in Philadelphia, was the emcee of a reception this week, co-sponsored by the government watchdog Committee of Seventy, to celebrate the first opportunity for newly minted Americans to go to the polls. Among the new citizens who spoke at the City Hall event were natives of China, Venezuela, and Belgium.

All around the nation this year, get-out-the-vote efforts are underway to recruit new citizens.

Speaking to the several dozen attendees at City Hall, Mayor Kenney began with a nod to his Irish roots. Then he addressed what he calls the xenophobia he sees in the campaign of GOP nominee Donald Trump.

"Fear and anger have overshadowed much of the election season. Let's not be intimidated," said Kenney. "We need to beat him bad. If we don't . . . he's going to run around saying we stole it from him."

Every path to U.S. citizenship is unique, but Castellanos' is particularly unusual. After the perilous river crossing during, which her father carried her as he swam, and her baby sister and pregnant mother were towed on a raft, the family settled in Weslaco, Texas, a small border town, where her father worked in construction.

"I had a really difficult life because I was undocumented for so long," Castellanos recalled. There were immigration-enforcement checkpoints in places like Corpus Christi, San Antonio, and Austin, she said, which meant that when she was in school she had to stay behind with the other undocumented students whenever the rest of the class went on field trips.

She had just started high school in Weslaco when the midwife who delivered her U.S.-born brother - and became very close with the family - had an idea to help Castellano seek legal status.

"How about I adopt you, we live in Philadelphia, and we try to get you a green card?" Castellano recalled the midwife saying. "Totally," Castellano replied.

Her birth parents were unable to provide her adequate support. So in a court-approved process they legally relinquished their parental rights and the American couple petitioned for guardianship. The guardians were originally from the Philadelphia area and moved back here. Castellano enrolled as a sophomore at Parkway Northwest High School for Peace and Social Justice in East Germantown. In another step approved by a court, Castellano was formally adopted.

She got her green card around the time that she graduated from high school in 2009. She went on to Montgomery County Community College for two years, and got hired as a receptionist at the immigration law firm where she had interned for a school project on the Dream Act, the failed federal legislation that would have shielded some undocumented immigrants from deportation, including the ones brought here as small children.

There was more drama in the spring of 2014, as Castellano was preparing to submit her naturalization application. Heading off to participate in a 5K road race, she locked her back pack, which contained her green card, Social Security card, and birth certificate in the trunk of her silver Dodge Neon.

She came back to find its window smashed and the trunk wide open. She barely had enough for the $700 naturalization application fee. A replacement green card would cost $400, which meant another delay while she saved up. She was devastated.

About a year later, Peter Gonzales, a lawyer at the firm where Castellano was a receptionist, and who now heads the Welcoming Center as its CEO, called to say he had been going through some old records and found a color copy of her green card in her employment file. A color copy of the card's front and back would be acceptable proof of her status.

"Oh, my God," said Castellano, who immediately pulled her application together, mailed it that week, and submitted her fingerprints and other required biometrics a month later.

On Dec. 28, 2015, she passed the test for citizenship.

"It was my Christmas gift," she said.

Now, with Election Day looming, she said, "I would have rather had Bernie," referring to the former presidential candidate, but will pull the lever for Hillary Clinton.

To celebrate her first vote she plans to hike around Valley Green, "acknowledge what I just did, be proud of myself and everything this country has to offer."

mmatza@phillynews.com

215-854-2541

@MichaelMatza1