ABSTRACT
As 48-year-old Maria got dressed for work, she glanced outside her bedroom window. It had been a long winter, and she was still getting used to the unpredictable weather of Chicago, her adopted city, having emigrated from Mexico seven years ago. Today, however, she had a smile on her lips. Not only was she going to meet that evening with Rosario, her childhood friend from Mexico who had recently immigrated to the US, having accepted a position at a local non-profit organization, but it was five years ago this day that she started working at her current job. As the Director of International Relations for South America at the University of Bradford, she had not only been able to use her extensive knowledge of the continent to organize collaborative programs for her university, but she had been instrumental in using her network of former colleagues and friends in Mexico and elsewhere to benefit students and faculty in various ways.
