Know Your Neighbor: Michelle Imbaquingo Named Youth of the Year
Imagine being a 16-year-old high school junior arriving in a foreign country unable to speak or understand the language.
Not only are you faced with having to quickly adapt to a new country and lifestyle, but also get used to a new school without any friends and having to learn a new language with the expectation to excel academically to get into a good college.
That is what Michelle Imbaquingo faced when her family moved from Quito, Ecuador to Mount Kisco in December 2010. Not only did Imbaquingo survive, she flourished. Next month, she graduates from Fox Lane High School before heading off in the fall to Manhattan College where she plans on being a pre-med student on her way to becoming a pediatrician.
As soft-spoken as she is, nothing was going to deter the fiercely determined Imbaquingo from her dreams.
“I set a goal in my life and I have to reach it,” said Imbaquingo, who turned 18 last week. “I know I’m the type of person, ‘Oh, I can do it.’ Even if it takes a long time I have to fulfill all my dreams.”
Before graduation and college, on June 2 she will be recognized by the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester for being named the organization’s Youth of the Year at its annual Humanitarian Dinner. Imbaquingo, who regularly volunteered for community service while growing up in Ecuador, was told by her aunt that the Boys & Girls Club might be a good place for her to go after school. For the remainder of her junior year, Imbaquingo supervised a group of third-graders in the afterschool program; this year she chaperoned second-graders.
The younger children helped Imbaquingo learn English while helping her realize how much she loved working with kids. As soon as she attended the orientation shortly after her arrival, she realized it was a place she needed to be when she wasn’t staying for afterschool instruction with teachers at Fox Lane. She also credited watching movies and listening to music to help accelerate her understanding of English.
Imbaquingo couldn’t help but be proud when she was told in January she was nominated for the award. Two months later she was selected as the winner.
“I was like real excited because it was like a really good honor, great honor, to be chosen from the whole bunch of students that come here,” Imbaquingo said. “So I felt really good about that.”
Although the United States seemed foreign to Imbaquingo, she was actually born in Westchester and previously lived in Mount Kisco until she was eight months old. Her parents originally moved to the area when her two older siblings–her sister is 31 years old and her brother is 30– were young. However, the family decided to move back to Ecuador since Imbaquingo’s father had various business interests in the family’s native country.
They returned to the area to reunite with Imbaquingo’s brother. Her had moved back to New York when he reached adulthood because he didn’t care for Ecuador, and ironically, had trouble learning Spanish. He is now married, as is her sister, a doctor in Ecuador.
Imbaquingo said that missing her sister, who was a sort of surrogate parent for her growing up, along with the ongoing family upheavals, have made the challenges even steeper. At the start of the year her father went back to Ecuador because of business interests. The family still owns a home there.
She said she has also had to overcome the sting of some not-so-subtle whispers among some students and community members who stereotype her as lazy because of her early language barriers. She has used that as a motivating factor to succeed.
“I want to show that I can be someone and actually change that stereotype that people have about the Latino community,” Imbaquingo said.
Fortunately for Imbaquingo, family has been a mainstay in her life, despite the distance between relatives on two continents. She has credited her mother, her closest friend, for helping her to this point. And no doubt, the Boys & Girls Club has helped shape who she has become. Now, Imbaquingo looks forward to college and beyond.
“I feel more comfortable,” she said. “I’m not scared people are going to judge me or say something bad. I’m just more confident about myself.”
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.
