People always called Idaena Castro-Contreras the smart one in class.
She didn't believe it at first.
"I was like I'm the Mexican who came over here, how can I be the smart one?" she said.
In elementary school she was invited to join the gifted program and she realized that her teachers thought she was smart. She was the smart one.
The 18-year-old Desert View High School senior worked all this year applying for scholarships and grants to pay for her college education and managed to get a full-ride to the University of Arizona for a bachelor's degree.
And now, Castro-Contreras has received a $20,000 Dell scholarship through the Dell Scholars Program, covering grad school too.
The Dell Scholars Program selects high school seniors who have overcome significant obstacles to pursue their college education. Almost half of the 400 selected for the scholarships are part of the Advancement Via Individual Determination or AVID program, which helps students prepare for college.
When she was a young girl, Castro-Contreras crossed the border every morning so she could attend a charter school in Douglas.
She was born here, but lived in Mexico with her family.
She had a hard time in Douglas because she didn't know English.
"I had some interesting teachers that weren't fond of the idea of having kids who didn't speak English in their classrooms," Castro-Contreras recalled. "They weren't like 'Oh let me help you.' Instead they were like 'Oh you can't do it. You're getting an F'."
When she asked for help from other students, the teacher would get mad. She remembers crying a lot about it.
One day, her parents showed up at school in Douglas and told her they were moving to Tucson. They had gotten work visas to move here.
"She shared with me that the teacher was terribly racist to her and she would come home and cry every day," said Heather McAuley, Desert View's school counselor. "She didn't want to go to school. She hated it...I asked her how the heck did she persist...The new school in Tucson and the love and dedication from a kind teacher kept Idaena going. Amazing. Truly amazing."
Language barriers still posed a problem at first, but Castro-Contreras was determined to learn.
"When it got to the point of learning English, I decided I had to do it for myself and my parents because they came over here just for us (she and her four siblings)," she said.
So, she read books in English during the library's summer reading program.
"I would be like 'Mom I have to go read,'" she recalled. "So, it went on like that until it got to the point I actually learned. I basically taught myself."
That's when it really started to hit her.
"I actually am smart," she said.
The lack of support she received in Douglas stuck with her until that point.
"It always stuck with me," she said. "Because of my background he pretty much said I wasn't worth his teaching, like you're a lost cause...Around fourth and fifth grade, they wanted to put me in the GATE program and it hit me, they wanted me in these upper level classes. They wanted me to better myself and be ahead, so I kept going...In middle school all my classes were honors. I got accepted so I thought I might as well keep going. In high school, I took AP and honors classes the whole four years."
This year posed its own set of challenges for Castro-Contreras.
"This year was hard. There were college apps, four AP classes, get your life together, you're gonna be an adult next year," she said. "I'm accident prone, and I got a concussion and got in a car accident within the same month."
But, that didn't stop her.
Castro-Contreras is graduating with a 4.3 grade point average. She'll get about two weeks off after she graduates and then will dive right into school at the University of Arizona.
"Idaena is a really good student," said McAuley. "She has a 4.3 GPA. She came to us extremely shy. Now she has blossomed into the most amazing, articulate young lady who wants to be a lawyer. I believe she will."
She gets her drive and inspiration from her parents.
"They had to actually drop out of school young to help their families," Castro Contreras said. "So, the fact that they've done everything for us to have a better life. They say whatever you do, it has to be better than what they had."
