Our community member sharing her story requested to remain anonymous. For this story, we shall refer to her as Ana.
Originally from Chile, Ana came to the US in 2015. She started this new chapter of her life in Chicago, where she lived with her partner at the time, and his family for 5 months. Her former partner’s acceptance to the University of Utah brought them to SLC, back in January of 2016.
Ana had to adapt to her new life quickly...
“He is an American and his entire family is! None of them were able to speak Spanish so I had to learn fast how to speak English, so I could communicate with them and with actually anyone!” Ana writes. “With that ex, we were planning to become parents one day, and I really fell in love with the idea that my kids would be a future generation of the US, and then I started to get even more committed with this country, places, traditions, culture, etc.”
Due to different factors, at some point, their relationship had to be terminated.
“It was a very difficult and depressing time of my life. I had to ask myself if I wanted to go back to Chile and say bye to my dream of having an American family... or fight and stay in the US... I decided to stay here! I had no family, and actually nothing that was strongly helping me to stay here, but I just had that big dream of having an American family…”
At that time, Ana just had a Green Card. She wasn't an American citizen yet. She remembers feeling the need to connect with earth, with nature, natural places, and animals and she sought opportunities to continuously do so.
“One day I went to the SLC Zoo and I found a couple of people from TreeUtah in 2020, right there at the Zoo. They explained to me about the community and I wanted to be part of it, but I never took it seriously... I knew I wanted to do something for this land, and for the land I was planning to give my ‘future kids’ as a gift…”
Things started rolling afterward for Ana. She found an attorney who could help her become a US citizen, so that in the future, she wouldn’t have to rely on anyone to be on her side to make her dream possible. And a week or so later, she met Jack, a TreeUtah team leader at that time, at the gym!
“He was drinking water with a TreeUtah bottle and I asked him about the community, and he was able to tell me more about it,” Ana wrote.
They exchanged phone numbers and email information, and that’s how Ana started coming to TreeUtah events. Within the span of about a month or two, she became a team leader for TreeUtah too!
“As I said before, it was such a hard time I was passing through at that time, so when I was connecting with nature, when I was serving this state, making new friends, and planting trees.... I was feeling such a connection with this land! I was planting trees with so much intention, asking God and the same land to help me keep a place for me here.”
After a year, Ana became a US citizen on her own and she truly believes that tending to the earth played a huge role in her story.
“Honestly, all of it was just a result of being involved with the ground, I feel like it was a way from this land to say thank you or something. All the good memories, new friends, camping in St George, all the emotional healing that I also got from it… it will all remain with me and with my future generation... I'm happy and grateful that I found TreeUtah at the moment I was most in need of it... I love when we focus on growing and construct good things during our lives! From my side, I can say with pride that I've done something amazing for the future of Utah!”
