Carla Milagros Poma Diaz, works at Marathon gas station and is waiting to go home.
Carla Milagros Poma Diaz, age 23, always has a warm smile for the people she greets at the check-out at the Marathon (formerly Super America) gas station.
A native of Lima, Peru, her English is excellent as she rings up the gas, groceries, or goodies people are paying for at Marathon.
If you haven’t met Carla running the till at the gas station, then maybe you have seen her working at Sven & Oles or, if you have been a guest at Aspen Lodge, then you might have seen her as she goes from room-to-room cleaning.
Suffice to say; no grass grows under her feet!
An English major at Federico Villarreal National University in Lima, Carla came to Cook County on December 13, 2019, on a J-1 work visa. Her work visa ran out March 29, 2020, and she planned to fly back to Lima at the end of the month.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has reached its’ viral claws deep into Peru, a country that has closed its’ borders to new arrivals until mid-April.
“The borders for my country will reopen on April 12,” Carla said, “But I can’t get a flight home until May 1.”
Her room at Aspen Lodge is secure for April, but she will be unable to find employment during that time. She’s not alone, Carlos, another native of Peru, was set to leave the same time as Carla, and he’s stuck here too.
“I have been told there are thousands of J-1 visa students like me who can’t go back home when they planned,” said Carla.
Working without a J-1 visa isn’t an option, she said. Carla is hoping to secure another J-1 visa in the future and return to find employment here, and she doesn’t want to jeopardize her chances to come back to Cook County.
So, for now, she and Carlos and Lord knows how many J-1 visa students will wait. Carla said schoolwork isn’t an option at this time because “My college has closed down and they told all of us that we would have to wait for instruction about when classes will begin again.”
At some point in time, Carla said with a shrug of her shoulders, she will earn her degree and become an English teacher. “But who knows when that will be with all of this going on?”
At least, for now, Carla will have some slack time as she dreams of going home. Maybe she will even have enough slow time to let a little grass grow beneath her feet.
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