With Jess Presuel ’23, biological sciences, an international student from Mexico

Jess Presuel’s route to UMBC was not a direct flight from Mérida, Yucatán—her home state in Mexico—to UMBC. She originally arrived in Maryland in 2015 as an au pair to a family with five children. There, she immediately felt accepted and as she cared for the children, they helped her learn English. Over time, Presuel realized she was ready to pursue her dream of becoming a surgeon, starting in fall 2021 working toward a degree in biological science. At UMBC, Presuel knew that she wasn’t just on campus to take classes; she wanted to bring her Mexican and Mayan heritage to her time as a Retriever. Now, as a global ambassador through the Center for Global Engagement and through other connections on campus, Presuel has found platforms to bridge her two homes and she wants to share how she’s going about it.

Tools of the Trade

1. A sense of adventure
2. Backpack of study skills
3. Openness to joining clubs and volunteering
4. Grandma’s recipe book

Jess Presuel (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)

Step 1: Find your family

For Presuel, this was both easy and hard. When she arrived in the U.S., still using Google Translate to communicate with her au pair family, she found the parents and kids eager to help her learn English and navigate life in Maryland. Most importantly, she says, they supported her personally when she shared that she was gay. “Part of the rough patch of my life in Mexico,” Presuel shares, “was that at the time, my mom didn’t accept me as being gay. So when I first got here, the family was welcoming to me. Just for me, I began to experience how American culture, especially in Maryland, can be welcoming to the LGBTQ community. It made me feel safe.”

Presuel would later meet her fiancée, Lyana Cortes, in D.C. and over time, she says, her mother has grown to accept her daughter and love her future daughter-in-law. “My mom was a single mom, so she was always working. At the time, she sustained three jobs and I raised my siblings. So when I left, she felt my absence. Now, we’ve patched things up and she’s finally accepted me. She adores Lyana,” says Presuel. In fact, the couple got engaged on their most recent trip to Mexico, building stronger family ties internationally.

Step 2: Share your favorite things from home

“For me, being a Latina means always taking the time to cook something from my hometown,” says Presuel. “In addition to being Mexican, I’m Mayan too. Not many people know that the Mayan community is still alive. So I’m spreading the word, we’re here.”

Presuel uses any opportunity to make food for her communities on campus, including her medical fraternity Phi Delta Epsilon. For her Mayan dishes, she incorporates pumpkin seeds into many different recipes, and on Mexican Independence Day, September 16, she made pozole, a rich stew.

In addition to food, Presuel wants to share a sense of Latina empowerment. She’s currently in the process of replicating Harvard’s Latina Empowerment & Development (LEAD) conference at UMBC. “I am trying to get more Latinas involved in any type of workshops and educational settings,” says Presuel. “I want to showcase Latina leadership.”

Step 3: Get the lay of the land

Higher education in the States is a convoluted process for someone coming from outside of the system. For international students in particular, specific and important paperwork must be submitted to the right authorities. At UMBC, staff in International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS) help handle this bureaucratic burden. “I knew that when I finally picked UMBC as my university, ISSS was the first office I needed to connect with.”

In addition to ISSS, Presuel says, she doesn’t hesitate to ask her advisor Philip Farabaugh, professor in biological sciences, endless questions, even things she might be able to find online, because inevitably the conversation ends up being so useful to her. “He always gives me good advice. And he’s so funny, that makes me feel like, ‘Okay, I got this. I definitely can do this.’”

Step 4: Tell your story

After a year taking classes at UMBC, Presuel felt like she was ready to start offering advice to other international students. She’s now a global ambassador through the Center for Global Engagement.

“It’s such a rewarding role,” says Presuel, “because I finally get to share my experience. When you first get here from another country, you likely feel lost, so having someone who can help or speak your own language, it’s so relieving.”

Presuel, center, has fun with other global ambassadors at a Welcome Week event. Photo courtesy of CGE.

Step 5: Find ways to give back to your community

“As an international student, it’s important to have a community even outside of campus,” says Presuel. She wanted to find a way to give back to other Mexicans and Spanish speakers in the area and found a home at the Esperanza Center in Baltimore City. This nonprofit is a comprehensive resource center for immigrant communities. “I do absolutely anything that’s possible for me to do,” says Presuel, who has been volunteering there for the past year.

“I help from the front desk. I’ve been assisting dentists. I translate for doctors. So being part of the immigrant community in Baltimore, it has filled my heart,” says Presuel. “I wouldn’t call it a hole, but something was missing from Mexico. I needed to have that link between my American culture, my Mexican culture here.”

Ellicott City, founded 250 years ago this year, holds more than its share of history. The lore of the old mill town is dense with pioneers, millers, astronomers, abolitionists, fires, floods, and firsts, including the nation’s first national road and railroad.

Writer Ellen Nibali ’90, English, wanted to tell the history of the town. But how could she condense all those years into something that would both enlighten and entertain? Then she thought of the magic of the musical.

“The underlying thing is that I love stories,” Nibali said. “And I always enjoyed music. Then I realized that a musical was a great medium for storytelling.”

As a girl, Nibali played piano in her family’s chilly basement, finishing up practice when the timer dinged, then making up ditties. But she never imagined herself writing a musical, despite a life of putting pen to paper. After two years of college, Nibali took time off to get married and have children. But she continued writing—novels, children’s books, poems, even a bicentennial history of a Baltimore County community.

In her 30s, Nibali went back to college, attending UMBC. Nibali remembered writing a poem for class, and UMBC senior lecturer Michael Fallon telling her, “You’re on fire.” “That meant a huge amount to me,” Nibali said.

Ellen Nibali (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)

“I loved every second of it, the intellectual stimulation,” she said. This year, she endowed a scholarship for students transferring from community college. “I’m impressed with how UMBC has built its reputation and excellence,” Nibali said. “I’m proud to be an alum and want to give that opportunity to others of modest backgrounds. What UMBC does is transforming on so many levels, and it keeps on giving for generations.”

Back to the town’s roots

After graduation, Nibali wrote the weekly horticulture column in the Baltimore Sun. The column was part of her job at the University of Maryland’s Extension Service, answering hometowner’s garden questions.

She began writing the musical more than 25 years ago, for her son’s school history project. She composed songs for him and his classmates to perform, about the National Road, about the revolutionary tea party in Annapolis, and about the Underground Railroad.

Over the years, she wrote more songs, about the B&O Railroad, then one about astronomer, mathematician, and surveyor Benjamin Banneker.

Over the years, Nibali ended up with 15 songs and took the idea for her musical “On National Road” to EC250, the nonprofit formed to spearhead celebration of Ellicott City’s sestercentennial.

“Being a lover of history and especially Ellicott City history, I was immediately taken with the concept and the songs,” said Ed Lilley, president of EC250 and fondly known as the city’s informal mayor. “The finale song, ‘Sing Me a Memory,’ immediately brought tears to my eyes, reminding me of what a special place Ellicott City is.”

The board agreed to put on the show. Nibali wrote a libretto and four new songs at their request, then worked with Wilde Lake High School choir teacher Kevin Crouch, who composed and recorded the songs, from marches, folk, and rock to classical and ragtime.

The thrill of songs come to life

Nibali attends every rehearsal of “On National Road,” which opens at Howard Community College December 8.

“This is my baby,” Nibali said. “I want to watch it be born. It’s just been a fun adventure. The first time I heard them do the songs, each one was thrilling.”

“On National Road” spans, of course, 250 years. It starts with the three Quaker Ellicott brothers who first saw the Patapsco River’s potential as a force to power their mills through the race of the horse and the Tom Thumb train, to more recent history, including when 19-year-old Babe Ruth was married in Ellicott City because it had lax laws about youngsters marrying.

“I wish I could convey even better how revolutionary and earth-shaking and exciting these things are,” Nibali said of the history. “The theme is freedom, about being free to be who you are in the time you are in.”

One Saturday this autumn, Nibali and 50 other audience members gathered at the Museum of Howard County History to watch a preview song, a ragtime tune about Babe Ruth’s marriage at St. Paul Catholic Church, less than a half a mile away.

An actor playing Babe, in a baseball uniform, sang out Nibali’s rhyme of “Ruth” and “uncouth,” and then warbled the song’s final line, “I’m gonna take a swing at, gotta take a swing at, get to take a swing at life,” and Nibali clapped enthusiastically as the last note faded into the rafters.

— Susan Thornton Hobby

UMBC volleyball continued their hot streak, capturing their third-consecutive America East championship title over the weekend. The second-seeded Retrievers defeated Bryant in four sets before sweeping fourth-seeded University of New Hampshire in three sets on the road for the Championship, cementing UMBC’s fifth NCAA appearance in program history.