Our Blog

Meet Zaily Meza, known as “Zaelita” by friends and loved ones. Zaily and her family are from Honduras, and she looks back at her time growing up with nostalgic joy. Her childhood and adolescence spent in Honduras were filled with great memories and opportunities, such as going to college. She later moved to the United States with her family in October 2006, at age 17. After 16 years in the United States continuing to establish opportunities for herself and her family, Zaily c

Yesdel Benitez was born in a small town called San Nicolas in Cuba, where most of his family resides today. Growing up, Yesdel had a normal childhood surrounded by family and with a growing love for soccer. Yesdel described how he decorated his room with Portugal team accessories, and Cristiano Ronaldo posters, who happens to be his favorite soccer player. Normally in Cuba, Yesdel would gather with friends and family to watch soccer. However, now he watches soccer in his free

Meet Sanjuana Rodriguez, or “Jenny” as her friends and family call her. Sanjuana was born and raised in Juarez, Mexico. Despite being surrounded by her family, friends, and the life she established for herself, her concern with security in Juarez was the deciding factor in Sanjuana’s decision to move to the United States with her husband and her 4 children in April 2010, when she was 34 years old. Sanjuana remembers a recurring feeling of uncertainty when she moved to the Uni

Maria Elizabeth Monarrez was born in a little town in Durango, Mexico which is where most of her family still lives today. In Mexico, she had what she considered “a simple life.” She grew up taking care of her father’s cattle by taking them to the paddock and feeding them, tasks that she would still occasionally do as an adult. Otherwise, once she was married and had children, her days centered around family:  sending her kids to school, cleaning and doing household chores th

You know the lyrics, “There is a season, turn, turn, turn…”  BIIN is turning a page this season, and as the organization adapts to some significant changes in the composition of its staff, we wanted to turn the mic to the two people who are stepping down: Jaimi Washburn, outgoing Director, and Janet Morford, who will also wrap up her term as Communications and Development Coordinator this fall.  Jaimi and Janet have worked closely together on everything from supervising inter

Meet Juanita Garza. She is from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. After being raised in, getting married and starting a family in Nuevo Laredo, Juanita did not expect to come to the United States. Her husband had a stable job working in a factory in Laredo, a neighboring town across the U.S.-Mexico border, and she was with her 8 children and her extended family. But after her husband received a job offer in Bryan, she visited the city and eventually moved here with her family in the 1980

Meet Yazmín García, known by friends and family as Yaz. She and her family are from Monterrey, Mexico, where she worked as a chemist in a food lab for seven years in the nutrition and physiochemistry departments. She really enjoyed her work at the lab, especially the chance to put into practice all the theories and skills she learned in university, such as using high-performance liquid chromatography to analyze the components of different foods. Yazmín, her husband, and their

Members of the 2022-23 BIIN Board of Directors gather in September 2022. From left to right: Susan Dennis, Angela Rios, Judith Briseno, Maria Martinez, Nancy Plankey-Videla, Michelle Esparza, and Tere Vega. Photo credit: Mary Campbell. Important transitions are underway at BIIN:  one change occurs every fall, as some members of the board of directors pass the baton to new leaders, and new members join. Here, we want to thank outgoing board members for their service and also h

Joel Nava, who was born in 1959 in Mexico City, Mexico, grew up in a big family with 10 siblings.  Joel attended the Instituto Politecnico Nacional, where he earned a degree in business administration. He then had a successful career working for the Mexican government as chief of the Office of Land Reform from 1982 to 1988.  During these years, Joel also married his wife, Josephina, and they began a family of their own.  Joel describes their move to the United States as a hap