Divita spoke about her upbringing in a rural village in Nepal—where she had no electricity or running water and traveled by oxen cart—and the challenges and excitement of immigrating to the United States when she was 12.
“I had never seen so many people with blue eyes and not-black hair,” said Divita, who is now a vice president at Goldman Sachs. At the time, she did not speak English, disliked American food (except for pizza) and felt culturally isolated from her classmates. “I had no sense of what TV shows other people in my class were watching, so I had no context for a lot of conversations.”
She came to Foote in seventh grade with the encouragement of then-admissions director Laura Altshul and a neighbor who attended Foote. Eventually, she came to feel at home here with the support of friends and teachers.
One of her first friends was Meredith, and the two remain close to this day. In fact, that friendship and others like it are a big reason Meredith decided to pursue a career as an immigration attorney.
Meredith, an attorney with Bretz & Coven in New York, shared stories with fourth graders about her work representing asylum and refugee applicants. One concerned Maria, a client from El Salvador seeking asylum in the U.S. after gangs tried three separate times to kidnap her. Despite her stature as a member of El Salvador’s national basketball team, Maria had trouble winning asylum status. She was able to, thanks to Meredith’s advovacy.
“I’m not an immigrant, I’m a third-generation American. But I’ve always been very close to people who are immigrants,” Meredith told students. “I was always very interested in conflicts happening around the world and wanted to help. And this was a way that I could help as an attorney.”