Christina Nifong
Chantal Aaron
Chantal Aaron dreams of becoming a doctor.
When Chantal Aaron graduates Saturday from Ferrum College in Franklin County, she’ll have plenty of cheerleaders in the audience — her beloved professors, her fellow international students, her one-time colleagues from the college’s dining hall, her tight church family, her boyfriend.
But the faces that will not be looking up at Aaron as she receives her hard-won diploma will be those of her mother and 14-year-old sister. They wanted badly to bear witness to this milestone. They applied for visas, wrote letters, provided documentation for the reason they hoped to come to the United States from St. Catherine, Jamaica. But they were denied travel visas with no chance to appeal.
“She was so heartbroken,” Aaron says of her sister. “It’s a tough time now.”
Hardships are not new to Aaron. More than once her big dreams have been chased by an even bigger dose of reality. She has learned to take what comes her way with grace and to turn the disappointments into a source of strength. Aaron finds a way, always, to keep moving forward. Always, with a giant smile.
“I’m in constant admiration of her resilience,” says Patricia Suppes, Director of International Programs at Ferrum. “I can use many words to describe Chantal—kind, smart, silly, hardworking, but what comes to mind when I think of her is the word ‘fierce.’ Chantal does not let anything get in the way of achieving her dreams, and she is an inspiration to me and to many other people on this campus.”
Aaron, 26, was born in Kingston, then moved to St. Catherine, a rural part of the island nation, when she was two.
From an early age, she was hard-working — and smart. She excelled at academics and aced the exams to place her in a competitive school back in Kingston.
So at 12, she moved into a big house in an iffy neighborhood, with her grandmother. For four years she juggled homework and helping out at home. But her grandmother was not well. An aunt moved her to Suffolk, Virginia, where she could get better medical care. Which left Aaron alone at 16.
“I had to grow up fast,” she says. “That’s what helped shape me.”
By 20, she had finished her schooling and wanted to train to be a doctor. But medical school in Jamaica costs millions of dollars that her family didn’t have. She applied and was accepted to several Virginia schools. But in order to attend, she needed a stateside sponsor, which she didn’t have.
Instead, she went to work. And her father and his wife applied for visas so they could help Aaron get to the US.
By 2014, Aaron had moved to Suffolk, living with her aunt. She found work at Walmart as she searched for a way to college. Then she accompanied a cousin to Ferrum as he began his senior year. She spoke to the admissions office while she was on campus. By spring semester 2015, Aaron had a room, a roommate, a work-study job in the cafeteria and a full course load.
Things got off to a rough start. Aaron knew almost no one. She didn’t get along with her roommate. She was shocked by some of the racist and ignorant things her classmates said to her. She could not understand the lackadaisical attitude of many of her fellow students.
“In Jamaica, education is seen as the way out of poverty” Aaron explains. But at Ferrum, a liberal arts school with a student body of roughly 1,100, “some of the kids didn’t want to be here. They’re like, well, my mom forced me to be here.”
Soon enough, Aaron moved into the honors dorm and began taking honors classes. She found her tribe. Off-campus, she connected with a nearby Faith Assembly of God church, where the congregation embraced her.
In her years at Ferrum, Aaron traveled for a semester in Ireland and a three-week term in Peru. She studied anatomy on real cadavers, worked as a lab assistant in the science department and spent two summers measuring the water quality at Smith Mountain Lake. She earned awards, including Outstanding Student in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.
“Ferrum is my life,” she says now. “It is an amazing family. I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have made it if I’d gone to a different university or been in a different town.”
With graduation on the horizon, there are more questions than answers ahead. Aaron plans to move to Roanoke and take the MCAT. She hopes to find a job at Carilion Clinic while she waits to apply to medical school.
This summer, she’ll be eligible to become a US citizen. She asked at the immigration office if she could then bring her sister to the US. They told her, yes — in 25 years.
A setback, for sure. But Aaron will do what she’s always done: Put one foot in front of the other, believing it will work out.
And she’ll smile her big, contagious smile while she does it.
About the Writer:
Christina Nifong is a writer with a decades-long career profiling interesting people, places and ideas. She’s also a committed locavore and mother to three kids, four chickens and one very sweet kitty. Find more of her work at christinanifong.com.