Peruvians find helping hands

ROANOKE -- This is a little story about big things happening to not-so-big people.

The people are Liz Chiquillan, Piero Unzueta and Mayra Ramirez -- 19-year-old college students from Peru.

If you were their parents, you'd be none too pleased to learn what happened to them after they flew to the United States in December.

They were supposed to spend their three-month break from school working retail, perfecting their English and discovering a new part of the world, part of a work-experience exchange program for Latin American college students.

But that plan fell through when they arrived in Newport News and found themselves without work, thanks in no small part to the faltering economy. Two of them had never been out of Peru before, and now here they were, a continent away, with no place to call home.

If you were their parents, you'd give thanks for dumb luck and a pair of Roanoke lawyers who steered the story toward a happier ending.

By the time they showed up in front of Roanoke lawyer Correy Diviney's desk, the trio had been in the United States for a month.

They'd applied for dozens of jobs. They'd slept in crowded hotel rooms -- five people to a room -- because they couldn't find an apartment manager who would rent to unemployed people.

They trained at a Uno Chicago Grill in Newport News for four days but said they were never paid, and a real job never materialized. When they called their Nashville, Tenn.-based exchange program for help, the director told them to be patient; something would open up soon.

"We were very worried," Chiquillan said. "We called our parents every day." The $600 they were advised to bring was long gone, and their parents had to send more.

Ramirez's mother called a friend who also had a son in the United States on a similar exchange program -- in Roanoke, it turned out, living with a group of Peruvian students in an apartment. They boarded a bus for Roanoke, where they slept on the friend's floor.

Someone put them in touch with Salem immigration attorney Christine Poarch to help them get their $1,000 fee back from the Nashville exchange company. Poarch referred them to Diviney, a bilingual lawyer in Art Strickland's practice who handles civil and criminal cases for many Hispanics in Roanoke.

Diviney took on the pro-bono case and filed a lawsuit against the company last week, alleging breach of contract and constructive fraud.

In the meantime, Strickland said, "we took an immediate shine to them. A friend of mine asked, 'How do you know you're not being scammed?' but some things you just know. These are good, polite kids stuck in a situation that you would not want for your own children."

Strickland pictured his own daughters in the same circumstances. His daughter, Danielle, was once an exchange student and now lives in Guadalajara, Mexico, where she runs a children's rights organization.

"I don't want people to come to the U.S. and not think well of us."

Strickland added, "This has just turned into a labor of love."

Diviney took the students home last week and fed them. Strickland and his wife, retired Judge Diane Strickland, took over the next day.

They knew someone who knew Matt O'Bryan, the owner of Grandin Village apartments. O'Bryan gave them an apartment for two months: If they ever find jobs, they can pay the rent; if not, that's OK. Meantime, the YMCA of Roanoke Valley gave them a free temporary membership.

On Sunday, the Stricklands took the students to their church, Unity of Roanoke Valley, where the minister told their story and had them stand up at the end of the service. Parishioners welcomed them afterward, some with cash gifts.

"It was embarrassing," Ramirez said. "I didn't want to take it, but the person said I could pay the gift forward some day."