A recent volunteer experience at the U.S.-Mexico border is shaping how Jeanette Pucheu, a Spanish professor at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, teaches global issues in her classroom.

While spending time in San Diego, Pucheu crossed the border daily to volunteer at Embajadores de Jesús, a migrant support center in Tijuana. The center provides food, rest and basic assistance to people waiting for appointments to enter the United States.

Embajadores de Jesús operates entirely through donations and the work of volunteers who established the center to help meet migrants’ immediate needs. Many of the individuals and families who arrive there have endured long and complicated journeys and often wait weeks for scheduled appointments with U.S. immigration officials.

During her time at the center, Pucheu supported daily operations by serving meals, organizing supplies and talking with migrants about their experiences. As a Spanish professor, those conversations were especially meaningful.

Listening to migrants share stories of travel, uncertainty, family separation and hope gave Pucheu insight into the human and cultural dimensions of migration — aspects she says are often missing from public debate.

She now incorporates those firsthand stories into her courses, helping students understand migration not just as a political issue, but as a lived global experience.

“It has been a gratifying and invigorating experience to engage my students through the living, breathing migrant testimonies I collected during the months I spent working in Mexico,” Pucheu said. “These first-person accounts reveal the struggle and strength of often-overlooked individuals and help dispel common misconceptions about the immigrant experience.”