Dimna"After my dad left, it seemed like everybody split. I’ve been trying to keep the parts together.”


Dimna is a demure, well-spoken, artistic soul who thinks about the big picture.

“I want to study psychology,” she says. “It has a lot to do with my dad. He has theories about the world and work and says every career must be familiar with psychology because you’re always dealing with people. He says psychology is at the core, so I’m going for my core.”

Soulful answers like this are always spilling forth from Dimna and it’s really no wonder she is a talented saxophonist, second chair in the jazz band and first chair in the classical band. Recently Dimna found out she received the President’s Scholarship from Texas A&M, worth $20,000 and the news floored her.

“I didn’t think I did well at all, I stuttered a lot. See, my dad got deported last year, that’s probably why I got it,” she says.

But Dimna is being humble. Top of her graduating class, Dimna has always set her sights on college. “There’s never been the choice of not going,” she says. “I guess my dad said that we started growing up in high school and that’s when we took a step to becoming something more. College was about having the biggest effect on the world and in life.”

Her father’s immigration status was discovered during a routine traffic stop. After living 20 years in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, he was sent back to rural Mexico where he now struggles as an alfalfa farmer. His deportation meant a huge cut in the family’s household income and suddenly making ends meet, always a struggle, entered crisis stage.

“Right when he left my second sister was going off to Texas A&M and it just made it worse. After my dad left it seemed like everybody split,” she says. “I’m trying to keep the parts together by phone.”

But Dimna makes sure to add that her family is doing much better now. “We’re ok,” she says. After all, life has taught her to live in the moment and not dwell on unpleasantries of the past.

For example, unlike her two older sisters, Dimna did not get into the district’s well-known magnet school but she decided to turn that into a good thing.

“Adamson doesn’t have a big, old reputation like Townview, so I decided to come here and make a difference,” she says. “I think the attitude of the student body is what makes a school. That’s what I’m talking about—my attitude. I’m making a change.”

Her motto fits her can-do attitude “hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard” and, again, Dimna credits this back to her father.

“Since I was little, Dad taught me how to work and how to stay focused on one goal and one goal only,” she says. “I’m not necessarily smart but I know how to work hard.”