Brockton, Mass., Native Overcomes Challenges to join Marines

Photo By Cpl. Brian Vado | Erika Monteiro, a Marine enlistee in the Delayed Entry Program, poses in the Recruiting Substation Brockton office on Aug. 15, 2018, in Brockton, Mass. Monteiro was born in Spain and moved between Spain and America several times after her mother’s death. Monteiro pushed herself to break down the barriers she faced whether it was language or overcoming stereotypes. Now, she is preparing for Marine recruit training and is ready to earn the title U.S. Marine. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Brian Vado).  

BROCKTON, MA, UNITED STATES

08.30.2018

Story by Cpl. Brian Vado 

1st Marine Corps District

She slows her cadence as she nears the end of her run. Slowly, the noise of bustling traffic and blaring horns overtake the sound of her racing heart. In the small town of Brockton, Massachusetts, she is a world away from the home she knew as a child.
The New World.
The story of Erika Monteiro’s journey to America is a solitary one, painted with the tears of loss and seclusion. The life she knew as a four-year-old child came crashing down with the death of her mother, who battled a drug addiction for years before succumbing to it.
Her life quickly became a roller coaster of change. Her father wanted to distance himself from the pain and memory of her mother. In order to protect his daughter, her father told her she passed away in a car accident and made efforts to physically distance themselves from the memory. The two of them moved from Barcelona, Spain, to Cape Verde Island.
It was there that her father met a young American woman vacationing. The chance encounter soon blossomed into a loving relationship between her father and her future step-mother. Within a year, the two were married. Her father decided that they would move to America.
“He wanted to live with his new wife, and he wanted a better life and better opportunities for us,” Monteiro said, thinking back of her early childhood.
Slowly, they built a new life.
A new home, new school, new friends and a new language all brought new challenges.
Her father also found a new job, one that required constant travel. Her father decided that it would be in her best interest to stay with family she was familiar with during such a tumultuous time. Monteiro was sent to live with her aunt and uncle in Spain, where she remained until she was 13.
“My dad wanted what was best for me,” Monteiro said. “So he decided to send me back to Cape Verde to live with my aunt and uncle.”
The heartache of her childhood has changed Monteiro. She said she never felt as if she had a family, and often found herself looking for things to fill that hole in her life. She hasn’t allowed pain, however, to shape who she is. She lives with a simple philosophy – “Only I can control how I feel.” She smiles constantly, has an infectious laugh, and only allows herself “five minutes a day to be mad because life is too short to spend time being sad or upset.”
It was that attitude that allowed her to adapt as a young child and find a new “family.”
“I was always locked in the house, bored,” Monteiro said. “I grew up watching my cousin play soccer, and I would see other people play.”
Her uncle, seeing her desire to play the sport, signed her up during her 3rd grade school year. Soccer served as a much-needed outlet for the young Monteiro. More than that, the team served as a stand-in family – something she desperately wanted.
“I fell in love with soccer,” Monteiro said. “I loved the rush. I liked winning.”
The soccer team came with its own challenges. She was the only girl on the team and constantly faced ridicule from her male peers. It was a challenge, but one Monteiro was happy to face.
“The boys were like ‘girls suck. Girls can’t run. Girls can’t play.’ Always trying to put girls down,” Monteiro said. “I wanted to be the motivation for other girls.”
This self-imposed challenge led Monteiro to push herself and seek other typically male-dominated sports. Monteiro joined the high school wrestling team as the only female on the team. However, Monteiro’s toughest battles neither began nor ended on the mat. She said she faced constant criticism from strangers, friends, teachers and even her own family.
Her hard work and can-do attitude, however, quickly earned her the respect of her coach and peers, Monteiro said. Many of the wrestlers on the team began to think of her as a sister and appreciated how tough she was, on and off the mat.
Athletics continued to play a pivotal role in Monteiro’s life, but she still felt as if something was missing .
This drew her to the high school’s Army Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program. Monteiro said the difference between the students in the JROTC and the rest was easily visible. The JROTC students behaved differently, got better grades and had a sense of belonging. It also helped that Monteiro had a dream of serving in the military, even as a young child. Yet,, she was unsure how she would serve or in what branch.
Monteiro continued to excel through high school, she said. She accelerated through the ranks of the JROTC program and on the sports teams she competed. High school would not last forever though, and she knew the time would come when she would have to make a career choice.
She met with recruiters for the Army, Air Force, and Navy. Each time, she felt like there was something missing, but didn’t know what it was. It wasn’t until a by-chance meeting with a Marine in her cafeteria that Monteiro considered becoming a Marine.
The Marine Corps offered her everything she had wanted. Being one of the few and the proud appealed to her, Monteiro said. That, coupled with the challenges of being a Marine, the demanding physical training and knowing she would be one of the few females in the Corps pushed her to commit.
What truly drew her in was the sense of family. She felt as though there was a strong bond between everyone, Marines and enlistees – one that she hadn’t quite felt before.
“In the Army JROTC, I got really close to the kids, and it felt like family, but it didn’t feel like it did when I joked with the Marines,” Monteiro explained. “It’s like we’ve always known each other. When I need help, they don’t hesitate, and they don’t hesitate to support me.”

Monteiro acknowledges that she hasn’t earned the title of Marine yet, but that hasn’t stopped her feeling as though she has finally found a place to call home.

• Date Taken: 08.30.2018
• Date Posted: 09.05.2018 10:49
• Story ID: 291117
• Location: BROCKTON, MA, US
• Hometown: BROCKTON, MA, US