Throughout most of her life Jennie Noriega was a drifter, searching for a place where she could belong, somewhere she would feel wanted.
She said she was the little girl who felt neither Hispanic nor Native American, running away from home to smoke marijuana on rooftops. She was the middle schooler who was dragged to California to live in horrific conditions. She said she was the teenager and young adult who dealt illegal drugs in New Mexico to earn herself a spot on the New Mexico FBI’s most wanted list.
Suffice to say, Noriega’s life has been anything but ordinary.
But now she will accomplish something extraordinary, becoming a UNM graduate as a mother of four, the culmination of a story that is as remarkable as it is eye-opening.
“I think that’s what I struggled with for many years. I struggled with identity — I was never Hispanic enough, I was never Indian enough, I really never fit anywhere,” Noriega said.
Noriega, who is of Laguna Indian and Spanish-Portuguese descent, said she was born to teenage parents, who abandoned her shortly thereafter. Her grandmother on her father’s side took care of her, taking on the role of parental figure.
Despite living with her grandmother and being close to other relatives, Noriega said she found trouble early on in her life. She would leave the home and stay out late at night, often finding herself in the company of drug dealers and pimps.
“I took my first crack hit when I was 11 years old, and that’s when I began to run the streets,” she said.
Her rebellious behavior persisted, and Noriega’s grandmother asked her son to take care of her. Noriega’s father moved her from New Mexico to live with him in Culver City, California.
In California, Noriega said she and her father lived in a van, and also in constant fear.
“He was very abusive,” Noriega said. “He would pick me up (from school) and I wouldn’t talk. I wouldn’t say anything until he spoke so I knew what kind of mood he was in. I remember one time he was choking me behind LAX saying, ‘Scream, scream, nobody will hear you.’”
After a year of living with her father, Noriega said police found out about the abuse through her middle school teacher and he was jailed.
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Noriega attended the second half of seventh grade while living with her father and said it was the most schooling she’d completed before earning her G.E.D. in prison.
After her father went to jail, Noriega said she was placed in a series of state-funded group homes, facilities meant to take care of troubled adolescents. But she said the supervision was lenient, and she was soon was on the move, perusing Los Angeles via city buses.
“I would sleep in the parks, or I would sleep in garages,” she said. “I would encounter men who were relentless, letting you stay where they lived if you slept with them.”
She said she was about 13 at that time.
Noriega said she traveled to El Paso, Texas about a year later, but upon hearing news that her grandmother was ill, stole a car and drove to Albuquerque.
But after returning, Noriega said she began to sell drugs and steal cars.
“I ran drugs from Mexico back to New Mexico,” Noriega said. “I was just back involved in that mentality — school was no longer even a thought.”
Noriega was believed to be part of a network of organized crime operating in Albuquerque that was being monitored closely by the FBI.
“When I was 16, I was put on the New Mexico’s most wanted,” she said. “By the time I was 19, I had been arrested 24 times. At the county jail I would change my name, my social security and go in as a different person. It worked every time.”
Eventually Noriega was caught by the FBI, and there was enough evidence against her to indict her. Most of the charges were dropped because of issues with Noriega’s numerous aliases and age, but she was sentenced to three years in prison for aggravated battery.
It was during that time she was able to complete her G.E.D., excelling in her classes.
After she was released from prison, Noriega said she continued to battle a cocaine addiction that had stuck with her from an early age and plagued her through her first two pregnancies.
“I can’t even begin to explain the devastation a mom feels getting high knowing that there was this living being in me, and you can’t stop,” Noriega said. “You cannot stop. No matter what you do.”
After the birth of her second child, Noriega began to attend a Nazarene Christian church, although her first visits were neither regular nor often.
After several months of sporadic attendance at the church, she was arrested by the police again. Her boyfriend — now husband — paid her bond to release her, and the following morning Noriega said she called one of her church friends to ask if they could pray together.
“I prayed like I have never prayed before in my entire life, and I was crying like somebody had died,” Noriega recalled. “I promise you, I stood up, and in that moment I was delivered from a 19-year drug addiction. My life dramatically changed.”
Since then, Noriega said she has been drug free. She is now a pastor at ABQ Central Inner City ministries, and travels around the world to tell her story. The mother of four is also a street community director and said her life is now dedicated to her family and helping others.
Prescilla Romero, a close friend of Noriega, said the graduate is very authentic and uses her life experience to positively impact others.
“She never complains, and is always doing things for others. She strives to meet her goals and no matter what obstacles she has to go through she never doubts herself,” Romero said.
Noriega’s life seemed to change when she went back to school in 2008 at CNM. Nearly nine years later, she is graduating from UNM with a double major in Africana studies and psychology.
Matthieu Cartron is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. He primarily covers women’s soccer. He can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @cartron_matt.
