Content Warning: This story includes mentions of rape and sexual violence.
Angelina McCall found nursing later in life, and quickly discovered she felt called to helping save people’s lives.. She graduated from nursing school in spring 2020—the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Angelina and Matt McCall at their StoryCorps interview in Tucson, Arizona on April 17, 2023. By Chapin Montague for StoryCorps.
She got her first job at a busy emergency room in Tucson, Arizona, but left after a little over a year and questioned whether she was cut out for nursing. “I was very embarrassed and ashamed,” Angelina says.
She stayed home to recuperate and care for her young daughter, but soon after she began to ask herself if there was a way she could continue to help. As the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, Angelina is fluent in Spanish and knew that a humanitarian crisis was unfolding just over an hour away from her home.
“So I thought, ‘I can maybe help these migrants that are stuck at the border right now?’
Angelina McCall volunteering at the Kino Border Initiative clinic for migrants in Nogales, Mexico. Photo courtesy the participants.
She came to StoryCorps with her husband, Matt, to share her inspiring experience volunteering at a clinic near the U.S.-Mexico border.
Top Photo: Angelina McCall after graduating from nursing school in the spring of 2020. Photo courtesy the participants.
This broadcast is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Originally aired May 19, 2023, on NPR’s Morning Edition.