“My Aunt Homie was moving to Wisconsin,” McKoy said. “She got married and her new husband was moving to Wisconsin. I was really close to my aunt. My aunt was the most stable person in my life. I remember thinking, ‘Okay, I want to go with her.’ And I did not know anything about Wisconsin. The only thing I knew about Wisconsin was cheese and cows.”

Especially back in 1985 when she came to the Madison area, it was like night and day.

“I came here and it was a huge, huge culture shock,” McKoy recalled. “There were no Latinos. It was just me and my sister. I remember every six months you would be lucky if you saw someone that looked like us. I started off in the Monona school district and went to DeForest. I think the first Latino I met was Ramon Ortiz and his little brother. I didn’t meet them, but they were the first Latino family I saw in Madison. I saw them one day when I was at the mall. I was like, ‘Oh my God, there’s another Brown person like me.’ It wasn’t until later on that we had a bigger population of Hispanic people. My mom then moved here. My aunts moved here. But they didn’t like it because there weren’t that many. So they all went back to Colorado and I was the only one who stayed.”

Part of what kept McKoy here was the contrast between the dry, dusty plains of Colorado and the lushness of Wisconsin.

“Everything here in Wisconsin was green,” McKoy said. “Wisconsin was just a huge turning point for me. I loved it. I did feel uncomfortable that I was one of the only Latinos for a long time. But I really loved the vibe here. I loved how beautiful the summers were. Where we lived, there were raspberry bushes. We were always playing outside. I always felt welcome here.”

During her teen years, McKoy ‘s aunt moved to Vera Court where she made friends with some Latino youth who lived there. And she met someone who influenced her life and its future direction.

“I found some Latino friends,” McKoy said. “They introduced me to Juan José López. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, he is really cool.’ Juan took us to the movies. Juan took us to The Loft. Juan took us out to eat. And Juan invested time in us. He would take us to events and try to get us to really think about our future. And at the time, we were kind of like, ‘Ah, okay.’ But I really listened. Some of my friends wanted to go just so that they could get a free meal or hang out at The Loft. But I listened to what he said and I watched how everyone respected him and he was someone who really cared for us and invested in us. I remember thinking at the time, ‘I want to be like Juan José López when I grow up. I want to be someone like him.’”

When McKoy was entering her sophomore year, she moved back to Ft. Morgan because she wanted to be around more Latinos. And then life happened.

“My sophomore year, I lived with my grandparents,” McKoy said. “It was a really good experience. I did get pregnant though that year. I hid my pregnancy for six months because I didn’t know how to tell my family. When they found out, it was a big shock. They were more supportive than I thought they would be. My mom took me back to Madison. And I have stayed in Madison ever since. I finished off the school year through Madison College and I got my GED and worked to support myself and my daughter. When I turned 18-years-old, I got my first apartment in Vera Court.”

And like most of her life, McKoy had to be the adult again before her time to take care of her child.

“Being a teen mom, I was just working and I was just in the workforce,” McKoy recalled. “Life happens. I got married and had two more children. I got divorced and then I was a single mom raising three children by myself. And while I was raising three children by myself, two went down the wrong path. I was dealing with judges, courts, police, and social workers. It was just a really dark time in my life.”

Next Issue: Redemption