KU Alumni’s Jayhawks Give Back program is presented in partnership with Andrew Wymore, senior realtor with ReeceNichols.
Jayhawks Give Back celebrates ’Hawks who are making a difference in ways big and small. Each quarter, we feature a member of the KU family and their story. If you know a Jayhawk who should be featured in Jayhawks Give Back, let us know!
Janet Murguía’s parents were visiting her office in the White House’s west wing when her mom asked what was, on its face, a simple question: “Cómo llegamos hasta aquí?”—“How did we get here?”
Murguía’s parents, Alfred and Amalia, had emigrated to the U.S. in the early 1950s from Michoacán, Mexico, settling in Kansas City’s Argentine enclave, a working-class Mexican American neighborhood near the steel plant where Alfred would work for 37 years. The nine-member family shared a two-bedroom house and a single bathroom. Murguía, c’82, j’82, l’85, and her siblings, including her twin sister, Mary, c’82, j’82, l’85, slept in dormitory-style beds and used boxes for their clothes. While resources were scarce, Murguía’s most salient memories are not of what her family lacked—which, until she was a teenager, included a phone and a clothes dryer—but what they had in abundance.
“I think about growing up in that community full of culture, speaking another language, and the food and the gatherings that we had through our church and through the neighborhoods,” Murguía says. “It’s a very special experience. It was a uniquely American experience, I think, to have this community in Kansas City.”
Murguía grew up attending big fiestas that brought in people from across the city, neighborhood picnics in Loose Park, church ice cream socials, and July Fourth celebrations—sharing hot dogs, hamburgers, and burritos made by her mom. It was a supportive community, which was also fortunate to have a Carnegie Library.
“That library ended up being a really important part of our lives, because we didn’t have a lot of room in the house to do homework after school,” Murguía says, adding that the library also offered a place to read, learn and get help with homework.
Murguía would find another supportive educational space when she and Mary arrived at KU. Working with KU financial aid, they managed to cobble together Pell Grants, scholarships, work-study opportunities and direct student loans. The space the twins had made for themselves hit home when they were first shown their GSP dorm room.
“We looked around and said, ‘Well, how many other girls are going to be in this room?’” Murguía says. “And they’re like, ‘No, this is for you two.’ And we each had our own bed, our own desk, our own closet. They closed the door, and Mary and I did a big high-five.”
The idea of space in Murguía’s life, both shared and unshared, also holds deeper implications. Her parents once had to sit in the back of the movie theater, and Alfred, along with other workers of color, had to use a separate bathroom at the steel plant. Murguía says while her mother taught them to stand up for others, her dad urged them to speak up for themselves.
“My dad would say, ‘You’re not better than anyone else, but you’re not less than anyone else either,’” Murguía says. “Those sentiments we carried throughout our upbringing.”
After finishing bachelor’s degrees in Spanish and journalism, the twins followed the lead of their older brothers, Carlos and Ramón, and went to law school. Mary became a judge, and in 2021 was appointed chief judge for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the second woman and the first Latina to hold the position. Murguía took a more policy-driven path, which, by the time she was 34, had led to the White House.
She served six years as a deputy assistant to President Bill Clinton, including deputy director of legislative affairs. Murguía had begun her career as legislative counsel to U.S. Rep. Jim Slattery, later worked for the Al Gore presidential campaign, and, in 2001, returned to KU as executive vice chancellor for university relations before being called back to Washington for her current role.
Since 2005, Murguía has led the nonpartisan organization UnidosUS, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization. The nonprofit amplifies the Latino voice on issues such as education, healthcare, civil rights, immigration and the economy. It supports homeownership workshops, voter registration and education efforts, and pushes back against unfair policies. Murguía says she feels like she’s realized her own American dream and is working to ensure everyone gets their fair shot to do the same.
“Breaking down barriers that are impediments to growth and progress became a mission and a calling,” she says, crediting her family and the Argentine community in Kansas City as inspiration.
Though Alfred and Amalia had seventh- and fifth-grade educations, respectively, six of their seven children went to college. Murguía’s brother Ramón was the first from the neighborhood to attend Harvard University and among four Murguía siblings to become lawyers.
By the time Amalia asked that seemingly simple question—“How did we get here?”—she was standing outside the Oval Office with Murguía’s father, about to be introduced to President Clinton. She whispered it to Murguía, letting tears escape down her cheeks.
But Murguía does not see her family story as exceptional.
“Our story is really very emblematic of what our Latino community can do and their potential when given the right opportunities,” she says.
And for Murguía and her siblings, five of whom attended KU—earning a combined 10 degrees—that opportunity came from the campus on the Hill in Lawrence, Kansas. Close to the Argentine neighborhood, close to their parents’ lifetime of hard work, close to home. Murguía says she still roots for the Jayhawk sports teams, still values her time as a student and an administrator, still comes back to campus.
“I think what I most appreciate about KU is that it gave me and my siblings a solid education close to home,” Murguía says, “and I believe that KU put all of us on the path to achieving our own American dream.”
Rochelle Valverde, c’08, j’15, is staff writer for Crimson & Blue.
