Afro-Latinx particle physicist at Batavia Fermilab aims to create opportunities for her community

BATAVIA, Ill. (WLS) -- Jessica Esquivel's love of science brought her to Fermilab in Batavia to do brand new research into the nature of the universe. Her love for her community is sharing that science and showing others their true potential.

ABC7 was in Batavia to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with the particle physicist.

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As an Afro-Latinx person with a PhD in particle physics working on cutting edge science at Fermilabb in Batavia, Esquivel knows she's a trail blazer and a barrier breaker, not in spite of her identity, but because of it.

"So one of the things I really try and do is be very loud and proud and authentic in these places and spaces that I inhabit," Esquivel said. "So that the young Black and brown girls coming after me can see that somebody did make it that looks like them."

Esquivel grew up in a Mexican household in Texas, and since the age of 5 or 6 after watching the movie "Contact" with Jodi Foster as a scientist, she said she wanted to be a scientist herself.

"I started walking around saying I wanted to be an astrophysicist when I grew up," Esquivel said. "It was this vision of a woman doing science, leading a team, that really stuck to me."

And that is why she said sharing her story as an Afro-Latinx scientist and bringing science to young people matters.

"I lose the love of the science if I can't share it with people that look like me," Esquivel said.

At Fermi Lab, Esquivel's work includes using a giant circular magnet to study incredibly small particles called Muons, looking at the nature of the universe as we know it.

Esquivel said her culture makes her a better scientist, as she is able to see things from a different perspective and able to communicate complex breakthroughs in meaningful ways.

But she says perfection is overrated.

"It affects science as well. When you're so worried about being this perfect minority, you don't give yourself permission to learn and to fumble and that's what makes really good science," Esquivel said.

Esquivel is also a budding author. Details are still in the works on her debut book that's tentatively titled "Our Queer Universe."