Lima, Peru is a bustling capital city of roughly 11 million people. It’s a metropolis filled with people working hard to make ends meet. That is evident in the open-air market of Gamarra. Vendors line the street selling toys, footwear and clothing. That market changed the mentality of a young boy named Rodrigo Arce.
One day, there was a fire in the market.
“That thing burned down, entirely,” Arce said. “What really changed my mentality forever was the next day, I went near there, just passing through. People were still there selling, through black ashes and burns, real burns. People would go and still sell there. I understood necessity, the necessity of wanting something.”
Arce grew up in a family of four – his parents and a younger brother – in Peru’s most populated city. But, he didn’t grow up in perfect surroundings.
“I’ve seen a lot of poverty growing up,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of grinding, a lot fighting for the things you have.”
Those experiences in his hometown helped shape Arce’s mentality in life and in Esports. Arce is on the Michigan State University Super Smash Bros. Ultimate A-team. It is a fighting game that uses a best of five format. The first player to win three fights wins the match.
“One of the main things that makes me good at the game is my mentality,” Arce said. “Stats wise, I close out like 82% of my game fives.”
Arce is a junior at MSU studying economics and pre-law. He has an academic scholarship and an Esports scholarship.
Arce isn’t the only Latino in the Esports program.
Diego Zelaya, the No.1 ranked Super Smash Bros. Ultimate player in Honduras, is a freshman at MSU majoring in games and interactive media. Zelaya has only lived in the U.S. for about two months, but he is already playing a bit on the A-team, despite it being rare for a freshman to do so. On paper, he is on the B-team though.
Zelaya also grew up in his nation’s capital. He lived in Tegucigalpa, which is in a mountainous region and has a population of about 1.6 million. Most of the time, he lived with his two parents and grandma. However, his little sister was born roughly two weeks after Zelaya left for the U.S. He will meet her for the first time in December when he goes back home.
“Growing up, I had a very good life,” Zelaya said. “I wouldn’t change anything about my life growing up and it’s mostly thanks to my family.”
It was always Zelaya’s dream as a child to eventually study abroad. His parents supported him and encouraged him to take that leap of faith and make that dream a reality.
“Every chance I get in a school assignment or any question I have, I always look for an opportunity to thank my family because I’m here because of them,” he said. “They always gave everything they had so I could follow my dreams. The only reason I’m actually here is because my parents told me ‘you put all your effort into high school. We’re going to put our effort so that you can go there.’”
Zelaya applied to 12 colleges, but he chose MSU because of the games and interactive media major. He also knew somebody going to MSU and that connection helped him get in contact with the Esports department.
That connection happened to know Coach Grayson Harding, with the MSU Super Smash Bros. Ultimate team. Zelaya talked to Harding and other people in the MSU Esports department and eventually landed a partial scholarship.
While those conversations were happening, Zelaya was informed that there was another Latino on the team – Arce. The two have been friends since Zelaya arrived on campus, and they bond over their Latin American roots, passion for gaming and gaining that passion through the Nintendo Wii.
“Knowing that there’s another Latino there that I can actually speak Spanish with is really helpful,” Zelaya said. “Because sometimes you get tired of speaking this language (English).”
In the application process, Arce applied to as many colleges in America as he could. MSU stood out for Arce because of the campus and the economics department.
“I really thought it would be such a terrible miss not coming here,” he said.
His parents even pushed for him to go to MSU.
“This university is putting in a lot of money for you to go,” his parents told Arce. “They really want you there and the place is amazing. So, it wouldn’t make sense to not go.”