Latavia Azan, more commonly known as Ms. Latavia, is the Assistant Director for Dining Services here at Rockhurst. She is very well known among both the student body and the staff for her kindness and hard work, and many are glad that she’s here.
Recently, Azan was able to become an official American citizen after almost ten years of living in the United States. Before coming to the states, Azan lived in Jamaica for a majority of her life. She says she enjoyed living there and that she was lucky to have the life she did.
“Life was good. I was not in the poor side of most people in Jamaica,” Azan said.
The paternal side of her family owned a large wholesale clothing business in Jamaica, which was started by her great-grandpa, making her family well established in that area. She specifically talked about how much her great-grandpa worked in order to provide for his family.
“My great grandpa, his business, the way he really started the foundation of the family was: He went back home to Lebanon with his wife, and they bought materials, which [they] used to make clothing … They brought it back to Jamaica,” Azan said. “From what I was told … they used donkeys, and they made carts and put all this material on and they traveled for hundreds of miles just from their house to get to the market just to go sell those materials.”
After living in Jamaica for a majority of her life, she eventually met her future husband, a former naval pilot and defense attache for the Department of Defense (DOD). He visited Jamaica to represent the U.S. at the embassy, and enjoyed being there so much that he moved there when he retired. That’s when he met Azan. After being together for almost three years, Azan fell very sick.
“Jamaica does not have the best healthcare there. And so after me becoming sick, and he [her husband] did not appreciate the way that I was looked after,” Azan said. “That’s when he made the decision that he’s gonna go ahead and start the process of getting myself and my daughter moved back [to America] with him.”
That move occurred on June 25, 2016. Azan had mixed feelings about the big change.
“I was nervous, because it’s something new. I didn’t know what to expect, what exactly I was getting into, but I was also excited, because of growing up in Jamaica, and I have a lot of relatives that live there, and they would always visit [the U.S.], and you always just kind of realized that they had a lot of more opportunities here than we do back home in Jamaica.”
So far, Azan said her experience has been extremely positive.
“As long as you apply yourself, you’re able to go out there and get a job. You can go to school. You can work part-time. You can go to school part-time,” Azan said. “In Jamaica, it’s not that easy.”
“I know that there are people here who have issues with food…but in comparison to Jamaica, there are resources here to get those people food, because there’s food banks, there’s organizations that donate. There’s not much of that in Jamaica.”
Azan started working at Rockhurst in 2020 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. After getting laid off from a job as a cashier, she was unemployed for around two months before her former boss contacted her. Her former company and FLIK, Rockhurst’s food service provider, are owned by the same parent company. Her former boss had learned about a job opening at Rockhurst, and encouraged her to apply. She has not regretted her decision to do so.
“I enjoy working here. It is so different working with kids versus working with adults,” Azan said. “It gives me a sense of joy, and I do have a lot of pride coming here every day learning your name, seeing your faces, saying ‘Good morning,’ seeing a good smile even if you guys are having … bad days and I’m like ‘hey, what’s wrong? Are you okay?’
“But having that relationship, and, of course, the staff here is very very good.”
In early 2025, Azan applied to become an official United States citizen. She had a permanent residence card which would last for a while longer, but since she was eligible to apply for citizenship, she decided it would be good for her.
After a long eight-month process, including a lot of questions and a background check, Azan officially became a citizen. Her whole journey brought her to this moment, one she says feels right.
“I’m … excited just to know that, OK, I’m a part of the United States now and not ‘just here.'”
