By Joaquin Ramirez-Andrade, Hola Iowa
How two international students made history in Marshalltown
When I think of Marshalltown, I think of a city that rarely makes the headlines. A city built in part by Latino hands — known for its meat processing plant, but sustained by a community that has been putting down roots here for decades. It’s not the kind of place where you’d expect two young foreigners — one from Toluca, Mexico, and another from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia — to win a state film award. But that’s exactly what happened.
Héctor Flores and Sebastián Vaca didn’t come to Marshalltown to make films. They came for much simpler reasons: Héctor, because his father was transferred by Emerson to Marshalltown; Sebastián, to study and reunite with his family in the United States. Neither of them planned to create a music video. Neither expected to receive recognition at the Iowa Motion Picture Awards. And yet, here we are.
I know Héctor from a previous collaboration at Marshalltown Community College. But his story starts long before Iowa. He grew up in Toluca, State of Mexico, with a solid musical background — he was in his first semester at the Conservatorio de Música del Estado de México when his family received news of the transfer. He arrived in Marshalltown in November 2024, in the middle of winter, without knowing exactly what to expect. “The opportunity to get to know another country, another culture — that was what we were going to benefit from the most,” he told me. “And on top of that, the English.”
His first months weren’t cinematic. He spent weeks accompanying his mother as a translator, got to know the city little by little, and soon found a way to connect: he volunteered as a piano accompanist for the high school senior choir. It didn’t surprise me. Héctor grew up in a family that always invested in whatever community they lived in, no matter how long they were going to stay. He brought that mindset to Marshalltown. When he finally enrolled in MCC’s Broadcasting and Digital Media program, he found something he hadn’t expected: a real opportunity.
Sebastián is a different story, though they share something in common: the ability to adapt quickly. He comes from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia’s largest city, and when I asked him what the transition to Marshalltown was like, he laughed. “I’m a guy who lives in his own world,” he told me. “I don’t like to bother people or be bothered. I adapted way too fast.” What didn’t change when he crossed borders was his relationship with music. From a young age, Sebastián freestyled. He wrote poems he never wrote down. He composed his first song at 15, during the pandemic, with the help of a friend who showed him how to structure verses and choruses. Today he has hundreds of songs. Almost none of them published.
They had been sharing a class at MCC without knowing it. It was Professor Jo Frohwein, who runs the Broadcasting program, who made the connection — she mentioned to Sebastián that the musician he was looking for was sitting in the same class. “Who the heck is Héctor?” Sebastián confessed to me with a laugh. Héctor doesn’t remember the moment. But Frohwein knew what she was doing: after that conversation, Sebastián went looking for him.
The original plan was something else entirely. They had a song in Spanish — a mix of reggaeton and dembow — that fell apart due to lack of time and budget. It was Sebastián who proposed the pivot: an English song he already had written, called “She Doesn’t Know.” “We’re in the United States,” he explained. “If we put something out in Spanish, people here aren’t going to understand it.” It was the right call. The song is about a guy who’s in love but doesn’t know how to say it, paralyzed by the fear of rejection. Simple, honest, universal.
What followed was six months of work. No professional cameras — they shot on phones. No budget — the locations were places they could get for free. There were creative clashes. Héctor with his academic music training; Sebastián with his freestyle instincts. “It was like a trained musician and a street kid,” Sebastián said. “Maestro.” Héctor laughed and didn’t deny it. “I like to work for the client,” he explained. “And here my client was Sebastián — it was about making him happy because he was the one who was going to be on screen, the one putting his face out there.” They always found common ground because, in the end, what mattered was that it looked good. They shot scenes in the autumn drizzle. Sebastián acted one day completely sick, without telling anyone, because they had to shoot and he wasn’t going to be the one who held everything up. “That’s where you see my work ethic,” he told me with complete seriousness.
When they found out they had been nominated for the Iowa Motion Picture Awards, neither expected to win. They had submitted the video to several competitions, including the Broadcast Education Association, where they saw their name alongside universities like UCLA. “That’s when we said: we’re not going to win,” Héctor told me. But they did. The trophy bears Héctor’s name. But both of them know what it cost. Sebastián still hasn’t held it in his hands.
I asked Sebastián what it meant to win a state award as someone who still hesitates to publish his music. His answer was honest: “I got into a commitment without knowing I was getting into one.” It was never his intention to release anything. But the song came out, and it won, and that was that. What he did tell me, clearly, was that he was happy for Héctor. “If I can help you achieve your dreams, I’m going to help you. Especially if they’re my friends.”
Héctor is heading to Boston this summer for a workshop at Berklee College of Music — one of the most prestigious music schools in the world, which has produced names like Charlie Puth and Michael Jackson’s producer. He’ll go on a wing and a prayer, as he puts it, but with all the hunger to learn. Sebastián keeps moving forward too, with music always in the background. Neither of them plans to stay in Marshalltown forever — Héctor has family waiting in Mexico; Sebastián has Bolivia. But both of them left something here.
Nobody saw it coming. Not even them. They arrived far from home — without plans, without a budget, without guarantees. But in a country that doesn’t always welcome them, they found something they weren’t expecting. Sometimes the dream shows up where you least look for it. For them, it showed up here, in Marshalltown.
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