Daniel Alejandro Perez Cueva was described by his sister as a "very happy, weird person." The 21-year-old junior international studies major from Woodbridge, Virginia, who was shot and killed during his French class in Norris Hall, emigrated to the United States from Peru with this mother and sister in 2000, and attended two community colleges before coming to Virginia Tech last fall.
"He was always determined and stubborn," said Mariella Lurch, Perez's older sister who lives in Washington state. "I know God must have had a good reason to take him."
Prior to coming to Virginia Tech, Perez attended Woodbridge High School for two years, C.D. Hylton High School for two years, Miami Dade College in Florida for one year and Northern Virginia Community College for the next. He enrolled at Virginia Tech this past fall.
Perez entered Hylton High School as a junior in the English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program.
"He was very well liked in the ESOL club," said Ginette Cain, Perez's ESOL teacher who now teaches at Gar-Field High School in Woodbridge, Virginia. "A former principle stated that he remembers he had stood out from the other ESOL students."
Perez enrolled himself in Honors classes that catered to the social studies, and a year later, Cain received word from Perez's counselor that he had wanted to go to college.
"He was an extremely dedicated student," Cain said. "You don't often see these students have a goal to go to college and study."
Perez ran track and played tennis in high school, but he excelled most at swimming. One year he made regionals. In college, Perez continued with his swimming endeavors, but not competitively.
"We always swam twice a week," said Megan Mirmelstein, a sophomore international studies major at Tech who was also a close friend of his this past year.
Mirmelstein said that the two of them did everything together and that they shared many of the same classes. She had just met him at a Model United Nations conference at Georgetown in October.
"He always made me go to class," she said. "He was very motivated and hard working."
Mirmelstein said that her favorite memory of their friendship was when he visited her at her hometown of Virginia Beach to meet all of her friends, and the two would walk along of the beach.
"He was always smiling and happy and loved everything," Mirmelstein said.
Perez was also a member of the International Relations Organization.
Lurch stated that her brother had enjoyed listening to the Goo Goo Dolls and other bands from the punk genre. She remembers him joking around and dancing around in his underwear in the hallway of their house while swinging his arms.
She also stated that he had a gift for photography.
"He was a good photographer and took pictures all the time," she said.
In high school he made a collage with his sister depicting the 9/11 terrorist attacks and was placed in an independent study class for photography.
"God needed his angels back so bad," she said. "We are so proud of him."
