Immigrant children’s lives are determined and altered by the decisions of adults in their lives. A decision like where your family lives affects where your children will go to school, the friends they make, the culture they will learn.

Immigrant children’s lives are determined and altered by the decisions of adults in their lives. A decision like where your family lives affects where your children will go to school, the friends they make, the culture they will learn. My mother for example moved us from Tijuana to Michoacan to Santa Ana to Phoenix back to Santa Ana all within two years. Until we eventually settled in St. Louis inside the rusty gates of The Garden Place Apartments along Skinker and Page. These apartments have been home to immigrants arriving in St. Louis from all over the world. My brother and I were six and three years old when we got here. As we grew older we formed friendships with other kids from Tanzania, Somalia, Nepal, Syria, Jordan and even other Latin American countries like Guatemala and Honduras. Living here gave me unique experiences like trying different authentic foods like kibbeh, pupusas, ugali. Even deeper than the food I got to try at my friends’ houses it expanded my worldview as a child and gave me more empathy to be able to understand where other people come from. 

I slowly realized, when we would go to the doctor or fill out applications for school, that my immigration status wasn’t the same as all of my neighbors because we were undocumented.. Our legal status affected how we would fill out forms in school one night I took home a free and reduced lunch form. At home we filled out everything we could understand. When my brother and I first started school there were not as many Latnix students as there are now so administration didn’t know how to handle filling out forms for families with no social security number and it took months for us to be enrolled into the program. In high school there was an engineering summer camp that only took five students from each school and I was chosen to attend.  After lots of calls and emails between me and their director I had to give up my spot because of my legal status.  

It wasn’t until high school that I fully realized just how different our circumstances were when my friends were applying to colleges. Of course I could apply, but the reality was I probably couldn’t attend because there was no financial help that I could use. I also did not qualify for DACA because of the way we came in and out of the States on our tourist visas. I know that my mom moved us here to escape a dangerous situation in Tijuana, but part of me started to resent the fact that we lived here. How could a country that claims to be a melting pot and full of opportunities make it so difficult for students who want to continue to learn? How different would my life have been if we stayed in Mexico?  I’ve learned to accept that everything happens for a reason. After a long & tedious process full of policy changes during a presidency that was very anti-immigrant my mom was able to get our permanent residency through the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).  I felt like I couldn’t talk to anyone about my immigration status before because of the fear of being deported and shame. Now that I have a green card I believe it’s important to share my experience because there are still plenty of other students in my same situation who don’t have enough opportunities and to destigmatize the idea that being undocumented is shameful. 

Also read Maria Anaya Pintor’s Humans of St. Louis Story.