Carlos Lopez

Carlos is a 13-year-old boy from Guatemala. Carlos enjoyed his life in his home country. However, there were some issues where he lived. Carlos experienced issues with delinquency, robbers and corruption in his hometown. So, his mom decided to leave for the United States to try to start a new life.

In central america delinquencies, robbers, and corrupter are very common.Most of it was caused by the drug dealing in South America. In South America they would deal drugs and they would transfer them through cigarette boats through the Caribbean Sea. Then they disperse it through Florida. When the drug dealers found out that the government started to patrol the Caribbean. Drug dealers found a different route. They started to transfer the drugs through central america. To find more information about drug trafficking visit Drug trafficking through Central America. 

Carlos's mom went to a place to sign Carlos up to America. Which also means he came here legally. At first when he found out that he can come to America, he wasn't expecting much and was not really scared. He came to the United States alone and now lives with his mom.

When he first came to America, he found out that the biggest difficulty was the language barrier. He has been here for a year and a half already, for him being here for a year and a half he is able to speak English when it is necessary. He does prefer talking in Spanish though. he wants to go back to Guatemala. Even though he wants his mom to go back with him, he doesn't know if she is going back with him or not. Once his papers come, he is going back to Guatemala.

Ada Liu

My name is Ada Liu and I am 14 years old. The school I go to a Alvarado Intermediate School. An after school activity that I am involved in is call CJSF. It is basically helping teachers out after school. For example, we would either help teachers grade the student's papers or clean up their classroom. I am a straight A student. In the future I would definitely try to go to either UCI for college or like a UC college. 

My impression about the project is that I think it's very cool that we get to interview people and listen to their immigration stories. This project how me answer the essential question because I get to listen to other people's immigration story and have a better understanding about how immigration shaped America. Some content and skills that I got better at is writing and research. Some social skills that I have to do is that when my partner isn't working, I would tell her to work. In the project, I would do a draft of the profile article and my partner would help me by fixing some mistakes and making the article even better. For this project, started by interviewing the school and finding out where everyone is from. Then, we looked at the myths that were misunderstood about immigration like how immigrants take good jobs from U.S. citizens. Which they don't because language barrier is a big problem. For example, people who came from Mexico actually get jobs like a farmer which is definitely not a good paying job.This project help me have a better understanding of what the immigrants have to face when they come to America.  

Melanie Gramajo

Hi my name is Melanie Gramajo but you can just call me Melanie, (hahaha im so FuNnY). It doesn't matter what you call me. I bet you want to know more about me. Well my life is pretty interesting. I wake up and go to school... that's the average life. But I live two lives. My first life is really basic and I just go to school. My second life is my interesting life. But I can't bring those topics to school. So let's talk about my "school is cool" life. So once i was in 2nd grade we had to write stories and i thought wow I love writing and making scenes in head. So I got to writing and wrote. You may be wondering what this genius child was writing. While I am very genius, I do have the remembrance of a goldfish. Is remembrance a word whatever. It was until the end of the year when they told us why we wrote these stories. Apparently they were gonna give us awards on who was the best writer.Realizing now that's kinda sad I feel bad. Back to my story, so I won 2nd place out of the whole school, I felt cool. Anyways that was one of the stories that I really like at school, there is more I just can't remember them, (this whole paragraph was meant to be read as sarcasm).

This project helped me find my answer for the essential while it may not be the right answer anyone can disagree or agree with it. Immigration has helped shaped America by bringing a change. From new foods to new ideas it helped shape america into what it is today.

The skills I learned by myself academically is that I learned to write more without having my opinion in serious topics that people will some people might not agree with.

Social skills are usually not my strongest because I don't talk to people much, but I have learned to talk to people and become more nicer in a way.