Gudiel
His Story
It's nearly noon in Alvarado Intermediate School, and the sun sits high in the sky. Gudiel, a student in seventh grade, sits on a bench in the amphitheater, the blue concrete cool to the touch. Like most of the students in minority white school, his origins lie elsewhere- he's immigrated to the United States from another country. He doesn't speak much English, but he's agreed to share his story of immigration.
Born in Central American country of Guatemala, Gudiel and his family experienced financial obstacles after his mother fell into debt. Because of this, Gudiel had to stop going to school. Instead, he started working to bring food back for his sister and cousins. Despite this, "My happiest memory was helping my mom," he said, and he had enjoyed growing up in Guatemala. However, he soon realized that he wasn't making enough money to help, and decided to travel to the United States to finish his education so that he could get a better job.
First, he had to apply for a visa. He spent six months waiting for his application to be processed. Once that was done, he flew to New York. He arrived alone, at the age of 13, the rest of his family left behind in Guatemala. From there, he traveled to the state of California. This took a week.
"I wasn't scared of anything," he said about his journey.
Once he had arrived, it was time for him to finish his education from where he left off. Life in the United States still doesn't run completely smoothly for him- "I miss my sister and cousins," he said, and it's hard for him to be away from the family he's left behind. And in an English-speaking country, it's difficult to fit in if you don't know the language, but he's trying- he's currently learning English at Alvarado, in Mr. G's class. Despite all the challenges he's already faced in his young life, he's hopeful. "I plan to get a job," he declared, determined to find better-paying work after he finishes his studies. He intends to send the money back to his family to help support them.
Like many immigrants, he's pursuing the American dream- the belief that anyone who works hard here can find a good job and be successful. Things are looking good for him. "I feel welcome here," he said with a smile.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Madeleine Tsoi
Hi, I'm Madeleine! I'm a 14 year old honors student at Alvarado Intermediate School, in 8th grade. I love to read and draw, and I often spend time between classes doodling in the library or debating with my friends. My hobbies also include defying stereotypes every day when I struggle in my math class or when I decide not to eat rice with chopsticks. After school, I have a packed extracurricular schedule, staying several hours every day to practice for academic competition teams like Mathcounts, debate, and Science Olympiad. In my spare time, I also stay after school for my Leadership elective. As an ASB member, my job is to help publicize our school events, so you can often find me working in the hallways, making and hanging up posters.
Reflection
Overall, this project has had a big impact on my understanding of immigration and the people who are affected by it. It's easy to think of the numbers involved in immigration- a simple Google search will reveal that the US was home to 44.5 million immigrants as of 2017- but most people, myself included, don't tend to think of the actual individuals involved. Throughout this project, we interviewed immigrants, watched videos dispelling immigration myths, and listened to other people talk about immigration's role in shaping their family. Through this, we've learned much more about the reasons involved in immigration, and why people have chosen to leave their home countries. Whether it may be because of war, poverty, financial insecurity, or simply for better opportunities, it is hard to deny the impact that immigrants have made on our country. Some have started successful businesses, many have raised families, but all of them have brought something new to the US. This has allowed me to conclude that immigration has shaped America by bringing in different cultures, mindsets, and people around the world, and through this, it has created more tolerance and acceptance of others in our country because it allows us to see and embrace all of our differences. Listening to the stories of immigrants has helped us to learn more about their countries of origin. This knowledge helps us to dispel harmful myths about immigration, and we can clearly see that immigrants are people too, and their stories deserve to be heard. One thing's for sure- without immigration, we would never have had tacos, chow mein, or any other food from different cultures that we can enjoy in America today. Overall, this project has taught me a lot about the people behind immigration and their reasons behind it.
This project has also helped me improve different skills. For example, I'd never written a profile article before this project, and this has helped me to learn how. It was a new experience trying to figure out how to share my interviewee's story through an article, and we also learned a lot about interviewing others. Though I wasn't able to say anything during the actual interview due to a language barrier, the practices leading up to the interview taught me more about listening attentively to the speaker, asking questions, and maintaining eye contact. Furthermore, this project has taught me more about the importance of being open-hearted. In our current political climate, people are often led to believe that all immigrants are criminals and drug dealers, but this is far from the truth. Many of them come to escape poverty, war, and financial instability or to gain new opportunities, and it's important to stay open-minded and open-hearted so that we don't jump to negative conclusions and stereotypes when they simply aren't true. Lastly, this project has also taught me more about perseverance and never giving up. Because of the language barrier between us and our interviewee, and because he was a student rather than a family member, we were only able to interview him once. This meant we had a limited amount of information to work with, and we didn't have time to go back and ask him more follow-up questions. As a result, we had to make due with the information we had, but after a little bit of Google Translate, and thanks to Francisco's good understanding of Spanish, we were able to piece his story together. With all the new skills we've learned during this project, I hope we have been able to do his story justice, and present it in a way that helps foster more understanding about immigration.
Francisco Sanchez
Reflection
Overall, this project was fun, interesting, and just a new experience to see the story of an immigrant from this school. This project showed me that there are not only 5 or less races in this school but that there are way much more races than I ever thought there could be in this school and it really showed that this community has really diversified throughout time. Some social skills I utilized was using my Spanish to communicate with our interviewee.