The children of immigration
October 26, 2023 at 12:30 a.m.
Dayanara remembers the flood of tears that streamed down her face when she first arrived in Port Chester in March 2020.
She was overwhelmed, partially because she had finally reached the conclusion of a stressful, months-long journey to the U.S., which was coupled with the feeling of loss to process after leaving the family that raised her in Ecuador—loved ones whom she’s unsure when she’ll see again.
But mostly, tears drenched her cheeks because she was seeing her father for the first time since she was 3 years old.
“My dad came to live in the United States when I was very little,” said Dayanara, who is now an eighth-grader at Port Chester Middle School. “When I was in Ecuador, I didn’t remember him.”
Embodying a majority Hispanic student body, the Port Chester School District facilitates the education of many immigrant children who are coping with the myriad of emotions implicit with their journey to the States and transition into a new culture. Some, at young ages, experienced stunning trauma, and most are grappling with the conflicting truths of knowing they left loved ones behind in their home countries to pursue a better life in a strange new place.
Two school district educators, Marilyn DiDomizio and Jessica Orozco, are deeply familiar with these students, and five years ago started helping them process their emotional complexities through writing as a medium for expression.
At that time, before mainstream headlines started catching the rest of the country up, they were getting early cues into some of the troubling experiences children and families were facing at the Mexico border—hearing students in their own classroom bond over shared stories of being separated from their parents, put in cages and “freezers,” or cold holding cells, sometimes for long periods of time.
“We were in disbelief. They were telling us these things and we’re like, ‘this can’t be right. We’re missing something here,’” DiDomizio said. “But then we started hearing it from more and more students, and then of course it all came out in the media and we’re like, ‘oh, my God, this is really a thing.’”
“Some stories are more traumatic than others,” Orozco added. “But we came to them and said, ‘why don’t we put this in writing?’ We wanted to give them an outlet to write their stories.”
DiDomizio, a middle school English as a New Language teacher, and Orozco, a John F. Kennedy Elementary School educator who used to be an aide in DiDomizio’s classroom, are close with these pupils because they’re the facilitators of the Port Chester Middle School Newcomers Club. The afterschool program is offered to students who have recently immigrated to the U.S., giving them a space to meet others with relatable experiences and practice American customs.
In 2018, the program started shifting into a writing club when the teachers realized it would have a cathartic impact on the kids. Now, every year students spend months trying to tap into their vulnerability to write their stories, which the teachers edit, translate and compile into a book of essays, all of which are attributed to aliases for the sake of privacy.
The third “Coming to America” book was printed at the beginning of the 2023-24 school year, and many of the stories describe unfathomable circumstances along with inspiring messages of hope.
“I would just say, from my perspective, when I was reading it, I was so proud,” said Port Chester Middle School Co-Principal Patrick Swift, addressing the students who were gathered in the school’s library on a late-September morning. “I’m so proud of all of you guys for being able to tell your stories. You are strong, strong children. You’ve seen more than many adults have seen.”
Coming to America
Dayanara’s tale of reuniting with a parent in the U.S. was an experience echoed by a lot of the children, as well as the angst that comes with leaving family behind.
Many of the kids didn’t even know they were coming to the U.S. until a day or two before their departure, or they thought they were going on vacation, which would end up being a lie their families told them. “I didn’t know what to think at the time. My family members flashed before my eyes, and how I couldn’t spend time with them anymore,” a student going by the name Diana wrote. “It was very difficult.”
The teachers believe the low-key decision making often happened as both an attempt to limit inflicted anxiety and because they didn’t want others in their communities to know they had the money to leave. After all, as many students described in their stories, they were escaping countries where violence defined the residents’ lives.
“Almost all of the towns in Honduras are very poor and dangerous. The news of another dead person devastated us day after day,” one student under the alias Eduardo wrote. “They were either killed by gang activity or dead of starvation. My parents would see or hear about another dead body in town and would always say that we need to move to the U.S. to escape this madness. It is the dream of most people who live in a country ravaged by gangs and corruption.”
Anyone who has followed news reporting on the circumstances at the border has undoubtedly heard of the rise in unattended minors attempting to cross into the U.S. And some Port Chester students bring voice to that experience in a way figures and statistics can’t do.
Several children journeyed alone, leaving the family they were raised by and putting all their trust in a Coyote, a stranger, to guide them to and help them cross the border. For some, the passage took months to complete, which was lengthened even further when they finally made it to the U.S. and were picked up by immigration agents.
Many children felt confused as they quickly had to process their new reality. Many children felt suffocated as they were crammed into tight quarters during transportation and exhausted by the long hikes and deep rivers they needed to cross. Many children felt fear once they reached the U.S. and were put in cages and frigid cells, with only an aluminum blanket at their disposal to provide warmth.
“After a while, they separated me from my dad. They put me and hundreds of other children in a freezer,” said the writer going by Eduardo. “I was sad because we were all separated from our parents. It must have been over a week. It was hard to tell because there were no windows, no television and no places to hangout.”
And once they finally settled in Port Chester, the transition, a bittersweet affair, was not over. Students discussed the culture shock they experienced while adjusting to a new life, changes they perceived as both good and bad. But they also described the magic of seeing the States for the first time—enamored by the lights and tall buildings in New York City, and many were thrilled by snow, a phenomenon they had only seen before on TV.
“It was a big change, a good change. But when I first came here, it was a little bit of a bad change,” said Diego, an eighth-grader who immigrated from Ecuador when he was seven years old. “I didn’t know anything, I didn’t have friends, I didn’t know the language. I knew three words: hello, hi and Dinosaur.”
But eventually, he realized Port Chester isn’t so scary.
Immigrating is hard. Culture shock is hard. Missing family is hard. But there’s also a certain comfort and security, a lot of students expressed, about finding a new home in Port Chester, a village where they’re not alone and Spanish is prevalent.
Elias, a seventh-grader, said enrolling into a school where his peers spoke Spanish helped him feel community in a land so far away from his original home.
“When I was in elementary school, there was a day that I cried and cried because I missed my family, and there was another girl in the class who was crying too for the same reason,” Diego recalled of his early days at Edison Elementary School. “So, I felt we were really in the same situation and that helped.”
Putting faces to the stories
Unsurprisingly, DiDomizio and Orozco said it can be difficult to get the children to talk about their stories. But they keep encouraging them to write because they see it as a cathartic experience that helps them heal.
“I always say it’s not politics, because people will try to get involved in a conversation with politics with me about this,” DiDomizio said. “What I always say is: ‘I’m just a teacher, and they’re just children.’ Because that’s the truth, if you remove politics from it, these are just children. They didn’t have a choice, and people should know what they’ve been through.”
“And they’re all here for the same goal,” Orozco added. “To have a better education and a better life.”
It took Dayanara a long time to get comfortable in Port Chester—arriving days before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It was a bad time to come,” she said; it was months before she could start meeting children her age, assimilate to the culture and learn English through the school system.
But now, she’s incredibly happy. Dayanara is one of countless students across the entire school district who found herself in the U.S. due to the faith that immigrating would lead to a life more ample with opportunity. And that optimism has become a part of her.
Nearly every story in the book has a similar ending—the students described sincere gratitude and joy about being in the States, despite how difficult the journey may have been.
“I’m glad I came to the United States,” one student using the name Leo wrote, after describing his “frightening” solo travels where at one point he was taken hostage for ransom money. “My journey was hard, but I believe it was worth it.”
The students wrote of the better life they now pursue, and the dreams they believe are accomplishable—aspirations that for many didn’t seem viable before they immigrated. One student described how he wants to become a lawyer, another said she plans to be a teacher. Others shared goals ranging from FBI work to chasing a career as a flight attendant so she can see the world.
The “Coming to America Book” gets distributed to the Port Chester School District administrators, but frankly, DiDomizio and Orozco think every district educator should read the stories.
“Oftentimes we get these newcomers in our classroom, and we’re not given that backstory,” Orozco said. “So, if they do come with trauma, we have no idea about it. If we trigger it, we have no idea. We see these newcomers in the classroom, and oftentimes they come with nothing, and we don’t put into consideration everything they’ve put on the line to come and be in this classroom. Because for them, it’s a privilege to be in a school like this.”
“It’s the resiliency that’s so amazing to me,” DiDomizio said. “They’re mature beyond their years.”
As Dayanara sat in the middle school library in September, she was eager to share her story. She saw the collection of essays as far more than a therapeutic writing project, but a tool in empowering widespread empathy by bringing voice to a situation hotly debated in a politicized world.
“Some people don’t like immigrants and say, ‘you’re lying, your story is simple, you just came and that was it,” Dayanara said. “But some of the stories, some people, when we tell the stories, we cry. Some people say that being an immigrant is too easy for us, but writing a story for people to read, it’s telling them, showing them, that it hasn’t been easy.”
“We’re people too; we have feelings,” she continued. “And telling our story can help teach people how it feels and everything we’ve been through. So…this is important.”
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