When survival depends on excellence, mediocrity is not an option
What does success look like for undocumented students in a Queens public high school?
A flyer from September 2017 still hangs on the wall in teacher Jeff Kaufman’s public high school computer science class, its background a faded American flag.
It reads: “Are you curious about DACA? Impacted by the recent executive order? Come to the DACA Town Hall led by your fellow student Gabriela.” DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the volatile federal act meant to fast-track citizenship for undocumented people brought to the United States as children.
The same student’s name, which has been changed in this story to protect her identity, tops one of the “Principal’s Honor Roll” posters that line the school’s hallway. Alongside her name, a 104.8 (out of 100) grade point average — the highest in the school.
Gabriela, 17, is one of the highest achievers at her school. Originally from El Salvador, she has lived in New York since she was 4-years-old. She not only pours herself into academic excellence, but also lends her seemingly boundless energy to extracurricular projects, with college enrollment as her next life goal.
Last February, the bubbly senior was one of a handful of students running the annual blood drive in the 700-seat auditorium at Queens High School for Information, Research and Technology, or QIRT, one of five schools that now inhabit the old Far Rockaway High School building.
“Are you donating?” Gabriela asked anyone who entered the theatre. The 4-foot-11-inch, curly-haired teen was seated behind a table lined with laptops and sign-up sheets. Students and teachers on their lunch breaks sat scattered amongst the maroon velvet chairs, awaiting their turns, as a team of nurses worked on half a dozen people laying on navy blue fold-up recliners. This year, the blood drive committee was aiming to reach a new goal of 150 pints of blood.
When asked about the town hall advertised on the flyer in the computer lab, Gabriela half-responded. “Oh, that?” she began. “It was because after the government said they wanted to reconsider what’s going on with DACA. . .
”Who’s next?” she called out mid-sentence, turning her attention to managing the flow of potential blood donors. “Mr. Allen is priority, so he goes before Anna, I’m sorry.”
Watching her instruct, direct, and manage the dozens of people who filtered in and out of the school’s auditorium to donate blood, it was hard to believe she was just a teenager. “I wanted to keep everyone informed,” she said returning to the conversation. “A lot of students here aren’t DACA recipients. When you lack knowledge, there’s more fear.”
Gabriela is one of 474 mostly black and Latino students at the Queens High School for Information, Research and Technology, a public high school on the eastern Rockaway peninsula. She is president of the blood drive committee, captain of the softball and swim teams, National Honor Society president, member of the Gender and Sexuality Alliance as well as Girls Inc., an organization dedicated to empowering girls through STEM programming, financial literacy, physical activity, and college prep. In the summer, she works as a youth camp counselor and lifeguard as part of the DOE’s Summer Youth Employment Program. During the school year, she works part-time at QIRT as an office assistant.
And, she is the only DACA student in the school, meaning her goal to go to college and forge a successful career in the U.S. could be derailed by federal political forces in the months or years to come.
The Trump administration has been threatening to end the Obama-era executive action since September 2017, when Gabriela held her town hall session. The initiative grants temporary protection from deportation, renewable every two years, to undocumented teenagers and young adults below the age of 31 who came to the U.S. before 2007. But the Trump administration continues to use these young people, who call themselves “Dreamers,” as political bargaining chips, pressuring the courts to phase out the program and, most recently, offering dreamers temporary protection in exchange for $5.7 billion in funding for the proposed border wall.
Even so, Gabriela is one of the lucky ones in her high school. Her DACA status places her in an even less precarious position than a huge number of her fellow classmates. Gabriela arrived undocumented in the U.S. from El Salvador in 2006. One-third of the student population in her Far Rockaway high school arrived at the U.S. border more recently as unaccompanied teenagers, escaping poverty and violence in Central America. Without the protections of DACA or access to federal financial aid in order to afford college, the struggle for success and survival looks different for many of these students.
“For a lot of them, they’re the first in their family set up to really be able to do whatever they want,” said college counselor David Poplinger. “So it’s about finding the financial resources to pay for it. It’s about cutting the cord a little bit at home and doing something for yourself to eventually be able to come back and make life better for your family.
“We talk a lot about changing the trajectory in their family,” said Poplinger, “where it’s been maybe a high school diploma, to getting that college degree, maybe a Master’s degree.”
Maria (not her real name) is one of those students. She came to the U.S. with her mother from El Salvador two years ago, at the age of 17. The first year, Maria’s family moved to North Carolina. When Maria tried to enroll in high school, she was denied because she was too old according to North Carolina laws. She spent that year at home, trying to teach herself English.
But when the family moved to New York, they tried again. This time, she was quickly enrolled at QIRT. That is because in New York, everyone has a right to free education until age 21, which is not the case in every state.
Claribel, a 19-year-old from Guatemala whose name has also been changed, was smuggled over the U.S. border three years ago. When her mother died, followed by her grandmother two months later, Claribel was left with few options to gain an education and live the kind of life she wanted in Guatemala. She decided to risk the perilous journey to live with a cousin in New York.
When she reached the U.S., she was detained by immigration, and spent two months in a detention center, with no way to communicate with her relatives in New York. Eventually she was released to live with relatives in Far Rockaway, part of the government’s “catch and release” policy for particularly vulnerable immigrants that are deemed “low risk,” such as unaccompanied children.
Maria and Claribel are more typical of the Queens school’s undocumented population — non-DACA eligible students who came to the U.S. as teenagers. They endured horrific circumstances and now have to overcome barriers of language or poverty.
Some have had gaps in their education and may be over-age or performing below expectations for their grade level. “We get students who range from illiterate to some who already have some basics in English,” said Leticia Mena, the college counselor who works specifically with ELL students, or English Language Learners. “A lot of them come with emotional and social trauma from their countries — they saw someone being murdered by gangs, or a relative being physically or sexually abused. They come with that baggage.”
As their fates are debated on a political stage, high-performing teenagers like Gabriela, Maria and Claribel attempt to hold on to some measure of control over their futures by focusing on academic achievement. Many undocumented young people seem to have internalized a difficult truth. As an immigrant, especially one without papers, many believe they have to be extraordinary in order to earn a place in America.
When survival depends on excellence, mediocrity is not an option.
What happens to those who have to surmount additional obstacles? The ones who don’t have stable shelter, or facility in English? Or the many teens who must work full time to support themselves and their families? A school like QIRT, where experiences of ELL students run the gamut, proves that there is no singular archetype of the “undocumented student.”
“She’s a hustler”
Gabriela’s story is a familiar one. She came to the U.S. with her mother in 2006, one of hundreds of thousands of families that have fled gang violence in El Salvador since the 2000s. Her father had made the journey a few years earlier.
The memories she recounts of the flight are brief, toddler-sized snapshots: Her grandfather convincing her mother to take her along; the coyotes covering her in layers of Vicks VapoRub and carrying her because she was sick; immigrant officials capturing them when they crossed the border; the U.S. officer yelling at her for being cranky and restless; the kind official bringing her food and a stuffed animal, assuring her that “it’s going to be okay.”
The family missed their court dates and still have an outstanding deportation warrant against them. For now, Gabriela is protected through DACA, which nullifies the deportation order. “It helps you build your confidence in a way, knowing that your stay here is more guaranteed and you can take the steps to get further in life,” she said. “You don’t have to be thinking like, oh, why am I even gonna do this, if at any moment I could not be here?”
As for Maria, following a year and a half of interrupted education, she was ecstatic to be back in school. “I love to study, I want to study,” she said. Since enrolling at QIRT, she has worked hard to improve her English and excel in school, and it shows. She is now a senior on track to graduate in June, an accomplishment that isn’t attainable for every ELL student. Of the 131 seniors this year, about 20 of them won’t graduate; 27 students, mostly ELLs, have not applied to college.
“That girl is probably the biggest adapter in life that I’ve ever seen,” said Abdul Sulley, a Community Associate who works in the QIRT’s main office, referring to Maria. “She works hard, and that’s hard for someone like her to not only have to assimilate, but also have to work after school, she has a whole bunch of responsibilities…but she just went all-in. She’s a hustler.”
After school, Maria works as a cashier at a nearby supermarket from 3 to 11 p.m., five days a week. When asked when she does her homework, she answered “After that!” with a smile. “I come to the school like, 8:20? So I sleep like 4 or 5 hours,” she said.
This is the case for so many of the over 100 ELL students at the school, some of whom work overnight shifts and end up dropping out or missing months of school in order to make ends meet at home. At QIRT, 50 percent of students are “chronically absent” — a Department of Education category for those who miss at least 10 percent (18 days or more) of the academic school year. This is a much higher absence rate than the city average of 32 percent.
Whereas Gabriela and Maria came to the US with their mothers, Claribel is one of the school’s many students who came over the border by herself, at age 16.
She entered the country alone with the help of a coyote, a human smuggler who helps migrants cross the border. She paid him 25,000 Guatemalan Quetzales, or about $3,200. In a small boat, along with five other people, she crossed the Rio Grande River. On the New Mexico side, immigration officers caught the frightened teenager while she was still in the water.
Claribel recalled being placed in a freezing room, known as “the ice box,” still soaking wet from falling into the river. “It’s cold, the people sick, you see things horrible,” she said, remembering there were about 30 other people with her. After four days she was transferred to a detention center.
She was not allowed to contact her family to reassure them that she was alive. Claribel also remembered the cruel words of the immigration officers. “They say things like, why you stay here? You don’t have to stay here, you have to go to your country,” she said.
“I have just me”
Now, however, Claribel is happy to have a fresh start with a loving cousin and her family, who make enough money to provide for her. The honors student does not have to work and can focus on her primary priority — school.
Despite the odds and hurdles these young people have had to overcome, and those they continue to face, Maria, Gabriela, and Claribel all plan on attending college. Gabriela has been accepted to Lawrence University as part of the highly selective POSSE Scholarship, a full-tuition leadership and diversity scholarship that QIRT’s Principal Manalo received when he was a student. Every year, Manalo and Poplinger nominate a dozen students to be considered for the prestigious award, who then go through a rigorous multi-interview process. Gabriela was the only student from QIRT to make it all the way through. She plans to major in biology and hopes to go to med school.
Maria’s dream is to become a nurse, and she is awaiting a response from York College in Jamaica, Queens. With the help of Leticia Mena, her college counselor, she has also applied for scholarships to fund her college education. “There’s scholarships that start from $250 to $2500, so it’s applying not just to one, but to a few,” said Mena. “There’s scholarships that we offer here too, at the graduation ceremony, and she doesn’t know this, but I will be recommending her for the big one, which is $500.”
While undocumented students are not currently eligible for federal financial aid, they do qualify for in-state tuition in New York, as well as private scholarships that don’t require applicants to have a social security number. “If any scholarship doesn’t accept me, I need to continue working and save money,” Maria said.
She is confident she can balance work and school. Her family supports her desire to pursue a career, an option her older brother doesn’t have. “He can’t, he has no time for that,” she said. “He works all day. He wanna study too, but…you know.”
She also faces a race against time, because she turns 21 this June, the oldest age students are allowed to remain in high school. “Officially, she’s in the 11th grade,” said Mena. “But we put a plan together and she was able to get a lot of credits from her home country, so we said ‘you know what? You could do it this year.’ I don’t see a problem whatsoever in her finishing up on time.”
Claribel, who is also a junior, still has some time to finish high school and decide on post-grad plans. She is 19. For now, she wants to attend a community college in Queens to study journalism. Asked what her biggest challenge has been, she responded, “the language, my life, everything.” But seated at a grey metal desk in Joan Mazur’s English classroom, beaming, she expressed her gratitude, despite all she had been through, to be learning again. “In Guatemala, I’m done school. Here I can start again. I have the opportunity to know how to speak English. So I’m happy because I’m learning here,” she said.
“It’s hard, but I’m here, so I have to do it. I have just me.”
Dreams Rerouted
But for some students, college may not be in the cards. “I have seven students who are not taking the route,” said Mena, referring to college or trade school tracks. “One wants to go to the marines, others want to work, two want to go back to their country after they graduate.”
“For a lot of them, it’s not even an option,” said Mena. “They’re either living on their own because they came here unaccompanied. Others have to send back money to the people who let them borrow money to come to the States or to pay the immigration lawyer.”
For these students, their living situations can be an added source of stress. “A lot of them are resentful of their parents because they left them in their countries alone,” said Spanish teacher Jomarie Figueroa. “They live in tiny apartments, often with relatives who charge them rent, or sometimes kick them out.”
In this environment, it is very common for kids to disappear for long stretches of time. For those who have children of their own, the pressures are even greater. “School is not super important, especially once you have a baby,” said English teacher Joan Mazur. “Now it’s about getting money into the house.”
Poplinger said the school acknowledges that college may not be the most feasible or realistic choice for these students, and instead provides them with alternative options. As he scrolled through the snapshot of test scores, college applications, and achievements of the senior class on his computer, a few categories were highlighted in bright red — “Graduation in doubt (9 students)”; Discharged (10 students); Off-track 0 Regents (1 student).”
“For the most part, most of our undocumented students end up working, or they’ll go to COOP Tech, which is a DOE program that gets them certified in a trade,” said Poplinger. COOP Tech stands for School of Cooperative Technical Education. “It’s free, and it’s a half day program so they can work also. So that tends to be the best option.” The trades range from barbering and beautician training to work in electrics, in auto mechanics, culinary arts and graphic design.
A Different Definition of Success
Becoming a parent is an enormous hurdle for any teenager, but for Carolina (not her real name), one of six undocumented girls at the school who have children, it’s a special kind of challenge. At 16, she has a 10-month-old son and works at a deli making juice and smoothies every day from 4 to 10 p.m. She remains enrolled in school and intends to graduate next year, thanks to help from her parents, who care for the baby during the day.
But she is also one of the school’s chronically absent students. When asked if the father of her baby is also a QIRT student, she replies, “yes and no.” He remains registered at the school (teachers like Mazur hope that he will return), but has essentially dropped out in order to work at a nearby restaurant, making money to support his new family.
The young couple currently lives with Carolina’s parents. They are considering marriage, but only after Carolina graduates. As for whether she will attend college, the odds seem unlikely, at least for awhile. “I want to work for three years, save money, then maybe I’ll think about college,” she said with the help of Mazur, who translated.
In these contexts, success is measured on a different scale, said Poplinger. “We’re looking at the kid who goes from, maybe won’t graduate from high school, to becoming a mechanic. Well now that kid is going to at least have the money to provide for their child, when they have children. And their kid then doesn’t have to work, doesn’t have to worry about the light bill or the water getting shut off or being evicted.
“And so, is the goal to send 100 percent of them to college?” he asked. “If it is, then you’re never going to be successful. But I think the goal is to help them become — if their parents are Generation 0, our goal is to make them Generation 1, so that their kids can get to rung 2 or 3 or 4.”
*Student names have been changed in this article to protect their identities.
