By Angie Sánchez The hardest part about my experience is having to sit in classrooms with students…
immigration
3 Articles
By Angie Sánchez
Early College Education
My college education began in a community college. When I found out that the private college that I was planning on attending was too expensive and could not get the scholarship I started to save money but as I mentioned before 32 hours a week at $6.50 was not going to be enough to pay for it. Someone who worked at the same mall I did asked me what I was planning on doing after high school and I told her that I was going to work until I had enough to pay for the school I wanted to attend. She advised that since it was going to take a while to save up all that money that I should take a couple classes at the community college and then transfer once I had the money. I didn’t even know I could do this! She gave me better advice than my high school counselor ever did.
Part III of Angie Sánchez’s “Coming to America Story.” (See Part I and Part II).
Mojada III
It took us about 2 hours to cross the border and once we were on American soil I felt relieved. We were taking to a coffee shop in San Isidro. We were supposed to wait here for my mom and for my grandparents to pick us up. My sister and I arrived at the coffee shop at about one in the afternoon or so and we were there for about five hours waiting to be reunited with my mom. It took longer for my mom to cross the border because the finger prints on the green card did not match hers. Obviously, it did not belong to her. So she kept getting sent back and on top of that she had to wait in line over again. While at the coffee shop the coyote, Gerardo, we originally met earlier that day met there with us. He was taking care of us while my mom crossed. The first hour we were there I was fine; I was excited that I was in a new country. But as time went by I began to get a little scared and miss my mom. I kept praying to God that this man was not going to kidnap us or harm us. I had seen many commercials warning parents and kids about kidnappers so I was paranoid at the thought of it. To make matters worse my sister Guadalupe started to ask about mom and I didn’t know what to tell her except for, she’ll be here soon. Her cries made me so scare that I wanted to cry too, but I kept telling myself that I had to be strong for her. I don’t remember ever being so lost and sad in my life. Imagine sitting in a coffee shop holding your scared little sister’s hand as she keeps asking, where is momma? And you as a 9 year old who is just as scared and wondering the same thing, has no answer. I managed to keep her calm and I tried distracting her by offering sweets and showing her the cakes and doughnuts inside the cases. That worked for a little bit.