Hoping for the American Dream

Sparta High School’s Nicolas Gomez earns a 4.2 GPA in his honors-courses-laden schedule, and he still finds time to participate in karate and track. He speaks both English and Spanish, a legacy of his parents, naturalized citizens who emigrated from Latin America over twenty years ago.

He speaks eagerly of his future, since he knows that he can fulfill his dream of attending a good college and becoming a civil engineer.

Like Nicolas, Anna*, a pretty seventeen-year old brunette, excels in high school. The soccer forward not only serves on her high school’s Student Council but also participates in the peer leadership group.

But Anna is quiet about her future – she knows she will not have the same opportunities as Nicolas. Anna probably will not be able to go to college. She will not be able to get a driver’s license like her friends, and she will not be able to find a good job.

Anna, like 65,000 other high-achieving high school students, is an immigrant without papers. She and her family used passports to travel to America legally in 1999; they hoped to apply for Legal Permanent Residence and eventually citizenship.

“With September 11, everything changed for us,” Anna’s mother, Clara*, explained.

“When we came here, we have dreams, especially for [our kids]…we always push them to finish school. We have hope that one day we will be citizens,” said Clara.

Anna knows that until then, college is a much harder goal, despite her good grades and extracurriculars.

Her older brother Miguel* was accepted into Rutgers, but the family couldn’t afford the higher out-of-state tuition they would have to pay. Scholarships didn’t help, either; even though he earned them, he couldn’t accept any, because he did not have a social security number.

“When we work, we pay taxes, but nobody expects that,” said Clara. “They think we steal, but that’s not true. We pay taxes; we work just like any other American.”

“It’s very frustrating to know there are so many possibilities, but you can’t get them,” said Maria*, a high-achieving, undocumented Sparta High graduate.

These students represent over one million high schoolers across the United States who are children of undocumented immigrants. They did not choose to come to America – their parents did – and they have lived almost their entire lives here.

“I left when I was seven, so I don’t remember much,” said Anna. In fact, many undocumented children barely speak Spanish anymore, so forging a successful life in their native country is not a possibility.

Schools are often unaware that they are enrolling undocumented students.

“If they’re residents of Sparta, we have to enroll them…as far as what parents are revealing, that’s not something we typically track. As far as visa cards or green cards, we don’t have to check that,” said Stan Abramavage, the Director of Guidance for Sparta High School.

Maria wishes her American peers understood all of the opportunities available to them; she doesn’t comprehend why so many American students do not go to college.

“Education is something nobody can take away from you.”

*Names have been changed.