School Dreams
Most of the teenagers who immigrate to New York are still young enough to be in high school. But most don't have time to fit studying into their punishing work schedules.
The New York City school system does not check students' immigration status, so illegal immigrants can enroll in local schools, says John Ficalora, principal of Newtown High School in Elmhurst, Queens, which serves the area where Fernando Feijoo lives. And illegal teens are still subject to truancy laws.
"You're supposed to pick them up, up to age 17," says Officer Hugo Hernandez, referring to truants. Hernandez is a Youth Officer in the 115th police precinct in Jackson Heights, an area with many undocumented teens. "The problem is if they are not enrolled in school, where are they going to go? They will be released again...and go back to work or home. There are no parents to contact."
Truant teens under 18 could end up in foster care or group homes, and enrolled in school, if the Administration for Children's Services finds them. Still, many illegal teenagers are never discovered by authorities, and never attend school.
Immigrants
like Noeh M.-V., 18, who asked to be identified only by his first name
and initials, are already too far behind in their studies to join even
a bilingual high school class. Noeh dropped out of school in Guerrero,
Mexico at age 15 to work. He has the equivalent of a 6th grade education.
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"Without the money I send home, my family would not have clothes, shoes, meat, or goats and sheep," Noeh says as he peels potatoes in the basement of a South American restaurant on the Upper West Side. He dreams of becoming a veterinarian, but there is little chance he will ever get a break from work long enough to go to high school, let alone college or vet school.
Adan Zanes is one of the few lucky teenagers who has been able to go back to school. His older brothers, who also immigrated to New York, are helping him pay for classes and books.
He now spends seven hours a day studying English and computer programming at small community schools, and preparing for his Graduate Equivalency Diploma (GED) exam. Studying is hard work, he says, but he believes education offers the only escape from the vicious cycle of menial jobs and exploitation most Mexicans face in New York.
Still, even for teenagers who have older brothers to help out with tuition, the dream of attending a four-year college is usually too expensive, Zanes says.
Beginning this year, changes in the city's CUNY system have made it even harder for undocumented teens to afford school.
The 1996 federal Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) mandated that public colleges could not consider illegal immigrants as state residents, which would make them eligible for cheaper tuition.
Now, after CUNY's Legal Affairs Division decided to enforce the 1996 federal laws, illegal students, even if they have lived in New York for years, must pay the non-resident tuition, which costs $3,400 per semester, more than double the resident tuition.
Those who can't afford the time or money to attend school usually have to be content just to work and send money home.
"Do you think I am here because I like it?" Noeh asks. He answered himself: "No."
"The only time it is worth it is the days I get paid."
Those days, he walks to the closest Pronto Envios or Western Union depot and sends home the $700 a month that keeps his family on the right side of the poverty line. Later, he falls asleep and dreams of the brothers and horses and cows he left in his village, and sometimes he wakes up feeling terribly homesick and lonely.
"I would like
to be in Mexico but I can't…There is no work there." he says.
"Many people can't imagine how much we suffer here."
Next: Gangs on the Rise
Solitos in New York
Immigration Blues
School Dreams
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TEEN
DREAMS
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Fernando
Feijoo, 19,
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| Adan
Zanes , 19, Puebla, Mexico
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| Noeh
M.V. , 18, Guerrero, Mexico
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| PHOTOS: FANG CUI |