growing up in an immigrant family college essay

College Essay: My Parents’ Sacrifice Makes Me Strong

After living in Texas briefly, my mom moved in with my aunt in Minnesota, where she helped raise my cousins while my aunt and uncle worked. My mom still glances to the building where she first lived. I think it’s amazing how she first moved here, she lived in a small apartment and now owns a house. 

My dad’s family was poor. He dropped out of elementary school to work. My dad was the only son my grandpa had. My dad thought he was responsible to help his family out, so he decided to leave for Minnesota   because  of  many  work opportunities .   

My parents met working in cleaning at the IDS  C enter during night shifts. I am their only child, and their main priority was not leaving me alone while they worked. My mom left her cleaning job to work mornings at a warehouse. My dad continued his job in cleaning at night.   

My dad would get me ready for school and walked me to the bus stop while waiting in the cold. When I arrived home from school, my dad had dinner prepared and the house cleaned. I would eat with him at the table while watching TV, but he left after to pick up my mom from work.   

My mom would get home in the afternoon. Most memories of my mom are watching her lying down on the couch watching her  n ovelas  –  S panish soap operas  – a nd falling asleep in the living room. I knew her job was physically tiring, so I didn’t bother her.  

Seeing my parents work hard and challenge Mexican customs influence my values today as a person. As a child, my dad cooked and cleaned, to help out my mom, which is rare in Mexican culture. Conservative Mexicans believe men are superior to women; women are seen as housewives who cook, clean and obey their husbands. My parents constantly tell me I should get an education to never depend on a man. My family challenged  machismo , Mexican sexism, by creating their own values and future.  

My parents encouraged me to, “ ponte  las  pilas ” in school, which translates to “put on your batteries” in English. It means that I should put in effort and work into achieving my goal. I was taught that school is the key object in life. I stay up late to complete all my homework assignments, because of this I miss a good amount of sleep, but I’m willing to put in effort to have good grades that will benefit me. I have softball practice right after school, so I try to do nearly all of my homework ahead of time, so I won’t end up behind.  

My parents taught me to set high standards for myself. My school operates on a 4.0-scale. During lunch, my friends talked joyfully about earning a 3.25 on a test. When I earn less than a 4.25, I feel disappointed. My friends reacted with, “You should be happy. You’re extra . ” Hearing that phrase flashbacks to my parents seeing my grades. My mom would pressure me to do better when I don’t earn all 4.0s  

Every once in  awhile , I struggled with following their value of education. It can be difficult to balance school, sports and life. My parents think I’m too young to complain about life. They don’t think I’m tired, because I don’t physically work, but don’t understand that I’m mentally tired and stressed out. It’s hard for them to understand this because they didn’t have the experience of going to school.   

The way I could thank my parents for their sacrifice is accomplishing their American dream by going to college and graduating to have a professional career. I visualize the day I graduate college with my degree, so my  family  celebrates by having a carne  asada (BBQ) in the yard. All my friends, relatives, and family friends would be there to congratulate me on my accomplishments.  

As teenagers, my parents worked hard manual labor jobs to be able to provide for themselves and their family. Both of them woke up early in the morning to head to work. Staying up late to earn extra cash. As teenagers, my parents tried going to school here in the U.S .  but weren’t able to, so they continued to work. Early in the morning now, my dad arrives home from work at 2:30 a.m .,  wakes up to drop me off at school around 7:30 a.m . , so I can focus on studying hard to earn good grades. My parents want me to stay in school and not prefer work to  head on their  same path as them. Their struggle influences me to have a good work ethic in school and go against the odds.  

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My immigrant family achieved the American dream. Then I started to question it.

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In summer 2007, I returned home from my freshman year at Brown University to the new house my family had just bought in Florida. It had a two-car garage. It had a pool. I was on track to becoming an Ivy League graduate, with opportunities no one else in my family had ever experienced. I stood in the middle of this house and burst into tears. I thought: We’ve made it.

That moment encapsulated what I had always thought of the “American dream.” My parents had come to this country from Mexico and Ecuador more than 30 years before, seeking better opportunities for themselves. They worked and saved for years to ensure my two brothers and I could receive a good education and a solid financial foundation as adults. Though I can’t remember them explaining the American dream to me explicitly, the messaging I had received by growing up in the United States made me know that coming home from my first semester at a prestigious university to a new house meant we had achieved it.

And yet, now six years out of college and nearly 10 years past that moment, I’ve begun questioning things I hadn’t before: Why did I “make it” while so many others haven’t? Was this conventional version of making it what I actually wanted? I’ve begun to realize that our society’s definition of making it comes with its own set of limitations and does not necessarily guarantee all that I originally assumed came with the American dream package.

I interviewed several friends from immigrant backgrounds who had also reflected on these questions after achieving the traditional definition of success in the United States. Looking back, there were several things we misunderstood about the American dream. Here are a few:

1) The American dream isn’t the result of hard work. It’s the result of hard work, luck, and opportunity.

Looking back, I can’t discount the sacrifices my family made to get where we are today. But I also can’t discount specific moments we had working in our favor. One example: my second-grade teacher, Ms. Weiland. A few months into the year, Ms. Weiland informed my parents about our school’s gifted program. Students tracked into this program in elementary school would usually end up in honors and Advanced Placement classes in high school — classes necessary for gaining admission into prestigious colleges.

My parents, unfamiliar with our education system, didn’t understand any of this. But Ms. Weiland went out of her way to explain it to them. She also persuaded school administrators to test me for entrance into the program, and with her support, I eventually earned a spot.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Ms. Weiland’s persistence ultimately influenced my acceptance into Brown University. No matter how hard I worked or what grades I received, without gifted placement I could never have reached the academic classes necessary for an Ivy League school. Without that first opportunity given to me by Ms. Weiland, my entire educational trajectory would have changed.

The philosopher Seneca said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” But in the United States, too often people work hard every day, and yet never receive the opportunities that I did — an opportunity as simple as a teacher advocating on their behalf. Statistically, students of color remain consistently undiscovered by teachers who often , intentionally or not, choose mostly white, high-income students to enter advanced or “gifted” programs , regardless of their qualifications. Upon entering college, I met several students from across the country who also remained stuck within their education system until a teacher helped them find a way out.

Research has proved that these inconsistencies in opportunity exist in almost every aspect of American life. Your race can determine whether you interact with police, whether you are allowed to buy a house , and even whether your doctor believes you are really in pain . Your gender can determine whether you receive funding for your startup or whether your attempts at professional networking are effective. Your "foreign-sounding" name can determine whether someone considers you qualified for a job. Your family’s income can determine the quality of your public school or your odds that your entrepreneurial project succeeds .

These opportunities make a difference. They have created a society where most every American is working hard and yet only a small segment are actually moving forward. Knowing all this, I am no longer naive enough to believe the American dream is possible for everyone who attempts it. The United States doesn’t lack people trying. What it lacks is an equal playing field of opportunity.

2) Accomplishing the American dream can be socially alienating

Throughout my life, my family and I knew this uncomfortable truth: To better our future, we would have to enter spaces that felt culturally and racially unfamiliar to us. When I was 4 years old, my parents moved our family to a predominantly white part of town, so I could attend the county’s best public schools. I was often one of the only students of color in my gifted and honors programs. This trend continued in college and afterward: As an English major, I was often the only person of color in my literature and creative writing classes. As a teacher, I was often one of few teachers of color at my school or in my teacher training programs.

While attending Brown, a student of color once told me: “Our education is really just a part of our gradual ascension into whiteness.” At the time I didn’t want to believe him, but I came to understand what he meant: Often, the unexpected price for academic success is cultural abandonment.

In a piece for the New York Times , Vicki Madden described how education can create this “tug of war in [your] soul”:

To stay four years and graduate, students have to come to terms with the unspoken transaction: exchanging your old world for a new world, one that doesn’t seem to value where you came from. … I was keen to exchange my Western hardscrabble life for the chance to be a New York City middle-class museum-goer. I’ve paid a price in estrangement from my own people, but I was willing. Not every 18-year-old will make that same choice, especially when race is factored in as well as class.

So many times throughout my life, I’ve come home from classes, sleepovers, dinner parties, and happy hours feeling the heaviness of this exchange. I’ve had to Google cultural symbols I hadn’t understood in these conversations (What is “Harper’s”? What is “après-ski”?). At the same time, I remember using academia jargon my family couldn’t understand either. At a Christmas party, a friend called me out for using “those big Ivy League words” in a conversation. My parents had trouble understanding how independent my lifestyle had become and kept remarking on how much I had changed. Studying abroad, moving across the country for internships, living alone far away from family after graduating — these were not choices my Latin American parents had seen many women make.

An official from Brown told the Boston Globe that similar dynamics existed with many first-generation college students she worked with: “Often, [these students] come to college thinking that they want to return home to their communities. But an Ivy League education puts them in a different place — their language is different, their appearance is different, and they don’t fit in at home anymore, either.”

A Haitian-American friend of mine from college agreed: “After going to college, interacting with family members becomes a conflicted zone. Now you’re the Ivy League cousin who speaks a certain way, and does things others don’t understand. It changes the dynamic in your family entirely.”

A Latina friend of mine from Oakland felt this when she got accepted to the University of Southern California. She was the first person from her to family to leave home to attend college, and her conservative extended family criticized her for leaving home before marriage.

“One night they sat me down, told me my conduct was shameful and was staining the reputation of the family,” she told me, “My family thought a woman leaving home had more to do with her promiscuity than her desire for an education. They told me, ‘You’re just going to Los Angeles so you can have the freedom to be with whatever guy you want.’ When I think about what was most hard about college, it wasn’t the academics. It was dealing with my family’s disapproval of my life.”

We don’t acknowledge that too often, achievement in the United States means this gradual isolation from the people we love most. By simply striving toward American success, many feel forced to make to make that choice.

3) The American dream makes us focus single-mindedly on wealth and prestige

When I spoke to an Asian-American friend from college, he told me, “In the Asian New Jersey community I grew up in, I was surrounded by parents and friends whose mentality was to get high SAT scores, go to a top college, and major in medicine, law, or investment banking. No one thought outside these rigid tracks.” When he entered Brown, he followed these expectations by starting as a premed, then switching his major to economics.

This pattern is common in the Ivy League: Studies show that Ivy League graduates gravitate toward jobs with high salaries or prestige to justify the work and money we put into obtaining an elite degree. As a child of immigrants, there’s even more pressure to believe this is the only choice.

Of course, financial considerations are necessary for survival in our society. And it’s healthy to consider wealth and prestige when making life decisions, particularly for those who come from backgrounds with less privilege. But to what extent has this concern become an unhealthy obsession? For those who have the privilege of living a life based on a different set of values, to what extent has the American dream mindset limited our idea of success?

The Harvard Business Review reported that over time, people from past generations have begun to redefine success. As they got older, factors like “family happiness,” “relationships,” “balancing life and work,” and “community service” became more important than job titles and salaries. The report quoted a man in his 50s who said he used to define success as “becoming a highly paid CEO.” Now he defines it as “striking a balance between work and family and giving back to society.”

While I spent high school and college focusing on achieving an Ivy League degree, and a prestigious job title afterward, I didn’t think about how other values mattered in my own notions of success. But after I took a “gap year” at 24 to travel, I realized that the way I’d defined the American dream was incomplete: It was not only about getting an education and a good job but also thinking about how my career choices contributed to my overall well-being. And it was about gaining experiences aside from my career, like travel . It was about making room for things like creativity, spirituality , and adventure when making important decisions in my life.

Courtney E. Martin addressed this in her TED talk called “The New Better Off,” where she said: “The biggest danger is not failing to achieve the American dream. The biggest danger is achieving a dream that you don't actually believe in.”

Those realizations ultimately led me to pursue my current work as a travel writer. Whenever I have the privilege to do so, I attempt what Martin calls “the harder, more interesting thing”: to “compose a life where what you do every single day, the people you give your best love and ingenuity and energy to, aligns as closely as possible with what you believe.”

4) Even if you achieve the American dream, that doesn’t necessarily mean other Americans will accept you

A few years ago, I was working on my laptop in a hotel lobby, waiting for reception to process my booking. I wore leather boots, jeans, and a peacoat. A guest of the hotel approached me and began shouting in slow English (as if I couldn’t understand otherwise) that he needed me to clean his room. I was 25, had an Ivy League degree, and had completed one of the most competitive programs for college graduates in the country. And yet still I was being confused for the maid.

I realized then that no matter how hard I played by the rules, some people would never see me as a person of academic and professional success. This, perhaps, is the most psychologically disheartening part of the American dream: Achieving it doesn’t necessarily mean we can “transcend” racial stereotypes about who we are.

It just takes one look at the rhetoric by current politicians to know that as first-generation Americans, we are still not seen as “American” as others. As so many cases have illustrated recently, no matter how much we focus on proving them wrong, negative perceptions from others will continue to challenge our sense of self-worth.

For black immigrants or children of immigrants, this exclusionary messaging is even more obvious. Kari Mugo, a writer who immigrated to the US from Kenya when she was 18, expressed to me the disappointment she has felt trying to feel welcomed here: “It’s really hard to make an argument for a place that doesn’t want you, and shows that every single day. It’s been 12 years since I came here, and each year I’m growing more and more disillusioned.”

I still cherish my college years, and still feel immensely proud to call myself an Ivy League graduate. I am humbled by my parents’ sacrifices that allowed me to live the comparatively privileged life I’ve had. I acknowledge that it is in part because of this privilege that I can offer a critique of the United States in the first place. My parents and other immigrant families who focused only on survival didn’t have the luxury of being critical.

Yet having that luxury, I think it’s important to vocalize that in the United States, living the dream is far more nuanced than we often make others believe. As Mugo told me, “My friends back in Kenya always receive the message that America is so great. But I always wonder why we don’t ever tell the people back home what it’s really like. We always give off the illusion that everything is fine, without also acknowledging the many ways life here is really, really hard.”

I deeply respect the choices my parents made, and I’m deeply grateful for the opportunities the United States provided. But at this point in my family’s journey, I am curious to see what happens when we begin exploring a different dream.

Amanda Machado is a writer, editor, content strategist , and facilitator who works with publications and nonprofits around the world. You can learn more about her work at her website .

First Person is Vox's home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines , and pitch us at [email protected] .

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Home — Application Essay — National Universities — How Having Immigrant Parents Changed Me: Personal Experience

How Having Immigrant Parents Changed Me: Personal Experience

• University: Texas A&M University

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Published: Jul 18, 2018

Words: 869 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

In this essay, I will explore the profound impact of having immigrant parents on my upbringing and perspective. Growing up, I had the unique opportunity to bridge the gap between my life in the United States and the experiences of my parents in Belarus, a country with its own set of challenges and hardships. These contrasting worlds have shaped my values, work ethic, and resilience, ultimately influencing the person I have become today.

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6:00 AM, small industrial town of Zhodino, Belarus. Summer 2008. I reluctantly boarded the bus, immediately noticing that it was absolutely packed. The bus, of course, was to my grandmother’s dacha, a cottage where she grew and tended to what I have always considered to be an absurd amount of crops, all by herself. After standing cramped like sardines for an hour, and then walking along a muddy path for twenty minutes, we finally arrived at my grandparents’ dacha. I was absolutely exhausted, but we were just getting started. At any given moment in the next seven hours I was being forced to dig or pick some sort of crop out of the ground.

Through all of my tantrums and complaining that day, my grandmother continued working and just kept telling me to do the same. When 2 PM finally rolled around, I was so happy to be going back to her apartment that I found the energy to run through most of the muddy path. Once we got to the bus stop, however, I was devastated to learn that we were not going home, but to the local farmer’s market. My grandmother spent the next 2 hours selling the crops she had unearthed that day, while I was passed out with my face on the raggedy old tablecloth she used.

For my parents, that full day of manual labor was a very common way to spend their summer days growing up. Before they immigrated to the United States in 1998, they had grown up in Belarus, which was a part of Soviet Union at the time. Even as a self-reliant nation today, the country continues to struggle under a dictatorship; a relic of the totalitarian Past. Not quite North Korea, but with certain similarities. And while I was raised in a much more financially stable household in Texas, my parents helped me to understand how fortunate I was by bringing me back to their home country with them most summers growing up.

I have seen what it is like to stay in a country in crisis, and after every summer I have returned home to Texas with a more positive outlook on life. I’ve been able to encourage myself through even the most stressful points in my life by simply thinking about how much more serious my problems may be if my parents hadn’t worked as hard as they did to make it out of Belarus. If I hadn’t returned to Belarus every summer and seen how food prices were always rising and how my grandmother’s pension was always dropping, it is unlikely that I would be able to understand other people’s misfortunes and suffering as well as I am now. Because of these humbling experiences, I’ve spent a plentiful amount of time volunteering for CCA Food Pantry, the Texas Ramp Project, and the North Texas Food Bank.

Since my parents have always had a serious understanding of what can happen without self-sufficiency and hard work, I was raised somewhat differently than most of the kids around me were. While my some of my friends’ parents would essentially nanny them through many of their problems, I was taught from a very young age that I would have to take care of certain things on my own. When I was eight years old and told my dad I was interested in woodworking, he gave me a hammer, nails, and some wood and said “Build a table then.” When I told my mom I wanted to join my first basketball league when I was seven, she told me “That’s great, but you’ll have to sign up yourself, I’m very busy at work right now.”

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Events like these were clearly nowhere near traumatic, and my parents have always given me everything I’ve ever needed. However, they did help me to learn self-sufficiency and perseverance, because while I had never built anything in my life or used a computer for anything other than gaming, I had to figure these problems out on my own. Because of the way I was raised, I realized from a young age that complaining wouldn’t get me anywhere. Resiliency, however, would. I eventually built that table and figured out how to sign up for that league, and while the table only had one leg and I accidentally sent my registration to the YMCA in Arkansas, I learned through episodes like these that if I was dedicated enough, I could achieve my goals. Being raised by two immigrant parents has been very influential in my maturation. The values they have instilled in me, along with the perspective I’ve gained by visiting their old homes in Belarus, have made me a more determined and unselfish person. I would not be where I am today if it wasn’t for my unorthodox upbringing.

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I’m a First-Generation American. Here’s What Helped Me Make It to College

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My father is an immigrant from Mexico who decided to sacrifice his home to give me a better life. He grew up with the notion that the United States had one of the best education systems in the world and he saw that education as my ticket to participate in the pursuit of happiness.

When he moved to America, he chose Flushing, Queens, in New York City—which this year became an epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis—because the public elementary school was highly regarded for its academics and safety. But navigating the public school system was extremely difficult, marked with constant reminders that the system was not designed for students like me. These difficulties and inequities have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis and will continue to impact students if they remain unaddressed.

My father always lived with the fear that if people found out I was the son of a Mexican immigrant, I would be ostracized in the classroom. From the first day of elementary school, he prayed that no one would bother me for being Mexican American, and that I would learn English quickly so I could defend against attacks on my identity. I have gone through all my academic career fighting the stereotypes that Mexicans are all “lazy” and “undocumented.”

I have experienced an interesting duality as a Mexican American, one that has played a formative role in my education and development. I have two languages, two countries, two identities. I learn in English but live in Spanish. I am Mexican at home but American at school.

I first became aware of this code-switching in middle school. The ways I interacted with my white, wealthy peers were far different from with my Latinx friends. I understood that English held more power than Spanish. Many people associate an accent or different regional variants of English to be unsophisticated, so I worked to be perceived as “articulate” and “well-spoken” at my local elementary and middle schools. In fact, it was my attention to coming across as “articulate” that helped me get into the high school that I attended.

I wanted to attend a high-achieving high school, but I did not perform well on the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) and therefore failed to be admitted into one of New York City’s specialized high schools. But the principal of Millennium High School, a selective public high school in Manhattan, offered me a spot—and gave me a shot. Principal Colin McEvoy saw more than the student who failed to get into a SHSAT school. He saw a well-spoken kid who was determined to find a school that would have the resources to achieve his goal of graduating and going to college. My father had sacrificed everything so I could go to college, and I saw Millennium as the means to get there.

Not every student can have the same opportunity I did, but every school community and educator can take certain steps to support students who feel at odds within a system that was not designed for them. Here are three steps that will help students like me:

1. Play an active role in their students’ lives outside of academics. While this is important during “normal” times, it is even more important now during the global pandemic when students are worried about their family, cut off from friends, and unsure what the future holds. Each student should be assigned a teacher who also serves as adviser, an additional adult figure in their life to help guide and assist them—even if this is done virtually. At Millennium, each student in the beginning of the high school experience is assigned an adviser and meets in advisory class three days a week to complete college-preparatory activities and check in with their adviser about academics and their personal life.

2. Acknowledge how political developments may affect students. Schools should provide students who may be affected by a policy decision with the tools to protect their education. I have many friends who have been affected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy and had to go through the complex process of ensuring they could study in the country without their parents. This June, the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s efforts to rescind DACA, but immigrants’ fight for protection under the law is far from over. It is important for teachers to understand how politics can impact the well-being of students—and how the fear of those impacts often take a toll on students’ academics.

3. Offer guidance on how to apply to college and options aside from college. My former high school requires every student to meet with the college guidance counselor at least twice, once each in their junior and senior years. As the first in my family to apply to college, these meetings were essential for me to figure out the application process, as well as for navigating financial aid and scholarships. It was only with this guidance that I applied for a Posse Foundation scholarship and earned a full scholarship to Middlebury College—opportunities that I would not have even known about otherwise.

As the COVID-19 vaccine gets rolled out more widely, there remain a lot of unknowns in higher education and in many families’ financial futures. Educators can help students explore alternate opportunities during this difficult time, including community college, internships, apprenticeships, gap years, or service-learning options.

Students of marginalized communities are both fighters and academics. Going through the American education system is difficult, and there are active ways that schools and educators can help their students navigate it. This is not a matter of doing the work for the students but acknowledging that there are several challenges present in students’ lives—challenges that may be exacerbated during a pandemic—and helping them navigate them.

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How to Write a Standout College Essay about Immigrant Parents

Kate Sliunkova

AdmitYogi, Stanford MBA & MA in Education

If you're a high school student, chances are you've been asked to write an essay before. Writing about your immigrant parents can be a daunting task, but it can also be a beautiful opportunity to share your unique perspective. With the right strategies and mindset, you can craft an essay that not only showcases your writing skills but also honors the sacrifices and experiences of your immigrant parents.

Acknowledge the Significance of Your Parents' Journey

Before delving into writing your essay, it's crucial to acknowledge and appreciate the significance of your parents' immigration journey. Recognize the sacrifices they made, leaving behind their home country, family, and familiar surroundings, to provide a better life for you and your family. This appreciation will help you approach your essay with a deeper understanding and empathy. To explore successful college essays that highlight the importance of family sacrifices, visit AdmitYogi for inspiring examples.

Use Their Story as a Springboard for Self-Reflection

Your parents' immigration story serves as a powerful springboard for self-reflection. Reflect on the impact their journey has had on you - your identity, values, and aspirations. Consider how growing up in a multicultural household has shaped your worldview and influenced the choices you've made. This self-reflection allows you to connect your personal growth to your parents' experiences, providing a rich and compelling narrative. AdmitYogi can provide additional guidance on how to effectively incorporate self-reflection into your essay.

Choose a Meaningful Essay Topic

Selecting the right essay topic is crucial to capturing the attention of college admissions officers. Instead of focusing solely on your parents' story, choose a topic that reflects your own experiences and values, while weaving in elements of their journey. For example, you can explore moments where you grappled with language barriers and how those challenges fostered your determination to excel academically and embrace diverse perspectives.

Consider discussing the cultural differences you navigated while transitioning to the United States. Highlight the lessons you've learned about cultural diversity and your ability to adapt and thrive in new environments. This demonstrates your resilience and adaptability, qualities that colleges value in their applicants.

Infuse Your Essay with Personal Anecdotes

To make your essay engaging and memorable, infuse it with personal anecdotes that illustrate key moments or lessons from your own journey. Share specific stories that demonstrate your growth, resilience, and unique perspective. For instance, you can write about a time when you bridged a cultural gap between your parents' native traditions and American customs, showcasing your ability to navigate cultural complexities with sensitivity and openness.

By incorporating personal anecdotes, you showcase your individual experiences and emphasize how you have been shaped by your parents' immigration story, while maintaining the focus on you.

Reflect on the Intersection of Your Identity and Values

Colleges are interested in understanding who you are as an individual and the values you hold dear. Reflect on how your parents' immigration journey has influenced your own identity and values. Discuss the lessons you've learned about perseverance, determination, and the importance of education.

Highlight the ways in which your parents' sacrifices have motivated you to seize educational opportunities and strive for excellence. Emphasize how their story has instilled in you a deep appreciation for the value of education and the pursuit of knowledge.

Showcase Your Personal Growth and Aspirations

A compelling college essay should demonstrate personal growth and aspirations. Reflect on how your parents' experiences have influenced your own aspirations and goals for the future. Discuss the career paths, community involvement, or social initiatives that you are passionate about, and how they align with your values and the experiences you've had growing up as a child of immigrants.

Craft a Narrative That Captivates Admissions Officers

To make your essay truly standout, craft a narrative that captivates admissions officers. Start with a powerful and attention-grabbing opening. This could be a personal anecdote, a thought-provoking question, or a vivid description that draws the reader in from the very beginning.

Throughout your essay, use descriptive language and storytelling techniques to paint a vivid picture of your experiences and the impact of your parents' journey on your life. Engage the reader's senses and emotions, allowing them to connect with your story on a deeper level.

Writing a college application essay about your immigrant parents is an opportunity to celebrate your unique perspective and honor their experiences. By focusing on you and infusing your personal growth, values, and aspirations into the essay, you create a compelling narrative that highlights your individuality.

Remember to reflect on the intersection of your identity and values, choose a meaningful topic, and craft a narrative that captivates admissions officers. AdmitYogi , a trusted resource for successful college essays, offers a wealth of examples and guidance to help you throughout your writing journey. With these strategies and the support of AdmitYogi, you can write a standout essay that makes colleges eager to admit you and the incredible journey you represent.

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The Impact of Immigration on Families

• Posted June 1, 2022
• By Lory Hough
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Families and Community
• Immigration and Refugee Education

Research tells us that for young people growing up in immigrant families, their immigration status, and the status of their parents, has a big impact on their well-being. What research hasn’t really looked into, and what Ph.D. marshall Sarah Rendón García explored in her doctoral dissertation, is how young people actually learn about their (or their parents’) status.

As it turns out, there’s no one typical way.

“With the rise in the public’s engagement with immigration and anti-immigrant rhetoric, the messages children are receiving can come from home, school, or their neighborhood,” Rendón García says. “That's part of what my dissertation was trying to document, and my findings show there’s a spectrum of sources for children.” 

Her own discovery happened when she was a teenager. Born in Venezuela to Colombian parents before moving to the United States, she was undocumented from the age of 9 to 21 but didn’t realize this until she tried to take part in a teenage rite-of-passage.

“I found out officially when it was time to get my driver’s license, and I wasn’t eligible because of my immigration status,” she says. “It was the first time I was told explicitly by my parents about our situation, but it wasn’t shocking because I had picked up on indicators of difference along the way as a child and adolescent. In other words, I had noticed things that made me and my family different from others based on our immigration status, like our inability to travel freely.”

Having a sense but not quite knowing the full story was a common theme Rendón García found while doing her research, which focused on interviews with children from ages 7 to 15 who live in mixed-status families — meaning at least one parent or caregiver is undocumented. 

“The majority of the children I talked to showed evidence of being, at the very least, familiar with the topic of immigration status,” she says. It was their parents and caretakers who weren’t always ready to talk.

“Most parents with whom I spoke wouldn’t have chosen to have conversations with their children about immigration status just yet,” she says. “A big challenge for parents was being forced into these conversations because of the questions their children were asking or the things their children were noticing. It’s hard for adults to be thrown into such a delicate conversation with children who have varying cognitive capacities to employ in order to understand what is being explained. Immigration policy is complicated to the point that it’s already challenging for adults to grapple with their understanding, let alone how to explain it to a child.”

Parents also want to shield their children.

“They want to protect their children from the potential implications of such life-changing information,” she says. “Parents spoke about the challenges of deciding whether to tell their children the truth about being undocumented and the potential threat of family separation so that their children wouldn’t be caught surprised if their parents were detained and/or deported, or to protect them from the truth so that children didn’t experience anxiety or stress about something that might not happen.”

Rendón García knows first-hand about that anxiety and stress. 

“I was undocumented during a time where public awareness was not yet where it is now. That meant the biggest impact of my immigration status on my experience was psychological," she says. “I didn’t always feel understood by my educators, even when they had the best intentions, and I didn't feel safe to share my experience with them. This is why I gravitated to the social-emotional development and psychological well-being of mixed-status immigrant families in my professional and academic work. My goal is to contribute knowledge that helps practitioners, policymakers, and researchers move toward creating safer spaces for this population.”

She first started down this path as a master’s student but always with an eye toward joining the Ph.D. Program.

“I saw there was not a lot of research out there about people like me,” she says. The Ed School also helped her approach her work from an interdisciplinary lens. 

“This allowed me to think creatively about the questions I was asking and the methods I was using to answer those questions," she says. “I've been able to bring together psychology, sociology, education, and immigration studies to better understand the experiences of mixed-status families. Most importantly, I think HGSE has instilled certain priorities in me regarding the impact I want my work to have.”

After graduation, Rendón García will continue at the Ed School as a Dean’s Postdoctoral Fellow, working with professor-in-residence Carola Suarez-Orozco on the Immigration Initiative at Harvard , teaching for the How People Learn course, and conducting a National Science Foundation-funded intervention research project for parents in mixed-status families as they prepare to engage in immigration socialization.

Asked if anything surprised her along the way while doing her research, she says it’s a tough question to answer, in part because of the families she came to know.

“It was really difficult to see children grappling with the threat of family separation and adults grappling with the impossible decision of protecting their children in the short-term vs. the long-term,” she says. “That wasn’t necessarily surprising because I had anecdotal stories of it happening, but it was still upsetting to see the evidence across and within families.”  

The latest research, perspectives, and highlights from the Harvard Graduate School of Education

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A high school student wrote an inspiring college essay about advocating for her immigrant parents

Georgetown University, where Carolina Sosa will attend

The essay chronicles the difficulties Sosa faces in trying to help her parents. In a standout section, Sosa describes how she "sadly understood" why her father couldn't get a job at a convenience store - and then lied to him to hide the real reason why he wasn't hired.

Dave, the chubby convenience store cashier who interviewed Sosa's father, told her, "Listen, girl. He's over 60 and speaks no English. There is no way we would hire him." However, Sosa told her father that Dave had just remembered the store had actually hired someone for the open position the day before.

Sosa elaborates on how hard the job hunt has been for her and her parents:

Job searching is difficult for everyone, but in a world full of Daves, it's almost impossible. Daves are people who look at my family and immediately think less of us. They think illegal, poor and uneducated. Daves never allow my dad to pass the first round of job applications. Daves watch like hawks as my brother and I enter stores. Daves inconsiderately correct my mother's grammar. Because there are Daves in the world, I have become a protector for my family. I excuse their behavior as just being a "typical American." I convince my mother that they are only staring at her lovely new purse. I convince my dad they are only shouting about store sales to us. Aside from being a protector, I am also an advocate. As an advocate, I make sure my family is never taken advantage of. I am always looking out for scams and discrepancies. I am the one asking the questions when we buy or sell a car. I make sure all details are discussed and no specifics are left unanswered.

Sosa also touches on the benefits of growing up in America.

"From caring public school teachers to subsidized lunches, the United States has put me on a path to success," she writes. "Undoubtedly this path wasn't always paved, but rugged and relentless feet have carried me along."

Currently a student at Westfield High School in Centreville, Virginia, Carolina Sosa will attend Georgetown in the fall, where she plans to study public service, politics, or diplomacy. You can read her full college essay at The New York Times.

NOW WATCH: Here are the 11 smartest boarding schools in America

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Pressures of being a first generation American-born citizen

Everyone deals with struggles when coming across certain obstacles at some point in their lives. However, there are people that are constantly feeling a weight on their shoulders due to the pressure of their parents. Not just any parents, but immigrant parents.

Many of our university’s students, including myself, are first generation American- born citizens. A great part of the reason why children of immigrant parents attend school is for their parents. There is a sort of duty first generation children have in regards to what their parents may think. For example, our parents travel hundreds of thousands of miles from their homeland to a foreign country in hopes that they will have a better future.

I feel that I have no other choice but to continue going to school and getting my degrees, and having a successful life in order to make my parents proud. My father always mentions my future in education and plans out where he seems my life going. I always feel a pressure to please my parents because they gave up so much to come to America.

Accounting major Manvel Dilovyan says, “Being the oldest son of immigrant parents who moved to America 24 years ago, I have always tried to make my parents proud and live up to their expectations. The reason why they moved here was so their children can have a better future and education. An experience I encountered was constantly filling out applications or calling vendors, for example, and speaking on their behalf.”

He explains that he is constantly seeking approval and hopes to make his parents proud. This is something most first generation children experience, they go to school and work hard in order to live out the “American Dream.”

The struggles that come with having immigrant parents may include constant seeking of approval, always having to be responsible, as well as immigrant parents discussing the future that they may have already planned for their child. More often than not, immigrant parents constantly remind their child, or children, that they expect big and great things from them in the future, which is part of why they came to this country.

Aside from having immigrant parents, there are students that also migrated to this country with their parents, or family, at a young age. Not only do they come to a new and foreign country, but there is also a huge language barrier.

CSUN alumna and former Communication Studies Lecturer, Nina H. Kotelyan says, “Struggles are amplified when you’re an immigrant. My family and I moved from Armenia to the United States in the mid ’90s with high hopes. We escaped war. When you have a background like that, you are taught to value and respect your cultural traditions, values, beliefs and attitudes. You’re taught these things because you’re under the constant threat of forgetting them as you acculturate to the American culture. I love my family history and the history of my Armenian people. Growing up, I was also taught to make my family proud. How could I not? My sweet mother left her entire family in a warzone for a better future for her children. How could I not make her move worthwhile?”

Those of us who have immigrant parents know what it is like to feel the pressure. There are times when the child may feel like giving up because the pressure to succeed and make his or her parents proud might be too much to handle.

Kotelyan says, “My biggest struggle was finishing graduate school & learning to truly live in this highly competitive & individualistic American culture. With the idea of making my parents proud at the forefront of my path, I learned to juggle multiple roles and identities,” she continues,”When you’re young, the culture shock doesn’t feel real. The culture shock felt real when I entered the real world as an adult. For the record, the culture shock is omnipresent. It never goes away. But, we learn to manage it every day of our lives to make our parents proud. My parents gave up their home in exchange for a future for their children, as did many immigrant parents. My heart, of course, goes out to them.”

There is no secret that CSUN has an immensely diverse student population and various services the university provides for them. One worth mentioning assists “historically low-income, historically educationally disadvantaged, first-generation college students; a population that not only reflects the diversity of CSUN’s feeder communities but also the diversity of the University itself,” as stated on the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) website. The program provides mentoring, application assistance, as well as financial support through the EOP Grant for those who are eligible.

Living the life of a child with immigrant parents can be difficult and full of obstacles; however, the outcome of the journey will hopefully lead to making parents proud.

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Raised By Immigrant Parents: First Generation Mental Health

What's your struggle?

Immigrant parents often teach only what they’re taught. So how can their first generation children feel seen and supported in their mental health struggles?

Being raised by immigrant parents can come with numerous advantages. Our families are tight-knit; we’re connected to our roots; and we receive exposure to multiple cultural perspectives. This kind of background enriches kids’ lives.

In some circumstances, however, being first generation creates mental health hurdles. Our parents have high expectations of success for us. But many of our parents simply haven’t engaged with their own emotions, and don’t see why we have to address them. We can’t ignore the mental health challenges specific to being a child of immigrants–many of which come from avoiding emotional talk altogether. 

What’s it like to be raised by immigrant parents? 

Immigrant households tend to emphasize the importance of family, cultural connectivity, and religious heritage–all of which can bolster mental health. Having a clear cultural background helps define your identity, and helps you connect with others who share the same heritage. Being raised by immigrants, in some ways, helps you to stand out in a world of conformity, bringing important differences to the table. 

But while all of these qualities are positive, some traditional values can negatively impact a young adult’s mind. Some emotionally straining traditions include strict discipline, limited autonomy, and academic or financial pressure. The increased expectations of first generation kids, combined with our parents’ reluctance to address mental health, can set us up for major emotional struggle.

Controlling behavior

Controllingness is a negative trait common to immigrant parents that hurts a child’s development. Take a couple examples from my own childhood: I wasn’t allowed to have a sleepover with anyone as a child. I also never attended anyone’s birthday party because my parents didn’t know the other child’s family, and didn’t want to interact. I understand that my parents were being protective, but I know I missed out on key childhood experiences. 

This type of controlling behavior can extend past childhood, into young adulthood, too. Traditionally, young adults in a first generation immigrant household only leave the house to get married. However, a new generation of college students has been pushing the limits on autonomy and independent living. We’ve begun to set our own path, which, in a way, threatens tradition. 

When I moved away for college, my parents wanted me to come home every weekend. I understood that I was the first to leave home for reasons other than marriage, but to come home every single weekend was a major demand on my newfound freedom.

Limited autonomy

Limiting autonomy is another normalized negative value common within immigrant communities. Control and limited autonomy go hand in hand. For example, when I turned 16 and got my license, my mom started tracking my phone. Sure, I got a little bit more freedom, but it soon turned to paranoia because I felt my parents watching my every move. Loss of autonomy like this can lead to to depression and loss of identity.

Academic pressure

Academic pressures include pushing success onto the children of the family. As the daughter of immigrants, I understand the sacrifices behind my parents’ story; perhaps a little too well, in a way that induces guilt and pressure.

They have told me repeatedly that my education and success is the only way out of poverty–the same poverty they escaped from in their home country. Their wellbeing is on my back since their sacrifice, in theory, laid the foundation for my success. 

The education systems in our parents’ home countries are often not the best in the world, at least in my family’s experience. Instead of receiving a proper education, immigrant parents often began work at a young age in order to survive. 

Therefore, education is seen as the way out for the children of immigrants. My parents never directly pressured me, but I understood their expectations. The dependence on our success leads to a strain on first-generation American students. Due to our parents’ hard work, we have the privilege to be able to attend higher education institutions. Even if it doesn’t feel like the right path, we feel pressured to get the education our immigrant parents always imagined for us.

High expectations and fear of failure

My parents look to me to succeed, which adds an additional pressure on top of maintaining mental health and having a healthy social lifestyle.

As we children of immigrants grow older, we begin to fear our parents’ disappointment. We begin to fear failure. You might have the intrinsic motivation to succeed, but knowing that your parents’ future relies on your success has can send you into a depressive episode or worse. 

As first-generation Americans and first-generation students, there is no room for error. We cannot afford to fail. Our parents’ stories, their struggles, their sacrifices have given us incredible opportunities, and immense expectations to live up to.

Clashing expectations from family and mainstream culture

Many immigrants’ backstories consist of having to work from a young age in order to make a sustainable living in their new country. Thus, generational differences between immigrant parents and their children are significant. First-generation Americans grow up in a completely different environment and society than their parents did. There are different norms which immigrant parents aren’t aware of, or don’t care about. 

For example: the normal American teenage experience is something our immigrant parents were never introduced to. Immigrant parents tend to lack familiarity with the typical experiences of a high-schooler here. American standards can even clash with traditional norms, especially when it comes to the treatment of daughters versus sons. 

Gender-based double standards

First generation hispanic households tend to be more strict with the daughters of the household in contrast with the sons. Treatment of daughters tends to be more protective, strict, and controlling. The difference between this reality at home and mainstream assumptions underlie deep emotional struggle for daughters of immigrants. We don’t always have the same freedom as our peers, and comparison highlights the pain in that difference. 

Living in the constant clash between cultures is an exhausting experience. From academic pressures to dissonant cultural values, the mental strain on first-generation Americans and students is a significant one.

How do immigrant parents see mental health? 

Many people who come from an immigrant family recognize that parents tend to turn a blind eye to the negative values embedded in their culture. We tend to highlight the positives and hide the negatives, even behind closed doors, within our families. But when it comes to mental health, we desperately need openness. 

Due to the lack of awareness among immigrant parents, they may see depressive symptoms and mislabel them. They may call your symptoms “laziness” and dismiss the struggle. In their eyes, there’s no room for depression. The values they grew up with never let them consider what “mental health” really means. 

That brings up another unnamed pressure put on the first-generation Americans: to educate our immigrant parents on what our unimagined struggles consist of.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: immigrant edition

One concept I’ve personally thought about and have connected to my immigrant parents is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs . This concept depicts the different levels of human needs, and the idea is that you can’t address higher-level needs before meeting the more basic ones. 

When immigrant parents arrive in a new country, their struggle revolves around meeting the most basic of needs. They work hard, deny themselves comforts, to put food on the table and pay rent. In trying to secure these foundational survival needs, their emotional needs became low-priority. All of their hard work and sacrifice was needed secure the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid. 

Parenting style

Where do we, children, fall into this picture? Our parents covered an important level of basic needs for us, and now, we have the ability to grow and strive for self-actualization and self-awareness. Since they could not satisfy this level of emotional need, themselves, the lack of emotional fulfillment translates into their parenting styles. 

They may experience depression symptoms, but they probably aren’t cognizant enough to realize their own mental health struggles. They won’t make a bridge towards an actual solution. They’ll only teach what they have been taught. Repression and moving on without healing is an example of the way that immigrant parents react to mental health struggles. 

This cycle of generational repression is another negative emotional value within the Hispanic/Latinx community. Families don’t seem to have a way to communicate emotional needs. We don’t talk about it. We let it happen until the need to talk it out is gone. This cycle can lead to serious problems in a family’s dynamic; parents get involved once it is too late and the child’s mental state has worsened.

How do I start the conversation with my immigrant parents about mental health? 

First, you have to work up the courage and patience to gain their understanding. This is a serious topic, even though immigrant parents seem to dismiss it often.

After working yourself up to start the conversation… 

Lay out points about what depression is and the symptoms that accompany it. 

What is depression? 

Depression varies from person to person. Different symptoms may arise differently. You might experience a single depressive episode or suffer from chronic, clinical depression. One person’s depression may leave them fatigued and hopeless, while another’s drives them to keep busy to ignore the pain. Again, symptoms vary.

Signs of depression include but are not limited to: 

• Changes in sleep 
• Changes in appetite 
• Lack of concentration 
• Loss of energy 
• Hopelessness or guilty thoughts 
• Lack of interest in activities 

Tell them how depression has affected your life… 

Talk about which symptoms have been prominent in your experience. Some examples can include: 

• Not wanting to go to school 
• Not wanting to eat regularly 
• Struggling to maintain a daily routine 
• Struggling to get out of bed 

Show them you’re not alone in your struggle… 

Although the focus should be about your own struggles, it is sometimes easier to understand a new concept when it’s related to a larger population. For example… 

• List statistics relating to your community’s mental health 
• Do a little bit of research about your community’s mental health 
• For example: In a study, it was found that U.S. born Latinos were at a higher risk of depressive episodes than those who immigrated to the U.S

Introduce the differences brought on by culture and society… 

There is an obvious difference in societal upbringing from your parents generation to yours. 

• There are different expectations. 
• Although you are from a cultured household, American society has different norms that you experience no matter how traditional you may be 
• Different norms bring up identity issues, which may lead to a larger problem 

Are there any potential ways your family contributes to your mental health? 

The pressure to succeed is a huge weight to carry, but think about the other causes. What have your parents gone through that blurs their way of seeing the importance of mental health? What behaviors of theirs contribute most to your wellbeing (or lack thereof)?

Ask for what you want and need 

Think about solutions to what you’re going through…

• Family support and understanding
• Greater freedom and autonomy
• Professional help including therapy 

If you can’t make them see your struggle….

Seek help. Help doesn’t always have to be therapy. Finding someone who understands your struggle can be a useful way to air grievances. Whether it be a friend, a mentor or a sibling, it’s important to find someone who can help ease emotions.

Slip in statements about your feelings. Depression and mental health in general can be a very hard topic to speak about. If over time, parents begin to see a negative pattern, they’ll be sure to bring it up because it should concern them.

Understand their struggles. Immigrants have often had a difficult childhood of their own. They might not be able to understand your struggles if they never had theirs addressed either. 

This article is part of Supportiv’s Amplify article collection .

Read more on, similar articles, i hate myself: beat low self esteem + feeling broken, when model minority asian stereotypes define your identity, scorned for seeking help as a filipino american, mixed race mental health: thinking in brown and white, let's start the conversation.

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18 Essays About The Immigrant Experience You Need To Read

These stories illuminate what it takes, and what it means, to uproot your life in one country and begin it again in a new one.

BuzzFeed Staff

Growing Up American In Gaza Taught Me What We Owe To Refugees — Rebecca Peterson Zeccola

"In Palestine, we could so easily have been treated as the enemy, but we were welcomed like family."

I’m Not OK With Being One Of The Lucky Muslims — Romaissaa Benzizoune

"This weekend’s immigration order doesn’t apply to me or my family; I’ll be fine. But so many others I know and love will not."

I Grew Up In The Rust Belt, But I'm Not In Any Of The Stories About It — Alia Hanna Habib

"It’s strange to see the media turn its attention to places like my hometown in coal-country Pennsylvania and find that my experience there, as part of the non -white working class, is still invisible."

Here’s What I’m Telling My Brown Son About Trump’s America — Mira Jacob

"Sometimes I wish I could ask America when, exactly, it made its mind up about us. The myth, of course, is that it hasn’t, that there is still a chance to mollify those who dictate the terms of our experience here, and then be allowed to chase success unfettered by their paranoia. To live, as it’s more commonly known, the American dream."

There’s No Recipe For Growing Up — Scaachi Koul

"My mom’s Kashmiri cooking has always tethered me to home. So it’s no wonder she won’t give me (all) the secrets to doing it myself."

How I Learned That Beauty Doesn’t Have To Hurt — Sonya Chung

"Growing up in a Korean American family, I absorbed the idea that any feeling of pleasure comes at a cost. But as I get older, I’m realizing it doesn’t have to work that way."

Why Brexit Has Broken My Heart — Bim Adewunmi

"As a child of immigrants, I am deeply ashamed that this is who we are."

I Found A Home In Clubs Like Pulse, In Cities Like Orlando — Rigoberto González

"I cherish the time I have spent in clubs like Pulse in cities like Orlando, where gay Latinos — the immigrants, the undocumented, and the first-generation Americans alike — gravitate because we love men and we love our homelands, and that’s one of the places our worlds converge."

Making Great Pho Is Hard, But Making A Life From Scratch Is Harder — Nicole Nguyen

"After fleeing Vietnam, my parents turned to food to teach us about what it means to be Vietnamese."

When Home Is Between Different Countries And Genders — Meredith Talusan

"I moved to the U.S. from the Philippines when I was 15, where I had been raised as a boy. About a decade later, I started to live as a woman and eventually transitioned. I think of migration and transition as two examples of the same process – moving from one home, one reality, to another."

I Found The House My Grandparents Abandoned in 1947 — Ahmed Ali Akbar

"So many Americans go to India to find themselves. But I went to find the history my family lost in the subcontinent’s Partition."

How I Became A Southern-Fried Nigerian — Israel Daramola

"I once felt torn between Nigeria and Florida, between jollof rice and fried alligator, but there is no real me without both."

Learning To Mourn In My Father's Country — Reggie Ugwu

"After my brother died and my father was partially paralyzed, my family traveled 7,000 miles in search of an old home, a new house, and the things we’d lost on the road in between."

How To Get Your Green Card In America — Sarah Mathews

"When you perform the act of audacity that is consolidating an entire life into a couple of suitcases and striking out to make your way, what is not American about that? When you leave the old country so that your daughters can have a good education and walk down their streets without fear, what is not American about that? When you flee violence and poverty to come to a land of plenty, when you are willing to learn new languages, to haul ass, to do twice as much work, what is not American about that?"

A Childhood Spent Inside A Chinese Restaurant — Susan Cheng

"Being one of the few Asians in my school was hard enough. Working at my parents’ Chinese restaurant didn’t make it any easier."

How I Learned To Celebrate Eid Al Adha In America — Zainab Shah

"I bent over backward to explain myself. 'From Pakistan,' I would say. 'Not a terrorist,' I almost added. But I didn’t — the joke would only be funny if racial profiling didn’t exist."

Texts From My Parents: What It Was Like To Leave Vietnam — Nicole Nguyen

"They did it for us, and I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make the most of it."

What It’s Like Speaking A Different Language From Your Parents — Zakia Uddin

"My parents and I communicate in an incomplete mash-up of Bengali and English. I sometimes wonder what we are missing."

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8 Challenges of Growing Up as a Second-Generation Immigrant

Things about having immigrant parents that no one talks about..

Posted January 10, 2023 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

• Find a Codependency Therapist
• As a child to immigrant parents, you might have automatically blamed yourself for their struggles.
• If you were born to immigrant parents, you might have lived "between" two cultures all your life.
• Overcoming the trauma of being the second generation of immigrants is not only possible but essential.

Second-generation immigrants often wish their parents had been different. You may long for parents who share your intellectual level, values, and political or spiritual beliefs. In this post, we will discuss some of the challenges of having immigrant parents, including the ones that are often tabooed.

1. The Heaviness of Unspoken Guilt . Children naturally blame themselves for their parents' pain. Your unwarranted guilt is worse as a second-generation immigrant when you know that your immigrant parents came to a new country to "give you a better life.” As a child, you might have automatically blamed yourself for your parents' struggles because you thought you did something wrong or did not help enough. So you studied harder, did more housework, counseled them, and may even have become their emotional punching bag.

Unconscious guilt can manifest itself in unexpected ways. Even now, you may have trouble taking care of yourself and managing money. You may work too much and feel guilty when you relax or have fun. Despite your success, you feel like an imposter. You are wary of being vulnerable even in close friendships and romantic relationships .

2. Rootless Without Home. If you were born to immigrant parents, you might have lived "between" two cultures all your life. Unlike your parents, your sense of self does not revolve around your heritage from the old country. But neither is it a purely Eurocentric integration into the new country.

You may have been conditioned to behave a certain way toward your relatives but a very different way toward your friends. You have not had the opportunity to explore and solidify your identity if you constantly hide one or more aspects of your personality to fit in, like a chameleon. Even now, you could be struggling with identity confusion, having difficulty deciding on important life goals such as a career or a romantic partner.

3. The Intellectual Divide. You may find that while other families may have stimulating discussions about current events, your parents seem rooted in the past and unable to see beyond their narrow perspective. Your parents may have shown no understanding of diversity, feminism, the dark side of capitalism, etc., and so there are no intellectual or political discussions about these issues at home. The intellectual distance between you and your parents can make even the most mundane conversations tedious, if not painful.

You may feel compelled to challenge your parents when they say or do things against your values. However, if you try to correct them, they may become defensive and either avoid you or become combative.

Although you respect and love your parents very much, you may find it difficult to relax and be yourself around them. You feel existentially alone in your own home, but you have no one to talk to about it because it is such a taboo.

4. Not Seen for Who You Are. Your immigrant parents may not have been exposed to global perspectives that would help them understand your place in the world. They think you are "good" because you have good grades or a steady job, but that misses the point. They do not know how to appreciate your ability to think independently, your willingness to stand up for what you believe in, your commitment to social justice, or your courage to defend the truth.

When it comes to our own family, it can be exceedingly hurtful to hear that we are "too much" (too emotional, too dramatic, too demanding, too intense, too sensitive). The pain of not being recognized by, or even being rejected by, our own family can cause immeasurable suffering that lasts a lifetime, even if we try to rationalize it by saying that we are materially well provided for.

5. Trapped in Codependency. It is sadly common for parents and children in immigrant families to develop an unhealthy level of codependency. You may feel obligated to put your parent's needs before your own, blame yourself for their problems, worry about them constantly, feel responsible for their happiness , and neglect your own needs. Part of you wants to rescue or help your parents, but you're also angry and resentful because their needs stunted you.

6. Constant Disapproval. Your immigrant parents may judge who you're with, what you do, whether you're single, married, polyamorous , etc. Worse, you know that many of your so-called "choices" in fact just represent who you are. Parents may reject you because this new information contradicts what they are sure they know. Their unconscious bias hurts you, even if they don't mean to. Their casual comments, facial expressions, or punitive silences may reveal prejudices even when they say nothing.

7. Navigating Life with " Learned Helplessness ." If you were born into an immigrant family, you might have witnessed or experienced institutional discrimination , microaggressions , and racism too early, too soon, perhaps even as a child. Psychologists use the term "learned helplessness" to describe the effects of being regularly exposed to systemic oppression and injustice without being able to do anything about it. You may have internalized the idea that no matter how hard you try, you will ultimately get nowhere. This can affect your self-esteem and your ability to pursue goals as an adult. You may also feel powerless in the face of injustice or corruption. You cannot just dismiss them or pretend they do not exist, but you're paralyzed by an overwhelming sense that it is impossible to change the world.

8. Unmet Emotional Needs. Your immigrant parents may have struggled, but they never modeled what it was like to show or express feelings. What if grief kept them from working? What if they let out all their emotions and cannot control them, leading to a depressive breakdown? Because of these fears, they felt they had to suppress any burgeoning emotions. So, when you show vulnerable feelings such as shame or sadness, they do not know what to do. They may try to silence your feelings, so they do not have to face their own. They may tell you it's "bad" to show emotion , or punish or silence you to keep you from being expressive and spontaneous.

Furthermore, with a general lack of mental health awareness, your immigrant parents may misunderstand your depression as laziness, your eating disorder as defiance, your ADHD as a character flaw, etc. They may be unfamiliar with the idea of seeing a therapist or psychiatrist, let alone paying for such services.

Internalized beliefs that it is unacceptable to express feelings, have emotional needs, or be vulnerable can prevent you from developing meaningful relationships or finding fulfillment in life.

Discovering Strength and Peace as a Second-Generation Immigrant

You wish you had parents with whom you could have open, honest conversations about life and the world. But you are silenced for your loneliness because it feels wrong to be ungrateful. Transgenerational trauma can have devastating effects. But since we can't blame our parents forever, we must heal ourselves. Consider these questions: How do you approach authorities? What's your money mindset? Do you feel guilty when you outshine your siblings or parents? How well can you express vulnerabilities with intimate partners?

You may feel guilty or fearful when it's time to separate yourself from your parents' values, even if you logically know your feelings have no logical basis. If you follow your heart, you are afraid to break theirs. But if you ignore the existential call to be yourself, you may become physically or emotionally ill.

As you enter your second half of life, overcoming the trauma of being the second generation of immigrants is not only possible but essential. You can thrive by embracing repressed emotions and gifts. By acknowledging your history and struggles, sharing your true feelings, and overcoming generational trauma , you can build bridges between yourself and your family and contribute to your community.

Liem, R. (1997). Shame and guilt among first-and second-generation Asian Americans and European Americans. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 28(4), 365-392.

M Rothe, E., J Pumariega, A., & Sabagh, D. (2011). Identity and acculturation in immigrant and second generation adolescents. Adolescent psychiatry, 1(1), 72-81.

Phipps, R. M., & Degges‐White, S. (2014). A new look at transgenerational trauma transmission: Second‐generation Latino immigrant youth. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 42(3), 174-187.

Pumariega, A. J., Rothe, E., & Pumariega, J. B. (2005). Mental health of immigrants and refugees. Community mental health journal, 41(5), 581-597.

Imi Lo Imi Lo works with highly sensitive and emotionally intense people. She has two masters, one in mental health and one in Buddhist studies. Her books include Emotional Sensitivity and Intensity, and The Gift of Intensity.

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Growing Up in America With Immigrant Parents

I wrote about how my parents taught me to love who I am by being true to myself.

 Being Assyrian has always been a huge part of my identity. As a child I felt so embarrassed to be who I am. No one had ever taught me to feel that way, I just didn't like how different my life seemed to be, compared to the other kids from my school. I had a unibrow and I had to take ESL classes because I was raised learning a mix of Aramaic and English. I refused to speak Aramaic publically. I was so ashamed of all of these things for some reason. I just wanted to be like the other kids at my school, blonde hair and blue eyes with a “normal” name. I hated my brown hair, brown eyes, my unibrow, and my “odd” name (Amena).

As I grew older, I started to become more accepting towards my background. This started happening around middle school age. I realized that there was no reason for me to be ashamed. I still felt different though. No matter how much I adapted I was still being raised differently from everyone else. My parents were always more strict that the others. They wouldn't let me hangout with certain people, I was never allowed to go to sleepovers, I couldn't wear certain clothes because they were “too revealing” even if everyone else in my grade was allowed to. I think that these are just things that you have to deal with when you have Middle Eastern parents. Things that were so normal for every other kid seemed to be so unbelievably offensive to my parents. I used to think it was so frustrating to deal with this.

To this day I still struggle with their grip. I can sometimes understand and appreciate why they raised me this way. As immigrants in America they dealt with a lot of the same feelings as I felt when I was younger. They struggled with not fitting in as a child just like me. When my mother's family moved here she was only a year old. She was raised in Davisburg Pennsylvania, she didn't have anyone to relate to around her other than her siblings. She had it so much worse than I did but today she loves being who she is. My dad moved to America when he was nine. He was raised in Detroit Michigan and in attempt to fit in he had to sacrifice some of his identity. Today I see him as the one of the most confident, down to earth people on this planet. He always stresses to me that I couldn't make a bigger mistake that being fake with myself. I think that all this time my parents were trying to point me in that direction. They wanted me to love who I am. They didn't want me to try so hard to be something i'm not just because I wanted to blend in. Instead they taught me how to stay true to myself and how to be comfortable in my own skin

Although it was frustrating at times I think overall it benefited me to be raised this way. I learned to do what's best for myself and have good judgment. They taught me to be comfortable in my own skin and put myself first. They taught me that no ones opinion matters except my own. Here in America you are able to do almost anything you'd want as long as you give it your all. Being true to myself is the only way for me identify my dreams. My parents wanted to make sure that I had my priorities straight so that I can focus on what's important.

It's ironic how I learned one of the most important American values from my immigrant parents. I thought this whole time that their “Middle Eastern morals” would separate me from everyone else but really they were what made me feel comfortable with myself now. They really have taught me so much about how to live a good, happy, healthy, American life! Today I live to please myself and the ones I love only. I know now that I don’t have to attempt to make everyone like me. I do what I please while still being reasonable and respectful. The only person really judging me is myself. I live by these morals and i couldn't be any more stress free.

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‘So, are you an alien?’ What it was like to grow up as an undocumented immigrant

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Daniela Pierre-Bravo is a bestselling author, speaker and MSNBC reporter for “Morning Joe.” In her new book, “The Other: How to Own Your Power at Work as a Woman of Color,” she shares her personal story about being an undocumented immigrant from Chile and how she rose through the ranks in her career. This is an excerpt of the book, which came out Aug. 23.

Growing up, I did not belong. Not on paper, not in the system and not in my environment.

The word “undocumented” is more than a status; it’s a feeling. It’s a constant state of being, and it was always there with me. Am I enough? Am I worthy? I was not alone in this feeling, but in my case, there was supporting evidence that made it harder not to take those thoughts as factual. I lacked the very paperwork that validated my belonging in this country. I was in total limbo without a path forward. Whatever inadequacies I felt were compounded by my lack of status. So I built up a shell to protect me from the prejudice I encountered in my small town, and I learned to bury my voice — to accommodate, explain and appease. It was a coping mechanism that I absorbed early on, which quickly spilled over into areas of my life where I felt like I had to work hard to prove myself.

One of these experiences that stayed with me was when I met my then-boyfriend’s parents as a teen. No matter who you are, meeting a partner’s parents for the first time can be nerve-racking. I wanted to do my best to make a good first impression for many reasons. He had a big, close-knit family like mine, but his upbringing was vastly different from my own. He had grown up in the same town all his life and had conservative, well-educated parents who had gone to top-ranked schools. They were well off and well known in town, the sort of parents who were at every one of their kids’ games and recitals, and could comfortably clock out of their nine-to-five jobs to enjoy family meals. This was a stark contrast to my immigrant parents, who worked two or three shifts and came home, on a good day, by eight at night with a bucket of Lee’s chicken, which each kid would eat on their own schedule because our parents were too exhausted to impose rules about family mealtimes.

I was scheduled to meet my boyfriend’s family for dinner at one of the best restaurants in town. Blood rushed to my cheeks as my family dropped me off in our station wagon. I was late. My dad had fallen behind schedule, struggling to start the car engine on his way home from his factory job across town.

“Here is fine!” I blurted before we neared the restaurant’s front door, my mind swirling with the thought that this was the first impression I’d have to lead with.

“Good luck!” yelled my 12-year-old brother from the back seat through a devilish grin and a big cackle. Even at his age, he knew I was walking into a minefield. I rolled my eyes and hoped the loud creak of the old car door closing couldn’t be heard inside.

As I stepped into the Italian restaurant, I quickly spotted my boyfriend and his whole family on the left, already sitting at the table, and watched as all of their eyes turned my way. I walked toward them knowing I would be vetted, almost expecting that they already had some sort of preconceived judgment about my immigrant roots, but I figured if I played my cards right, they’d overlook the cultural and socioeconomic gaps between us.

I (expected) that they already had some sort of preconceived judgment about my immigrant roots, but I figured if I played my cards right, they’d overlook the cultural and socioeconomic gaps between us.

After apologizing profusely for being late, I took my seat and exchanged small talk over appetizers. With the main course, lasagna, came the usual softballs: “How is school going?” “What was it like growing up in Chile?” And I was batting like a champ, or so I thought. Until his mother threw the ultimate curveball.

“So, are you an alien? I mean ... do you have a green card?” Her eyes were locked on me as she fumbled through this question. And for an instant, I stopped breathing. The inquisition hit me like a pile of rocks. My thoughts reeled. What do I say? How can I answer this and still be in her good graces? Will they accept me if I tell them the truth?

“Well — I ... ”

I felt totally blindsided.

“Oh my God, Mom! No, she’s an illegal alien!” offered one of my boyfriend’s brothers sarcastically, as if coming to my rescue.

“What a question!” followed his father, as everyone joined in and laughed it all off, delighting themselves in the bluntness of the question that so obviously did not need to be answered.

As I smiled along with them, playing into their assumption that I was not undocumented, a strange out-of-body sensation came over me, as if I were two separate people digesting my environment. The confident version of me pretended that this outright biased comment had little to no effect on the expertly disguised other version of me, who was screaming at me in my mind to run away before I got caught.

When I came back from what felt like a mental blackout, I found the confident person in me take over. Keep calm. I explained my immigration status by lying to appease them, telling them that my paperwork was in process or something. I fought every inch of my gut and soul from disclosing the truth. As I scrambled to find a way to ease their doubts about my legal status, I was unintentionally feeding into their bias and also internalizing it. It was one of the first times I remember feeling deep shame. Even so, I self-soothed, conditioning my body and words to deflect this uncomfortable feeling of inadequacy, and carried on.

In my mind, my boyfriend’s mother’s message was clear: You don’t belong. It felt like she had already made up her mind before even taking the chance to get to know me. I’m sure you can relate on some level, especially if, like me, you grew up in a community where you stuck out like a sore thumb. I began to believe that I needed to adapt by appeasing whatever doubts, worries or hesitancies might come up about me and my background. After all, these were good, community-and family-oriented, churchgoing people. It must not be them, I told myself. It’s me. I needed to work harder to assimilate and earn their trust.

This uncomfortable dinner situation was the first time I felt the threat of what being “the other” meant to a group in which family, friends and acquaintances, for the most part, all looked the same. Those hegemonic communities have grown used to the consistency that comes from the lack of diversity within their close circles. I can imagine people’s skin crawled in my town at the thought that I might be “illegal,” but I needed more years to process and fully understand how their bias likely came from simple lack of exposure to someone different from them.

Of course people are unfamiliar with things they haven’t encountered before, but to wholeheartedly judge, dismiss or reject, well, that’s bias in a nutshell, if not outright bigotry. It’s the fear of the unknown. It may have helped ease my stress if I had understood this back then, but all I knew was that I was the odd one out, someone they couldn’t quite put their finger on, and deep down inside, that dissonance probably scared them. This made me harbor shame about my very identity. I didn’t have anyone like me in my corner to encourage me or teach me how to handle that emotion. My family was likely dealing with their own repressed emotions, and were also much too worried about getting food on our table to think about feelings .

That relationship was short-lived (shocker, I know). But this memory remained in my subconscious for years, rearing its ugly head on other occasions where I faced my socioeconomic limits when trying to make it into rooms where I felt like I didn’t belong. You are illegal! it yelled at me, making me feel like a total fraud.

What I didn’t know back then was that I was not “illegal”; I was undocumented. I also didn’t know that calling me or anyone in my circumstance an “alien” carried an enormous psychological weight. Currently, there is legislation introduced in Congress that would remove the word “alien” from U.S. immigration laws and replace it with “noncitizen.” Immigration activists, legal scholars and others have taken issue with the term “alien,” saying it downplays the importance of the role immigrants have had historically in the United States, from the European immigrants who colonized it to the enslaved Africans who were forced to immigrate against their will. However you want to look at it, the term holds one unchallengeable message for those on the receiving end: that we are foreign, outsiders, other . We feel the force of its psychological weight. That one measly word dangled over us has the power to make us question ourselves, our identities and our place in the world. This epithet translates into a rejection that tells us that our inherent being is not good enough, is not worthy, does not and will never belong. We exist “illegally” in places where we contribute, build communities, volunteer in religious spaces and pay taxes for welfare and health care that we ourselves cannot use. “Illegals” like us shouldn’t exist ... yet we do.

Excerpted from “The Other: How to Own Your Power at Work as a Woman of Color” by Daniela Pierre-Bravo. Copyright © 2022 by Daniela Pierre-Bravo. Reprinted with permission of Legacy Lit. All rights reserved.

Daniela Pierre-Bravo is a bestselling author, speaker and MSNBC reporter for "Morning Joe." She is a contributor and producer for NBC’s “Know Your Value” platform, coauthor of "Earn It!" and most recently the author of her first solo book “The Other,” which came out in August 2022. A former Cosmopolitan magazine columnist, Pierre-Bravo has written on career advice, mental health and financial wellness with an emphasis on women of color.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, writing about being a first-generation immigrant in my college essay - tips.

Hi all, I'm a first-generation immigrant and I want to write my college essay about how this experience has shaped me. I'm not sure how to approach this topic without sounding cliché. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions for writing about this? Thanks in advance!

Hi there! Writing about your experience as a first-generation immigrant can make for a powerful essay. However, keep in mind that it is a common topic among immigrants. To avoid sounding cliché, try focusing on a specific aspect or unique experience that has had a significant impact on you.

For example, instead of talking about the general struggle of learning a new language, you might share a specific conversation you had and what you learned from it. Or instead of writing generally about struggling to fit in, you could share an experience where someone was rude to you for being foreign, and how that motivated you to start sharing your culture more openly.

You can get more advice in our blog post on cliche essay topics + how to fix them: https://blog.collegevine.com/cliche-college-essay-topics

Finally, remember to show rather than tell. Use vivid details and anecdotes to illustrate your experiences, so the reader can truly understand and connect with your story. Good luck with your essay, and I'm sure you'll create a compelling narrative!

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What I’ve Learned From My Students’ College Essays

The genre is often maligned for being formulaic and melodramatic, but it’s more important than you think.

By Nell Freudenberger

Most high school seniors approach the college essay with dread. Either their upbringing hasn’t supplied them with several hundred words of adversity, or worse, they’re afraid that packaging the genuine trauma they’ve experienced is the only way to secure their future. The college counselor at the Brooklyn high school where I’m a writing tutor advises against trauma porn. “Keep it brief , ” she says, “and show how you rose above it.”

I started volunteering in New York City schools in my 20s, before I had kids of my own. At the time, I liked hanging out with teenagers, whom I sometimes had more interesting conversations with than I did my peers. Often I worked with students who spoke English as a second language or who used slang in their writing, and at first I was hung up on grammar. Should I correct any deviation from “standard English” to appeal to some Wizard of Oz behind the curtains of a college admissions office? Or should I encourage students to write the way they speak, in pursuit of an authentic voice, that most elusive of literary qualities?

In fact, I was missing the point. One of many lessons the students have taught me is to let the story dictate the voice of the essay. A few years ago, I worked with a boy who claimed to have nothing to write about. His life had been ordinary, he said; nothing had happened to him. I asked if he wanted to try writing about a family member, his favorite school subject, a summer job? He glanced at his phone, his posture and expression suggesting that he’d rather be anywhere but in front of a computer with me. “Hobbies?” I suggested, without much hope. He gave me a shy glance. “I like to box,” he said.

I’ve had this experience with reluctant writers again and again — when a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously. Of course the primary goal of a college essay is to help its author get an education that leads to a career. Changes in testing policies and financial aid have made applying to college more confusing than ever, but essays have remained basically the same. I would argue that they’re much more than an onerous task or rote exercise, and that unlike standardized tests they are infinitely variable and sometimes beautiful. College essays also provide an opportunity to learn precision, clarity and the process of working toward the truth through multiple revisions.

When a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously.

Even if writing doesn’t end up being fundamental to their future professions, students learn to choose language carefully and to be suspicious of the first words that come to mind. Especially now, as college students shoulder so much of the country’s ethical responsibility for war with their protest movement, essay writing teaches prospective students an increasingly urgent lesson: that choosing their own words over ready-made phrases is the only reliable way to ensure they’re thinking for themselves.

Teenagers are ideal writers for several reasons. They’re usually free of preconceptions about writing, and they tend not to use self-consciously ‘‘literary’’ language. They’re allergic to hypocrisy and are generally unfiltered: They overshare, ask personal questions and call you out for microaggressions as well as less egregious (but still mortifying) verbal errors, such as referring to weed as ‘‘pot.’’ Most important, they have yet to put down their best stories in a finished form.

I can imagine an essay taking a risk and distinguishing itself formally — a poem or a one-act play — but most kids use a more straightforward model: a hook followed by a narrative built around “small moments” that lead to a concluding lesson or aspiration for the future. I never get tired of working with students on these essays because each one is different, and the short, rigid form sometimes makes an emotional story even more powerful. Before I read Javier Zamora’s wrenching “Solito,” I worked with a student who had been transported by a coyote into the U.S. and was reunited with his mother in the parking lot of a big-box store. I don’t remember whether this essay focused on specific skills or coping mechanisms that he gained from his ordeal. I remember only the bliss of the parent-and-child reunion in that uninspiring setting. If I were making a case to an admissions officer, I would suggest that simply being able to convey that experience demonstrates the kind of resilience that any college should admire.

The essays that have stayed with me over the years don’t follow a pattern. There are some narratives on very predictable topics — living up to the expectations of immigrant parents, or suffering from depression in 2020 — that are moving because of the attention with which the student describes the experience. One girl determined to become an engineer while watching her father build furniture from scraps after work; a boy, grieving for his mother during lockdown, began taking pictures of the sky.

If, as Lorrie Moore said, “a short story is a love affair; a novel is a marriage,” what is a college essay? Every once in a while I sit down next to a student and start reading, and I have to suppress my excitement, because there on the Google Doc in front of me is a real writer’s voice. One of the first students I ever worked with wrote about falling in love with another girl in dance class, the absolute magic of watching her move and the terror in the conflict between her feelings and the instruction of her religious middle school. She made me think that college essays are less like love than limerence: one-sided, obsessive, idiosyncratic but profound, the first draft of the most personal story their writers will ever tell.

Nell Freudenberger’s novel “The Limits” was published by Knopf last month. She volunteers through the PEN America Writers in the Schools program.

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University College: Arts and Culture Management Capstones

Growing up greek in america: five vignettes reflecting on an immigrant family's assimilation and acculturation into boston culture in the late 1940s.

Fay Coulouris , University College

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Undergraduate Capstone Project

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Master of Liberal Studies

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University College, Arts and Culture Management

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Liberal Studies

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Jennifer Itell

1940s, Acculturation, Assimilation, Boston, Greek-Americans, Greeks, Immigrants, Integration, Vignettes

Five vignettes and a reflective essay comprise this creative capstone. The vignettes explore the relationship of a young American girl to her Greek heritage during three transition years after World War II. They illustrate the acculturating effects of the war and show the cultural conflicts of one Greek-American family's assimilation into Bostonian culture. Each vignette presents a mixture of old world traditions and modern American values. The reflective essay provides historical background for the vignettes and reflects on the learning process that culminated in the capstone project. The goal of this project is to add to the growing collection of ethnic stories that make up the American experience.

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Copyright is held by the author. Permanently suppressed.

Recommended Citation

Coulouris, Fay, "Growing Up Greek in America: Five Vignettes Reflecting on an Immigrant Family's Assimilation and Acculturation into Boston Culture in the late 1940s" (2009). University College: Arts and Culture Management Capstones . 18. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/ucol_mals/18

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Since April 22, 2016

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My mother enrolled in college at 42 while raising 4 kids. It was the same year I enrolled as a freshman.

• When I started college, my mother enrolled, too; she was 42 years old.
• She always wanted to be a teacher, so she studied hard while raising her three other children. 
• When she graduated and became a teacher, she became the woman I always knew she could be.

The year I went to college , my mother did too.

She enrolled at 42 years old after having three children. Some days, she questioned what she was doing in a classroom of kids my age. But my mother graduated at the top of her class with a degree in English and was named the recipient of a prestigious award.

After that, my mother became a teacher and morphed into a woman I'd seen glimpses of over the years — one buried beneath the expectation of sacrificing her own ambition for everyone else's.

Watching my mother chase her dreams and fight the odds has inspired me to this day.

For most of her life, my mother followed tradition

My mother met my father during her freshman year of college. When he transferred schools to be closer to home, my mom left with him. My grandparents encouraged her to go to a secretarial school. It would be a good job until she had a family — her real purpose in life, they led her to believe.

Three months after my father graduated, my parents got married . A year later, they had me. When I was 15 months old, my brother arrived. Two years after that, I got another brother.

My dad worked nights and weekends, coaching and umpiring to subsidize his teaching salary. My mother spent most of her time alone — well, as alone as you can be raising kids . She cooked, cleaned, grocery shopped, mopped the floor on her hands and knees, and broke up fights between my brothers.

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Though my dad was a math teacher, my mother knew how to make numbers work. She sat at the dining room table with a stack of bills in her bathrobe and a mug of black coffee. For hours, she manipulated numbers that didn't quite add up, making sure the utilities were paid but also that my brothers' hockey camps and an Esprit sweatshirt for my birthday were too.

Creativity kept her alive — most of the time, late at night. She made a three-dimensional Wonder Woman birthday cake and a World Wrestling boxing ring out of toothpicks. Her sewing machine hummed while she stitched Halloween costume requests: Strawberry Shortcake, a pirate, clown, princess, Raggedy Ann, and a ninja.

When I was in junior high, my mother started doing day care in our home. My sister was a newborn , and my mother could stay home with her and also be around when my brothers and I got home from school. She loved her day care kids but not being in the house all the time.

For years, family members and friends told my mother she'd be an amazing teacher. She was quick to dismiss the thought. Who'd do the laundry? The pick-ups? She was too old, she thought, and missed her chance. Fear crept in. What if she failed? Yet the alternative to not pursuing her dream scared her more.

She finally decided to chase her dreams

While my mother typed my college applications, she was also typing her own — in secret. We both applied to English programs and received merit money. I chose a college in a bordering state. My mother chose an in-state school 20 minutes from home. We registered for classes. My mother was mindful of her kids' schedules; I was mindful that I wanted breaks during the day.

A month into my freshman year , my father said, "You know your mother is taking classes, too." At the end of our first semester, he bragged about my mother's 4.0. She hushed him, but I was in awe.

I complained about big exams and papers, and had endless hours of free time. My mother had three kids at home — one of whom was only 5. If she was overwhelmed, she didn't let on. My father pitched in and folded laundry while he watched the Red Sox, but my mother continued to run point on paying the bills, organizing five schedules, and planning princess birthday parties .

On my mother's college graduation day — a week after my own — her summa cum laude tassel waved to us as she walked across the stage to accept her diploma. I'd never seen her so happy, so proud of herself. A new version of my mother left the auditorium.

She became the woman I always knew she could be

My mother took a position teaching middle school English. After school, she helped students catch up on work and graded piles of papers. She felt seen and appreciated, something she didn't when she stayed home with us.

We ate frozen pizza when she got home late from school, and she gushed about her students and colleagues. "Everyone is so great!" she said. "I wish I'd done this years ago."

After catering to everyone else's needs for years, my mother gave herself permission to do the same. The move was bold. It made me respect her that much more. Her best friend told me recently, "I always wanted to be a nurse. I wish I had been brave like your mom."

We all won when my mother pursued her dream of teaching. She laughed more, hugged us tighter, and embraced store-bought birthday cakes. She loved being a teacher and loved being a mom. Her victory was finding a way she could be both.

Watch: Here's what descendants of 5 former presidents say about the role age plays in politics

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Revealed: US university lecturer behind far-right Twitter account and publishing house

Guardian investigation identifies Jonathan Keeperman, a former lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, as ‘Lomez’

A Guardian investigation has identified former University of California, Irvine (UCI) lecturer Jonathan Keeperman as the man behind the prominent “new right” publishing house Passage Press and the influential Twitter persona Lomez.

The identification is based on company and property records, source interviews and open-source online materials.

The reporting has revealed that Keeperman’s current status as a key player and influential tastemaker in a burgeoning proto-fascist movement came after years of involvement in far-right internet forums.

Much of that journey coincided with his time at one of the country’s most well-regarded writing programs: Keeperman first came to UCI as a master of fine arts (MFA) student, and was also a lecturer in the English department from 2013 to 2022, according to public records.

The emergence of Passage Press and other such publishers has been a key part of the development of a swathe of the current American far right, which is seeking to capture US institutions – or develop far-right equivalents – as part of a political and cultural war against what it sees as the dominance of a liberal “regime” in America.

In a June 2023 podcast interview, Keeperman characterized Passage Press and its literary prize as part of this effort to “build out alternative infrastructure, alternative institutions”.

It is a fight wholeheartedly embraced by Donald Trump and his supporters in the Republican party, especially in their railing against “the deep state” and promises of retribution should Trump win the 2024 presidential election.

The Guardian repeatedly contacted Keeperman requesting comment on this reporting, at a personal Gmail address and a Passage Press address, and left a voicemail message at a telephone number that data brokers listed as belonging to Keeperman, but which carried a message identifying it as belonging to a member of his household.

Keeperman did not directly respond to these requests. However, hours after a request on 1 May, “Lomez” on X castigated “lying, libelous journalist-activists” and appeared to make veiled legal threats. Another detailed request was sent on 5 May, and just an hour later, Passage Press’s star writer posted about a “major legacy media outlet threatening to dox a pseudonymous Twitter account”.

Scary ideas – and wanting to be recognized

Passage Press books include a Tucker Carlson-blurbed anthology of writings by “human biodiversity” influencer Steve Sailer; a similar retrospective from “neo-reactionary” guru Curtis Yarvin; and a print version of the biannual Man’s World .

Like many other far-right publishers, Passage’s list is bolstered by reprints of out-of-print or public-domain books by historical fascist and reactionary writers. These include books by radical German nationalist and militarist Ernst Jünger; Peter Kemp, who fought as a volunteer in Franco’s army during the Spanish civil war; and two counter-revolutionary Russian aristocrats, White Russian general Pyotr Wrangel and Prince Serge Obolensky.

A James McAdams, professor of international affairs at the University of Notre Dame, who has done extensive research on far-right thinkers and publishing houses, said such publishers operate “on the level of ideas – scary ideas – but it’s also about wanting to be recognized, and finally it’s about money”.

“This is a source of money,” McAdams continued. “The general public does not know about Ernst Jünger, but you can sell his books to the far right, and you can make money.”

Passage Press differs from many others in its niche in offering new work by the contemporary far-right’s intellectual celebrities, and in curating in-person events and a far-right literary award.

The publisher also produces high-end limited editions of selected titles. The “patrician edition” of Noticing, a book by Sailer, for example, is “bound in genuine leather, gold-foil stamping” and “Smyth-sewn book block”, according to the website.

Though lavishly produced, the “patrician” offerings appear to have generated significant income for Passage. At the time of reporting, Passage had sold out its limited run of 500 patrician editions of Noticing at $395 apiece, according to the website. This equates to some $195,000 in revenue. An earlier patrician edition of winning entries in the 2021 Passage prize sold 250 editions at $400 apiece, according to the website, representing another $100,000 in revenue.

The publication of Noticing – also available as a $29.95 paperback – was spun out into a series of in-person events in Austin, Los Angeles, Miami and New York City, held in March, April and May.

Passage offered a $75 bundle comprising a copy of the book and a ticket to an in-person event, though the website warned prospective attendees: “Location details will be delivered via email. No photos or recordings of any kind will be permitted at these events.”

Buyers of the patrician edition could attend “salon events” in these cities for a $300 upcharge. These were advertised as “small, intimate spaces that include dinner, an open bar, and a unique conversational setting with Steve and special guests”. The website did not indicate how many salon tickets were available, but at the time of writing they had sold out.

Passage Press has also commenced publishing a print version of the hitherto online-only magazine Man’s World, which is helmed by the pseudonymous editor “Raw Egg Nationalist” (“REN”), a British writer who was described in left-right syncretist magazine Compact as “one of the brighter stars in a sprawling constellation of rightwing social-media influencers who exalt nature, tradition, and physical fitness”.

REN, who has previously published cookbooks with white nationalist publisher Antelope Hill , batters his social media followers and Substack subscribers with dubious dietary and health information along with “anti-globalist” conspiracy theories. He came to wider prominence when he was featured in a 2022 documentary, The End of Men, produced by Tucker Carlson when Carlson still worked at Fox News.

“REN and Man’s World represents a paradigm case of how masculinity is being articulated at the heart of rightwing politics,” said Scott Burnett, an assistant professor of African studies and women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Pennsylvania State University.

“There’s stuff in Man’s World that is fascist, sometimes bordering on neo-Nazi,” he added, but it is draped in “an ironic gauze”.

Currently, Passage is soliciting entries for the third annual Passage prize, an art and literature prize for rightwingers who feel “straight-jacketed by the increasingly hysterical and vicious gatekeepers of their institutional homes”.

‘L0m3z’ on Twitter

In previous coverage, Lomez and REN have been identified as prominent members of the so-called “new right”, a term that has gained currency as a description of a cluster of illiberal, anti-democratic, “counter-revolutionary” tendencies in rightwing politics in the US.

Lomez acquired early influence in the new right movement by means of the L0m3z account on X, which has 55,000 followers at the time of reporting.

Internet archives have preserved a range of the posts with which he attracted a large audience, but also suggest he has deleted many of these.

One of the account’s themes is an antipathy for racial justice protests, especially after the George Floyd protests in 2020.

Lomez also supported those who responded to protests with violence, posting at the end of Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial: “ Rittenhouse is a hero . He is a symbol, in word and deed, and in his baseless persecution, of what is good and decent and courageous and the forces arrayed against those qualities. May a million Kyle Rittenhouses bloom.”

Anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments also have constituted a consistent theme on the account. In January 2020, he wrote he was “ coming around to the idea that the most powerful and effective political argument against the left in 2020 is probably simple as: shut up fag.”

Journalists have also been a favorite target of the account. A post reads: “ the press are in fact the enemy . They are mewling midwit scum. Sniveling liars and desperate status junkies. My abiding contempt for them is only ever confirmed.”

A list of “policy proposals” begins with “ lamppost the journos ” – an apparent call for summary lynchings of members of the media.

As the Twitter account grew, Lomez increasingly engaged in chummy interactions with prominent far-right figures including self-described eugenicist Bo Winegard , but above all with culture warrior Christopher Rufo, with whom Lomez has had dozens of interactions.

The Guardian has reported in several stories in recent months on Rufo’s links with far-right media outlets, would-be “warlords” and proponents of scientific racism.

Rufo has characterized these stories on social media as illegitimate “guilt by association”.

The former MFA student in print

Keeperman was able to parlay the growing clout of his Twitter account into commissions at the many rightwing media outlets that allowed him to publish under a social media pseudonym.

Early bylines included a March 2020 piece in the Claremont Institute’s publication, the American Mind, in which he argued that “retards” better anticipated the impact of the early stages of the Covid pandemic than “midwit experts”, and a March 2021 piece at online far-right magazine IM-1776, in which he encouraged readers to believe that they were involved in a “fifth-generation war” against their perceived political enemies.

More recently, in a February piece at the Federalist, Lomez argued that the prosecution of “alt-right” personality Douglass Mackey, once known online as “Ricky Vaughn”, represents the state using an “expansive reading of civil rights law to punish their political enemies and flex their tyrannical authority”.

Mackey was sentenced to seven months in prison last October for election interference over his dispatch of mass text messages in November 2016 urging Black recipients to “vote by text” instead of casting a legitimate vote, with the messages purporting to be sponsored by the Clinton campaign. Mackey is currently appealing that verdict.

Keeperman’s most influential publication as Lomez, however, may have been an essay published in “ theocon ” outlet First Things, which popularized a new right anti-feminist concept: “the longhouse”. The essay defines the longhouse as a metaphor for the supposed “overcorrection of the last two generations toward social norms centering feminine needs and feminine methods for controlling, directing, and modeling behavior”.

This metaphor has been widely adopted by writers on the anti-feminist right, including Rufo , religious conservative Rod Dreher and writers for outlets such as the American Mind .

In the piece, “Lomez” proffered the Passage prize competition, then accepting submissions in its second iteration, as a way “to remedy this problem, to provide an arena for the competing visions that exit from the longhouse will require”.

But it was in launching the first Passage prize in late 2021 that Keeperman inadvertently offered crucial clues that tied him to the Lomez persona.

How the Guardian identified Keeperman

Keeperman appears to have made considerable efforts to limit his online footprint, thereby reducing the possibility that he would be linked to the Lomez persona. Keeperman has no discoverable profiles in his own name on social media, blogging or professional-networking sites.

The identification was made possible by unavoidable traces left in public records such as property deeds and public salary records, but also by the sequence of events that led up to the announcement of the first Passage prize.

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According to Whois records, the domain passageprize.com was registered on 6 October 2021 via a domain name registrar who anonymized the domain’s true owner.

One day later, Passage Press LLC was registered in New Mexico. Filings name Jonathan Keeperman as the sole member of the LLC and online legal services company LegalZoom.com Inc as the organizer.

At that time, only one other company called Passage Press LLC existed in any US jurisdiction – that one was owned by a female freelance technical writer and editor in Colorado and had been established in 2014, and its website is now dormant.

The Keeperman-founded New Mexico company was dissolved in December 2023. Passage Press LLC was re-registered in Delaware on 9 May 2022. The Delaware registration only identifies a corporate services company as agent and director.

Although the New Mexico LLC registration was registered at a mailbox provider in Garden City, Idaho, another company that lists Keeperman as a member – Paradise Valley Partners – is registered at a Livingston, Montana, address. The property at that address is co-owned by Keeperman, according to Park county property records.

Less than a week after the 2021 domain and New Mexico company registrations, “Lomez” announced the Passage prize on his Twitter account. Snapshots preserved by internet-archiving services indicate that by at latest 14 October 2021, a webpage at passageprize.com was soliciting entries for the Passage prize, “a literature and arts contest” with “a $10,000 prize pool”.

The proximity in time of the domain registration, Lomez’s competition announcement and the company registration identifying Jonathan Keeperman as Passage Press’s sole member offer one line of evidence for the identification of Keeperman as Lomez.

Posts by “Lomez” on what is now X reveal crucial details that line up with Keeperman’s biography.

In January, he posted that he was the third child in his family, which matches details offered in public accounts, including a parent’s published biography.

That obituary says that Keeperman’s parent died on 1 October 2022. On 3 October 2022, a post by Lomez indicates that his father had died in the immediate past.

Also, a range of posts indicate that the person behind Lomez worked at a university, attended graduate school and spent extended time in an academic milieu.

A 20 September 2022 tweet indicates that “Lomez” has decided to resign from his job, blaming a “bio-statist ukase”.

The date coincides with the beginning of the University of California, Irvine’s 2022-2023 academic year. A personnel record obtained via records request from UCI indicates that Keeperman departed UCI at the end of that academic year, finishing in his then-100% remote position on 30 June 2023. The record gives the reason as “resign – moved out of area”.

The tweet referencing unwelcome decrees came weeks after UCI’s August 2022 policy changes that generally required staff to spend several days a week on campus, and tightened eligibility for wholly remote work and out-of-state remote work for UCI employees. In July 2022, UCI’s chancellor announced an extension of the university’s pandemic mask mandate through that school year.

As Lomez, the Montana-based Keeperman posted conspiracy-tinged tweets about masks and vaccines before and since the tweet indicating his departure from UCI.

This alignment of Twitter posts and biographical events in Keeperman’s life are another line of evidence for him being behind the “Lomez” persona.

UCI connections

Until his departure from UCI, Keeperman had been a composition teacher in the English department. California salary records published by Nevada Policy show Keeperman earning a UCI salary every year from 2013 to 2022, except for the pandemic year of 2020; the UCI personnel record indicates that he originally began working for the university in January 2009; his earliest rating on RateMyProfessors.com is from July 2010.

In 2015, a local media report from Santa Monica announcing a book reading by authors recently published in the Santa Monica Review, described him as one of two “recent grads of the UC Irvine creative writing MFA program”.

In 2016, Keeperman was mentioned by another southern California media outlet when it published a press release from the UCI College Republicans. The release was a response to the club’s suspension following their invitation of conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos on to the campus.

The title of the planned Yiannopolous talk was “Social justice is cancer”, according to contemporaneous media reports. At that time, Yiannopoulos’s campus visits were attracting protests and counter-protests in the UK and the US.

The press release featured a supportive quote from Keeperman, in which he said: “Freedom of speech is an extraordinary right that requires extraordinary vigilance to uphold. We must do everything possible at our universities to allow for the exchange of all political ideas, even those that may shock and offend, and allow for rebuttal to those ideas through civil debate.”

No other UCI faculty were quoted in the release.

Keeperman was also involved in labor activism as a member of UCI’s American Federation of Teachers chapter, and spoke at several conferences about labor conditions for lecturers, who are not tenured.

A former colleague of Keeperman’s, who worked closely with him in such activism within the UC system, positively identified Keeperman’s voice from recordings of his many guest appearances on far-right podcasts.

An early persona: Mr Lomez

One of those podcast appearances as Lomez was an episode of the Carousel published on 10 May 2023. Host Isaac Simpson asked “Lomez” about his history online.

“I’m on my third [Twitter] account,” “Lomez” replied. “They’ve all been some version of Lomez. My, I mean, I’ve been posting in this Twitter space since about 2015-ish.”

He added: “I knew a lot of people from Steve Sailer’s comment section on his old iSteve blog, and a lot of the people who I ended up following on Twitter initially were people I recognized or were familiar to me from, from that comment section, and it was the kind of people that Sailer would link to.”

On the question of his online history, “Lomez” concluded: “Actually, I ran a blog. I’m not going to talk about it too much because there’s potentially doxable material there, but I actually ran a blog at one point that … well, I’ve already said too much, so anyway, I’ll just stop there.”

An individual with the screen name “Mr Lomez” was a frequent commenter on Steve Sailer’s iSteve blog between 2012 and 2014. The archives of Sailer’s early blogging have since been transferred – along with comments – to the Unz Review, an aggregator of far-right content run by antisemitic software millionaire Ron Unz.

Mr Lomez posted criticisms of affirmative action in college admissions, commentary on the trial of George Zimmerman over his fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, and complaints about anti-immigrant parties being characterized as “far-right” in media coverage.

Mr Lomez also frequently flexed literary expertise, a deep knowledge of sports and a particularly intimate familiarity with college athletics.

In a post on 23 February 2013, Sailer was critical of the William Pereira-designed architecture at the UCI campus, with his post including a photograph of the Social Science Tower.

“Mr Lomez” commented: “My office is in that building. It’s as bad on the inside as it is on the out – claustrophobic and soulless. I feel like I’m in a rat maze.”

Keeperman maintained a separate blog under “Mr Lomez” in 2006 and 2007.

The self-portrait – which includes a photo – that begins in the first post on that blog, made on 29 November 2006, appears to be of the same person depicted in the few other publicly available images of Keeperman, including one in a now-paywalled (but archived) article at the California Federation of Teachers website, and others in a third-party archive of his wedding photos, which link to the archive using Keeperman’s wife’s name on Facebook.

In comments on the blog, interlocutors address him as “Joey”. University of California, San Diego men’s basketball media guides indicate that a “Joey Keeperman” played for the team in 2001-02, when Keeperman was 19.

Local news and high-school basketball reporting from 2000 indicates that as a high-school senior, Keeperman was an accomplished football wide receiver and star basketball player for Campolindo high school in Moraga, in northern California. “Joey” and “Jonathan” are used interchangeably in the coverage.

Moraga is the same northern California town where Keeperman was raised, according to the 2022 parental obituary, and is also where Keeperman celebrated his bar mitzvah in 1996, according to a contemporaneous issue of the Jewish News of Northern California.

Posts on the blog detail his travels in south-east Asia, including destinations “Lomez” has mentioned on Twitter. Another post mentions a sibling’s health problems, and that sibling’s first name matches that of one of Keeperman’s siblings.

In the last posts on the blog, there are hints of the racial thinking that “Mr Lomez” would later express on Sailer’s blog.

On 2 May 2007, in response to a New York Times report on a study that found racial bias in NBA refereeing, Keeperman made an argument characteristic of “human biodiversity” proponents: “I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest that black players get called for more fouls because black players do in fact commit more fouls.”

Keeperman added: “Before calling me a racist, at least hear me out.”

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• A Majority of Latinas Feel Pressure To Support Their Families or To Succeed at Work

1. Daily life experiences of Latinas

Table of contents.

• The impact of gender, Hispanic identity and skin color on the lives of Latinas
• 2. Pressures Latinas face in their lives
• 3. Life satisfaction and sources of joy for Latinas
• Acknowledgments
• The American Trends Panel survey methodology

About four-in-ten Hispanic women say that being female or Hispanic impacts their daily lives. In fact, Hispanic women are more likely than Hispanic men to say sexism is a problem in the workplace, schools and the media.

Differences by gender disappear in other areas. Similar shares of Hispanic women and Hispanic men say they have been treated as if they’re not smart.

This chapter explores Latinas’ views of sexism and their experiences with harassment and discrimination.

Substantial shares of Hispanic women say gender (43%), Hispanic identity (40%) and skin color (35%) shape their daily life experiences a great deal or a fair amount. Overall, 54% say at least one of these shapes their daily life.

By comparison, Hispanic men are somewhat less likely than Hispanic women to say gender (38%), Hispanic identity (36%) and skin color (30%) impact their daily lives a great deal or a fair amount.

Does gender shape daily life for Latinas?

Latinas’ opinions on how much gender shapes their lives can vary by age, education, nativity and political party:

• Age: About half (53%) of Latinas ages 18 to 29 say gender shapes their life, while 30% of Latinas 65 and older say so.
• Education: A majority of Latinas (57%) with a bachelor’s degree or higher say gender shapes their daily life experiences. By comparison, 34% of Latinas with a high school diploma or less say the same.
• Party identification: About half of Latinas (49%) who identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party say gender shapes their daily life, compared with 35% of Latinas who identify as Republicans or lean Republican.
• Nativity: Nearly half (48%) of Latinas born in the United States say gender shapes their daily life, compared with 38% of Latina immigrants.

How do views of sexism differ by gender?

Hispanic women are more likely than Hispanic men to say sexism against women is at least a somewhat big problem in media, the workplace, schools and families.

• 52% of Hispanic women say sexism against women in the workplace is at least a somewhat big problem, compared with 44% of Hispanic men.
• 48% of Hispanic women say sexism against women in schools is at least a somewhat big problem, while 37% of Hispanic men say this.
• Half of Hispanic women say sexism against women in English-language music is a problem, versus 40% of Hispanic men. 4
• 46% of Hispanic women say sexism against women in Spanish-language music is a problem, compared with 38% of Hispanic men. 5

How do different groups of Latinas view sexism in the workplace?

Latinas who are young adults, college graduates, U.S. born, Democrats or don’t have children are more likely to say that sexism against women at work is at least a somewhat big problem:

• Age: 63% of Latinas ages 18 to 29 say sexism in the workplace is at least a somewhat big problem, compared with 44% of those 65 and older.
• Education: 65% of Latinas who are college graduates say sexism in the workplace is at least a somewhat big problem, versus 47% of those with a high school diploma or less.
• Immigrant generation: 59% of Latinas who are U.S. born and have at least one immigrant parent (second-generation Hispanics) say this is at least a somewhat big problem, compared with 48% of Latina immigrants.
• Party affiliation: 60% of Latinas who identify as or lean Democratic say workplace sexism is at least a somewhat big problem, compared with 43% of Republican and Republican-leaning Latinas.

What experiences do Latinas have with harassment and discrimination?

Over four-in-ten Hispanic women (44%) say that in the past 12 months people have acted as if they were not smart, the most common of five negative experiences asked about in our survey. Meanwhile, 38% of Hispanic men say they experienced the same thing.

About a third (31%) of Hispanic women say they have feared for their personal safety in the past year. The same share say a stranger made a comment about their appearance that made them feel uncomfortable during this time. By contrast, Hispanic men are less likelyto say these experiences have happened to them.

Overall, a majority of Hispanic women (62%) and about half of Hispanic men (52%) say at least one of these five negative experiences has happened to them in the past year.

By immigrant generation and age

Among Hispanic women, those who are second generation (71%) are more likely than immigrants (59%) to say they have had at least one of the five negative experiences happen to them.

Notable differences exist between the youngest and oldest age groups of Latinas:

• 50% of Latinas ages 18 to 29 say people have acted as if they were not smart in the past year, compared with 21% of those 65 and older.
• 43% of Latina adults under 30 say they have feared for their personal safety in the past year, versus 16% of those 65 and older.
• 42% of Latinas 18 to 29 say a stranger commented on their appearance and made them feel uncomfortable, compared with 12% of those in the oldest age group.

Overall, 72% of Latinas ages 18 to 29 say they havehad at least one of the survey’s five negative experiences happen to them in the past year, compared with 36% of those 65 and older.

• Asked only of those who say they can carry on a conversation in English at least “a little.” ↩
• Asked only of those who say they can carry on a conversation in Spanish at least “a little.” ↩

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