Erica Personal Story

A high school student named Sophia faced difficulties with college applications because her parents were undocumented immigrants. Her friend, who was also Hispanic, realized the lack of awareness and understanding about immigration issues. Despite trying to help Sophia, she couldn't fully comprehend the magnitude of the situation. This made her wonder how many others were going through the same struggles. Throughout high school, I couldn't wait to graduate and move on to the next step, college. I was fortunate enough to have very supportive parents that encouraged higher education as a path for me and my siblings. When it came time to apply for schools, I had a friend that didn't know much about the process. I won't use her real name today for privacy purposes, so we'll call her Sophia. Picture this, we were high school seniors ready for this exciting next step. Sophia and I were close friends. We were on multiple sports teams together and shared classes, so we spent a lot of the day with each other. Sophia was outgoing, always bubbly and chatting away in our friend circle and during practices. Our senior year, we took time in our classes to learn about school options in California and how to apply for them. Sophia asked me questions like, how do I know what school I'm applying for, what's the California state system, and do we really need to pay for each application? I thought these questions seemed obvious. I thought, hasn't she talked about this before? When she asked these questions aloud, people laughed and expected her to find the answers herself. I could tell she was very stressed out about the process. I mean, I was stressed too because this was a very big step in our lives, but it came to a point where she stopped asking questions. She stopped talking to me about her applications. As deadlines approached, Sophia finally told me what was wrong. She was having trouble with school applications because, although she was a citizen of the United States, her parents were undocumented. This prompted questions that I hadn't thought of before. What does this mean? What issues does this cause? I learned that this made it difficult to fill out general parent information, financial aid forms, and most importantly, her parents weren't able to support her because they just weren't familiar with college applications. I had just stepped into uncharted territory. At first, I thought, most of my friends are Hispanic. I'm Hispanic. We make up the majority of this school. Surely I can support my friend through this. Even surrounded by this community, a community where immigration is so common, I realized I had never had a conversation about it. I had never thought about someone so close to me dealing with these issues of immigration. And I had never been in a situation in which I tried to support them through it. Back in 2019, people didn't openly talk to others about their immigration status. There was a fear that didn't need to be verbalized. It's a fear that stopped my friend from seeking help, and a fear that even stopped me from talking to my parents about it. That day, I realized how ignorant I was to issues that I didn't face. Although I was surrounded by countless people who were probably going through something similar, I was never exposed to conversations about it. But I did my best to support Sofia as a friend. I would answer the questions that I could, try to walk her through application steps, and encourage her to seek advising. But I didn't understand the magnitude of the situation. Witnessing her stress made me ask, how many people are going through something similar?