“When I first came to Launch Pad in the third grade I could hardly speak any English and had a hard time doing my homework. I didn’t like to talk because I was embarrassed and afraid that people would make fun of me, but everyone at Launch Pad was really nice and I made a lot of friends. My mentor and other volunteers worked really hard with me and my English got a lot better and I really started to enjoy school. In middle school I made very good grades and my eighth grade year I was accepted to Silva magnet school. I have now just started at UTEP on a full scholarship and will study computer science. I plan to volunteer at Ciudad Nueva while in college. I would like to intern with Google and one day hopefully start my own business.”
“Me, my mom and my sister went down to Chihuahua to visit our family over Christmas and we saw someone get killed while we were buying tacos on the street. We had to leave the country right away because they knew we saw the murder. I didn’t talk for a week after it happened.”
“My sister got pregnant when she was fifteen and that’s when all the trouble started in my house. Her boyfriend came to live with us after the baby was born and that made my dad mad because he said that there were already too many people in the apartment. It’s hard to do my homework when everybody is yelling and it’s hard to sleep because the baby cries all night. There is no way that I want what happened to my sister to happen to me.”
“I was molested. I was scared to tell anybody until a lady came to our after school program and told us that it was ok to tell on adults if they were hurting us.”
“My dad was in prison in Juarez for killing some people and we heard that he just got out. I haven’t seen him in a long time and I don’t know a whole lot about him. I live with my grandma, grandpa, mom and cousins. My grandma is really sick and the doctors think that she is going to die soon. My family gets mad at me because I don’t do good in school and they sometimes yell that I am stupid and will never learn anything. My mentor is fun and tries to help me but sometimes I think that I’m just too slow.”
“We used to live with my dad in Juarez but it’s too dangerous now and school is too expensive… We are U.S. citizens and can go to American schools so we moved in with my mom’s parents in El Paso. My grandpa kicked us out… Ciudad Nueva helped find us a place in a shelter until we could find a place to live. At the same time we were living in the shelter a man traveling across the United States came to Ciudad Nueva to talk about what it was like being homeless as a kid. While he was talking I couldn’t stop crying because he grew up just like me. I stayed behind after all the other kids left so I could talk to him. I was tired of trying to be so strong for everyone in my family but it was good to know that someone understood me. We live in another neighborhood now but sometimes we come back to visit. My mom says she hopes we can move back someday to be closer to my friends and Ciudad Nueva.”
