Beating Education Barriers From the Caribbean to the U.S.
By Freymilin Pichardo
July 31, 2007
I am the only daughter of two Latino immigrants from the Caribbean. I was born on Aug. 19, 1985, in a small town called Cotui in the Cibao region of the Dominican Republic. My parents named me Freymilin; this was arranged according to their names, Francisco and Miledis. They separated shortly after I was born, and years later my mother married the friend of a neighbor who came from Puerto Rico. He took her with him to Puerto Rico. Later on, my mother got me a visa and I went to spend some time with her. Even though I already had my green card, my mother was not able to take care of me because she had to work hard to help my family. I was raised by my grandmother Mita, whom I still call Mami.
At the age of 14, I went back to live with my mother. I went to school in Puerto Rico and then my parents decided that I was going to live in the United States. My father had recently migrated there, and they wanted me to get a better education and to pursue a good future. I came to this country in July 2000; I was almost 15 years old.
I started high school with no knowledge of the English language other than the words "yes" and "thank you." For the first half of the year, I remember my cousins helped me do my homework so that I could pass to the next grade level. My grades went down, I fell into a depression and my self-esteem decreased, as did the hopes and dreams I brought from the Caribbean.
It was very frustrating for me when a teacher said something that I couldn't understand. Sometimes I froze when they'd ask me a question, and I felt badly when they asked, "Do you understand me?" It was like being in a nightmare, but it was real life. But I managed to defeat the language barrier, and by the end of the year, I was speaking Spanglish (Spanish and English). Plus, I had my first job as a sales associate at a department store.
The language was not the only issue I had in education; I had to adapt to a completely different school environment from the one I had experienced. That was a real challenge for me because I came from a very small town where, for most of the population, education has many limitations because of economical factors. I must confess that I didn't even know how to turn a computer on, but I found out and I learned to type quickly.
Peer pressure was another issue, as was racial bias. Discrimination is one of the biggest reasons that many immigrant students face problems in schools nowadays. According to a 2007 study in The International Migration Review, students who come from immigrant families and are from disadvantaged races are more likely to experience discrimination in the United States. The Professional School Counseling states that for many Caribbean immigrants, it is very hard to improve academic performance because of parents' lack of participation in their children's school activities. This explains why in the New York City area, where I live, the dropout rate among Caribbean immigrants is nearly 24 percent among male students and 20 percent among females. Because of the high dropout rate in schools in this area, many Caribbean immigrants are underemployed.
In my opinion, many immigrant parents don't get too involved in their children's school activities because many of them spend the majority of their day working and don't have time to participate in such activities. Many members of my family have to leave their children with a babysitter because they have to work and sustain their families.
Also, many children of Latino immigrants are forced to work to pay their tuition or to help with their parents' expenses while going to school, as I had to do. I think that some of us don't overcome these issues because many Americans don't view us as competent human beings. The perception that many Americans share about Latino immigrants is that because we come from other countries, we may not have the capacity to succeed and obtain a college degree.
Today, I am just one semester away from achieving my goals and obtaining my bachelor's degree. I have fought the education barriers in America and I will fight many more that I know will come. I am a video and editorial intern at DiversityInc, where I have the opportunity to advance my knowledge in communications and broadcast journalism. I have one brother from my mother and two other lovely brothers from my father for whom I serve as pride and inspiration. I am able to speak and read English very well and I am proud and thankful of the decision my parents made years ago to give me the opportunity to live and study in this country.
After only seven years living in this country, I am pursuing my dreams; many Latino students like me don't even get a high-school diploma. This may be because their parents can't provide them with the opportunity or because of racial bias and education inequities in this country that make it impossible for many of us to reach the so-called American dream.
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