Young Immigrants Have to Grow Up Fast

By Paloma Esquivel, November 16, 2006

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Teenaged immigrants often put aside school and social lives to hold down jobs and support their parents even as their wealthy American counterparts stay young and irresponsible indefinitely.

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The media is on the move. Having spotted a new trend, eager reporters are scrambling to provide the evidence: 20-somethings are marrying later in life, 30-somethings are having kids for the first time, college grads are holding on to mom and dad's insurance well past 25. Meet the latest incarnation of American wealth and privilege: the adultescent. Just last year, the cover of Time magazine declared, like a mother throwing up her hands in bemused exasperation, "They Just Won't Grow Up!"

"Social scientists are starting to realize that a permanent shift has taken place in the way we live our lives," wrote author Lev Grossman. "In the past, people moved from childhood to adolescence and from adolescence to adulthood, but today there is a new, intermediate phase along the way." The new face of the American 20-something is a college grad drifting from job to job, avoiding rent, playing Xbox 360 and tricking out cars (paid for by mom and dad), too busy to be encumbered by mortgages, insurance -- children.

Yet in the media's eagerness to paint the new face of youth, they've overlooked the nation's diverse faces. Adultescence implies means. It implies parents capable of feeding, housing and otherwise supporting an extra person. For 20-somethings growing up poor, this most likely isn't the case. For 20-somethings growing up undocumented and poor, it's likely never the case.

That undocumented immigrants in America are overwhelmingly young people is a point that seems lost amidst the rhetoric of the immigration debate. More likely than not the man picking onions in the fields of Idaho, the woman cleaning homes in Orange County, the guy working in the back of a New York restaurant, is the same age as the 20-year-old "kid" who still enjoys the benefits of mom and dad's health insurance and spends his free time playing Halo2.

According to research by the Pew Hispanic Center, 7.5 million undocumented immigrants in America are 18-39. 1.7 million are under 18 years.

For many of them, adultescence isn't an option. Rather than extending adolescence, they've likely grown up fast -- very fast. At 12, 13, 14, many of the young people interviewed for this story had their first job. They worked to support their parents (not vice versa) and to help brothers and sisters along the way. For them, youth's milestones -- education, friendship, fun and youthful indiscretion -- were overshadowed by two major responsibilities: to help support family and to keep from getting deported.

Growing up fast

Galo is a soccer-playing, music-loving community college student living in Oregon. Like most of his peers he has a penchant for sports. He spends hours a day practicing with his college soccer team -- but he also has loftier plans. At 19, he says he'll eventually become a politician.

"I want to help my people," he says.

Six years ago, just before Christmas, when temperatures in the border deserts drop to below 20 degrees at night, Galo spent several nights walking across Arizona with his brother's wife and kids. His parents stayed behind in Michoacan, Mexico, and he was pretty much on his own, with some help from his older brother.

The way he tells it, he came to the United States at 13, without parents, without much money and without legal permission to work, because he'd decided to straighten out his life, get a good education and become more responsible.

"I was drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana. I had problems at school," he says, describing life as a preteen, "One day I went to church and I asked God to give me a path to change my life, and he helped me decide to talk to my brother about coming to the U.S."

As a high school student Galo worked clearing Idaho's onion fields, picking corn and picking up whatever odd jobs came his way. After high school, he says, came the time to decide how his life would turn out -- would he keep his promise to get an education in the United States? Undocumented immigrants don't qualify for financial aid to go to school. In most states, they pay out-of-state tuition (which, with fees, can equal up to $30,000 a year) to attend even the most basic public colleges.

At 18, he says, his decision was made when his brother helped him get a job milking cows at a dairy farm. The job paid well, he says, and he was able to send money back to family every 15 days. "Not much, just $200, $300 dollars," he says. While this might have been the end of the line, Galo says he'd come to the United States with a clear vision of his responsibilities -- to educate himself and to help his family. So, he saved -- $3,500 by the end of the year. Enough to start community college.

Despite a schedule that includes going to school full time and playing on the soccer team, Galo still works at a restaurant on weekends and after practice, "to pay the rent, pay for lunch," he says, "the basics." The money he's saved up should pay for one year's tuition -- after that, he says, he'll find a way to make ends meet.

Trapped in uncertainty

Growing up fast isn't a phenomenon unique to undocumented immigration in America. It's the reality of poverty and often simply the cultural reality of nonwhite America. For countless cultures, responsibility to family is a given, not an option.

What's different about the stresses facing undocumented immigrants, and what most young people interviewed for this story kept repeating, is the sense that doors that might be opened to help relieve a bit of the stress -- education, legalization, a good paying job -- are permanently closed. It's not just that mom and dad can't be there to lend a helping hand to help pay for college, it's that the chances of getting a better paying job to save money for school are slim, and even if they manage to graduate, the chances of landing a secure job are still miniscule. This, combined with an uncertain future where deportation is a constant worry, can weigh heavily on a young person and make them feel old beyond their years, they say.

Maria Rodriguez, 23, helps organize young undocumented immigrants for the immigrant advocacy group CHIRLA in Los Angeles. The difference between undocumented youth and their peers is clear, she says. "Usually at that age you're not thinking about the future, you're just taking life step by step. But most of our undocumented youth are always thinking about the future," she says. For most, it's not just their own future, but also the future of their families on the line.

Responsibility to family

Adrian, 21, came to the San Jose, Calif., from Mexico City when he was 5. Unlike many youngsters who cross the border alone to eke out a better living, he came with a parent, which was both a blessing and a burden.

His first memories, he says, are watching his mother try to paste together a living from low-wage jobs. At 12, he says, he felt old enough to pick up odd jobs and help out a bit. At 13 he worked at a restaurant. "I would help clean up before the restaurant was open so I wasn't seen," he says. On weekends he worked at a flea market. At 15, he came to the front of the restaurant as a waiter, where he worked about 20 hours a week while finishing high school.

A few months ago, he wrote about his life for the independent local magazine Silicon Valley DeBug.

"Even though my mother had always provided for me," he wrote, "I knew that the salary that she was making was not enough. I could see the stress building up in her when it came time to pay the bills and the rent. Her stress became my stress."

At 21, Adrian now makes more money than his mom, $14 an hour to her $13, but that doesn't reduce the stress. If anything, it's more -- his money is needed to help pay for food, rent, electricity. Returning home after college to live off mom for a while isn't an option, neither is college -- the tuition is just too much, he says.

He admits the burden he carries feels heavy, and he's not immune from wishing it away.

"I want to travel and see the world, but I can't leave because my mom would crumble," Adrian says. "I don't want to complain about it. I'm not being held to do it. But I do kind of wish I had a way out."

Still, like most of the young people interviewed for this story, Adrian says he wouldn't change his lot.

"Even if we were legal," he says, "I'd still be just the way I am. Once you hit a certain age, you should be prepared enough to take care of yourself. I'd rather be the way that I am now. Maybe I'm undocumented, but I'm there to care for my mother."

Paloma Esquivel is a frequent contributor of WireTap and a freelance writer living in Riverside, California.