--pws
from http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/10/01/son_of_immigrants_shares_a_long_goodbye/
 | THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING |
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 Son of immigrants shares a long goodbyeDavid Arias, a lanky 16-year-old with a mouthful of braces, ambled down the halls of Boston Latin Academy on Thursday, saying goodbye to his classmates and trying to salvage what is left of his American life. Friends cornered him in the halls and hugged him in the cafeteria. Everyone asked the same question, in disbelief: Why are you moving to Colombia? "Because my family's there," David answered. But that wasn't the whole story. David is the son of immigrants here illegally from Colombia, a nation still fighting a 43-year-old war. Tomorrow, his mother will move her two boys to Cali, a city racked by crime and drug rings, to join their father, who was deported last month after nearly two decades in the United States. Except Colombia is not home to David. He has never even been there. This is his junior year at one of Boston's best schools. He is supposed to be taking the SAT and scouting for colleges. "I'm from East Boston," said David, pointing to his chest. "That's the only home to me." Home, for most of his life, was a first-floor apartment in a brick building on Orleans Street, near the bodegas in Maverick Square. His father, Gustavo, was a janitor and community leader, and his mother, Esperanza, cleaned houses. They paid taxes, had two children, David and Daniel, now 5, and even managed to buy the apartment they lived in. Still, it was a fragile existence. David's father had been apprehended crossing the border in Texas in 1989. He quickly applied for political asylum, saying he was on the guerrillas' "hit list" in Colombia, according to a file provided by the family's Boston lawyer, Manuel Macias. But he missed a court hearing he said he was never told about. A judge ordered him deported in March 1990. A year and four months later, David was born. He grew up in a tightknit neighborhood a block from his elementary school. He loves to play video games and watch science fiction movies - his friends call him "Spiderman." His parents had finished high school in Colombia but could not afford college, so they pushed their son to succeed. They enrolled him in guitar lessons at age 7, and now he plays in two bands, Diversity and Arias. His idols are Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Dr. Dre. In middle school, his parents insisted David apply to one of Boston's three prestigious exam schools instead of struggling East Boston High. He has earned Bs and Cs at the demanding exam school and easily passed the MCAS on his first try. He was on a clear path to college. "I was all about staying with my friends," said David, who enrolled in Boston Latin Academy in seventh grade. "But now that I'm here, I am glad I came." For years, David was blissfully unaware of his parents' immigration problems. "I just went on with my life thinking everything was OK," he said. When he was 12, his parents sat him down in his bedroom and told them they did not have papers, and that he could not tell a soul. But pressure on his father was intensifying. He found out that a judge had ordered him deported. Immigration raids seemed to be on the rise in Boston. One of David's uncles in Canada encouraged the family to join him. In October 2006, David said goodbye to his friends and teachers - the first time - and the family loaded up their silver minivan for the long drive to the border, near Buffalo. But Canada customs agents turned them back because they had no record of his uncle in the computer. David said his father climbed back into the van, turned to him and said, "David, you are going to have to be strong now. You're going to have to take care of your mother and your brother." The next 15 minutes were a blur. His father drove silently back to US Customs. His mother made frantic calls to the lawyer on her cellphone. At the US border, a guard asked his father why he didn't have papers. His father pleaded, "Please let me through. . . . I'm trying to save my life." His father was taken into custody. David, his mother, and his brother went back to East Boston to get help. They moved into a church shelter, sharing one room, and a kitchen and bath with strangers. It was cramped, but he found refuge in school and his bands. He read George Orwell's "1984" and loved it. He fell in love with a girl from his band. Teachers were surprised to see David again. He was an easygoing, strong student who, they said, was a pleasure to have in class. Besides missing a few homework assignments, he caused no trouble in a school of 1,700 students. This year, he was taking economics, chemistry, college English, precalculus, and Japanese - a class his parents encouraged because he already spoke some Spanish. But now he is worried that he does not know enough Spanish to succeed in Colombian schools - and that public schools there might not be good enough to qualify him for college in America. His dream is to be a musician and to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. "My head thinks in English. Know what I'm saying?" he said, as he sat in Boston Latin's light-filled library. "Spanish is my first language, but English is like, my language." As he said goodbye to his school a second time last week, friends and administrators offered sympathy. In the cafeteria, assistant headmaster James H. Williams hurried to pay for David's lunch, a slice of cheese pizza and a small carton of lowfat milk. Williams teased David for eating too little. "You know we're going to miss you," Williams said. Classmates looked up from notebooks and cans of soda, patted David's back and slung arms around his neck. A curly-haired student popped by and said, "David's leaving? Again?" With the help of Emilia Pastor, the Colombian-born assistant headmaster of Boston Latin Academy, David is trying to get into an American-style school in Colombia. In her office Thursday, they sat together at a small table to type a letter of application to the school. "I don't want this to be happening," he said. "If I had a choice, I would stay." |
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