Walking the loneliest road: A story of immigration

By Andrés Gonzalez

  [A student who is also an undocumented immigrant and did not want his or his family's names printed is referred to by his first name only.]

 

   Every year, thousands of immigrants come to the U.S. to follow their dreams. Against all odds, Kevin, 17, immigrated from Honduras alone.

     He was driven to make the dangerous journey by just two things: he wanted to meet his mother and study law. Yet, after crossing four countries by himself and meeting his mother, Kevin could be in risk of not being able to pursue his law education.  

     The last time Kevin saw his mother he was only two years old. In 1993, his mother, Darkis, moved to the U.S. seeking a better life, never to return to Honduras again. For 15 years, Kevin did not speak with or see his mother once; left only to imagine what she might be like in an old, worn photograph. 

“I saw my mother’s photo constantly, but after a while I wanted to see her in person,” Kevin said.

     For most of his life, Kevin lived with his father, a wealthy business man in Honduras. He was told that one day he would be able to visit his mother in the states, though his father had no intention of ever letting him leave the country to find her.
     “My dad thought he was going to be able to separate my mother from me,” Kevin said. “It’s like trying to cover the sun with one finger… he couldn’t.”
     At age 17, Kevin decided to make the journey to the U.S. alone.

     After convincing his father that he would go to the U.S. to find work rather than his mother, Kevin was taken to a bus station in Cholutecas, Honduras, and given $300 dollars for his trip-just enough to pay his way on a series of buses that lead from Honduras to Texas- stopping in Guatemala and Mexico along the way.
     Kevin said he traveled north on a “bus of immigrants” for six days with 30 or more people, all of whom were also heading to the U.S. For many, like Kevin, it was their first time traveling anywhere outside their home towns.
     “I had to remind myself why I was going to the U.S.,” Kevin said. “To become better in life … That gave me force.”
     Despite recent efforts by the U.S. to crack down on illegal immigration, Kevin got lucky. His bus managed to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in California without running into any border patrol officers.
     “[The border] was a deserted area with a big fence, but there was a path in which cars passed [into the U.S.],” he said, adding that along this path there was a check point where U.S. immigration officials were inspecting vehicles. As the bus drew closer, he said, he grew more and more nervous.
     “I went with my faith,” Kevin said. “I kept saying ‘this is going to pass, this is going to pass, all is going to be good.”
     For some reason, Kevin’s bus was let through without an inspection. He said it is probably because its exterior appearance mirrored a “luxurious” tour bus and the officers probably thought there were no immigrants inside.
     “We kept passing, and passing and there was not any obstacle,” Kevin said. “It was surprising.”
     Kevin arrived in Houston where his aunt helped him arrange to travel to Wheaton, Md., where his mother lives.
     One day before Mothers’ day, Kevin met his mother for the first time.
     “My mother cried, hugged me, kissed me,” Kevin said. “I felt great seeing her face and being able to call her ‘mother.’ Now I can feel her warmness and share with her all the moments that we have not been able to share.”

In the basement of his Maryland home, Kevin enjoys playing drums with the guidance of his stepfather.

     He moved in with her and her new husband soon after. He said once he got used to his new environment, he shifted his focus to his second goal: “I want to study, prepare myself and go to the university,” Kevin said.
     After visiting the University of Maryland, Kevin said he knows he wants to come to this university to prepare himself for law school.
     Knowing that law school is demanding, Kevin said he is trying to prepare himself early by doing his best in his high school classes. Yet, no matter how well Kevin’s grades are, college may still be out of reach for the undocumented student- a reality that worries him deeply. 

     Unlike your average teen, undocumented students must grapple with their legal status in addition to every-day stress. Kevin, for example, knows deportation is always a possibility.
     “You don’t know the day that [deportation] could happen,” Kevin said. “But God, I hope it never happens to me.”
     Affording a college education also poses a problem for students like Kevin. “One of my fears is that I might not be able to afford my career and because it’s too expensive not be able to reach it,” Kevin said.
     Darkis, who work as one of the few female painters in Maryland, said she will try to help her son “look for all the financial aid available” to pay for his education, but for students without a social security number or a green card, the options are often limited.
     “Education is the legacy I will give Kevin,” Darkis said. “Every child who wants to study should have an opportunity to do it.”

           State and federal legislators are considering legislation, such as the DREAM Act – which would open the door to federal financial aid for undocumented students – and a state bill that would allow undocumented Maryland residents receive in-state tuition. These legislations could help students like Kevin if they are approved.
          Though Kevin is optimistic about his future, he said he is beginning to think that enrolling in and affording a college education will be more difficult than emigrating alone from Honduras to Maryland.

     “I have always heard that the U.S. was the country of dreams; the country where you can build castles,” he said. ” But I guess people do not always tell the truth.”

 

Hookah Smoking Increases in Gainesville, ‘Deadly trend’ Underreported

By:  Juliana Jimenez

Natasha Alvarez had enough. She threw away the cigarettes and began a new life.

As part of her plan to quit smoking, she started smoking hookah to help with her addiction. She didn’t realize she was probably harming herself even more with this decision.

Alvarez, 21, a Santa Fe College graphic design major, used to smoke one pack of cigarettes a day, every day.

 “I couldn’t even walk fast because I would get tired, or I couldn’t go up a flight of stairs because I would almost pass out,” Alvarez said. “The smell, bad skin, bad teeth, all of it – I got fed up.”

She then started smoking about two hookahs per day.

“I thought I could smoke 1,000 hookahs and it would even be better for me,” she said.

Alvarez is not alone.

People can develop an addiction for hookah as severe as the one for cigarettes and can develop cancer just as easily as well, said Dr. Jane Emmerée, Health Promotion Specialist for GatorWell Health Promotion Services at the University of Florida Student Health Care Center.

Emmerée provides smoking cessation coaching for students enrolled at UF. She also provides help quitting any type of tobacco product.

Almost 13 percent of UF students reported using hookah pipes within the 30 days preceding the Healthy Gators Student Survey Report conducted on the spring of 2008.

People are not aware of the apparent higher rate of cigarette smoking within hookah smokers, Emmerée said.

 “Some students can just smoke socially, and you can’t predict who will become nicotine dependent,” Emmerée said.  “But we do know people are at risk of dependency whether it is from nicotine in cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, hookahs, etc.”

Persons who smoke hookah are exposed to more smoke and nicotine because of longer exposure time, according to the American Lung Association Tobacco Policy Trend Alert February 2007 issue, An Emerging Deadly Trend: Waterpipe Tobacco Use.

One hookah lasts a minimum of 45 minutes, which is the amount of time it takes for the tobacco to burn out.

The World Health Organization Advisory Note “Waterpipe Tobacco Smoking: Health Effects, Research Needs and Recommended Actions by Regulators” (2005) urges waterpipes and waterpipe tobacco products to be “subjected to the same regulations as cigarettes and other tobacco products,” to “include strong health warnings,” and misleading labeling that implies safety to be prohibited.

In Florida, bars don’t have to be smoke free, but restaurants do, Emmerée said. Whether a business is deemed a restaurant depends on percentage of food sales versus percentage of alcohol sales. So hookah bars can avoid the strict regulations surrounding cigarette smoking in-doors if they don’t sell or allow cigarettes and their food sale percentage is high.

Gainesville, for example, had no hookah bars until two and a half years ago.

Now, there are four.

“But they are not competition,” said Sharvee Mia, 22, professional pilot, owner and manager of Hookah Hutt, 1029 W University Ave.

The previous location on University Avenue and Sixth Street was too small, so they moved in December to their new location on University Avenue and Tenth Street.

“It is definitely more popular now than when we started,” said Mia. “Now it is closer to campus, so we get a lot of foot traffic.”

Mia said an average of 60 customers visit his hookah bar on a busy night. They usually stay from 45 minutes to one hour and a half.

One of the reasons students like to go to hookah bars is the atmosphere.

Mia said his customers enjoy the hip-hop music he plays, unlike other hookah bars that play Arab music and Arab TV programs.

And this is precisely why Alvarez enjoys going to Hookah Nite Café, 2614 SW 34th St.

 For the past month she has been smoking hookah three times a week, for up to two hours.

 “Even though I know hookah is bad I keep doing it,” Alvarez said. “Probably out of boredom, because it’s cheap, you can talk with friends, relax, and have a good time.”

This social aspect may be another underreported health risk factor in hookah smoking.

 Infectious diseases like hepatitis, tuberculosis or herpes can be shared by sharing mouthpieces –a problem cigarette smoking does not have, Emmerée said.

“In general, people underestimate the harm of things,” she said.

Juliana Jimenez is a  journalism senior at the University of Florida, a photographer for the school’s newspaper, the Florida Independent Alligator, and a Spanish writer and photographer for UF’s multi-lingual magazine The Anole. For more of her work go to: http://jjimenezj1.blogspot.com/