Morning Edition; North Carolina Voices:Understanding Poverty; Dreamland

In the past 15 years, the Latino population in North Carolina grew faster than in any other state. Many of these new immigrants are children who came to the United States undocumented. These children have grown up here and are now ready to graduate from high school. But while North Carolina law allowed them a high school education, it won't make them eligible for in-state tuition at local colleges. That distinction may keep them perpetually poor. As part of our series, North Carolina Voices, Understanding Poverty, Paul Quadros has the story of one of these kids on the threshold of an uncertain future. We'll call him Luis. Luis is 17 years old, tall with a muscular build and a gift for controlling a soccer ball. He is a fierce competitor on the soccer pitch and all of it. Entry in his senior year in high school, Luis is a star athlete and an excellent student. He lives in a small rural town where poultry processing is the main industry and the largest employer of Hispanic immigrants.

But Luis told me he has bigger dreams than a job at the chicken plant. I'm planning to go into a four-year college, but those are my plans for it. I don't know if they will accept me because I'm not a legal citizen in the U.S. So I'm not sure if I'm going to accomplish my plans or not. Many North Carolina colleges will not accept undocumented students and the ones that do charge them out of state tuition, making college a near-impossibility for Luis and other kids like him. Are there other kids in your situation? Yeah, there are many kids in my situation. I mean, there are just a few that have papers, but the rest of them don't. So they're your planning on finishing high school and start working right after high school. In Luis's community, many Latino kids drop out of school and start working at the chicken plant. Sometimes I think about this, but I don't see myself working at a chicken plant or something

like that. At least those are not my plans, you know. I try my best not to end up like that. I prefer not to think about it. Instead, Luis prefers to dream of getting an athletic or academic scholarship to go to college and get out of poverty, but his dreams may be cut short. I got this injury on my knee, playing soccer, on the back of my yard, on my house. So right now, I have to take care of it because I mean, everything might rely on my knee, my future might be on my knee, so I have to take real care of it. Even though Luis faces this challenge, his future is already brighter than it would have been back in Mexico, where he was born, and where his chances of breaking free from poverty were slimmed. In Mexico, you are poor, you're poor, man, sometimes you don't even have a food to eat. And right here, I mean, even though you're poor, you always have food, you know. It was that kind of extreme poverty that compelled Luis's father to leave the family and

come to the US. Back in Mexico, after four years of not seeing his dad, Luis decided to cross the border alone. He spent five days walking through the desert with little food and water. He made the trip with a group of strangers and a smuggler. He was only 12 years old. At night, alone in the desert, Luis never forgot his father. I mean, every moment I was thinking about my dad, I didn't think about anything else about my dad. Finally, after 1600 miles and four years without seeing him, Luis and his father were reunited. Some woman, I don't like him, that's unforgettable. When I saw him, I just went over there and hug him. He hugged me too, and we started crying, we started crying. We stand there like, I don't know how many, because it's a long time. I didn't know what to say and he didn't know what to say in there. A year after the reunion, the entire family came to the US. Like many undocumented children, Luis didn't come to get a job or find a better life.

He came just to be with his dad, but today he's facing the consequences of that decision. It might not be right to cross the frontier, but it is also not right to stay away from your dad and to have that feeling like, you want to see him every day and you cannot do that. At that time, I didn't know how legal it was, but I didn't care neither, so I would have done it anyways. Luis says he has no plans to return to Mexico, the US is now his home, he would even play soccer for the US national team. You could play for the red, white, blue. Yeah, I could play for it. I could play for it. If he gave me a chance, it's like paying back something. And it also would show them what he's panicking to, how he's panicking could change the US sense of perspective, maybe that way they could see that he's panicking can really go up, can really get to problems and that they can really make something out of life.

Today Luis is at the doctor's office to check out his knee. He's nervous and excited at the same time, nervous to learn about his knee and excited because this is the day his mother is having a baby. So what do you think? Well, I feel very nervous, the doctors are just telling me that he might not be anything serious, that I just need to rest and not play soccer. What about the payment? How do we figure that out? Oh well, my coach took care of it, you know, we talked to the doctor and I think we're paying anything, oh, it's just not charged, so there are always ways to get around things. Getting around things is how many Latino migrants can buy, getting around poverty, medical bills, being undocumented, maybe even a college education, they find a way. Later that night Luis's mother gives birth to a baby girl, the first US citizen in the family.

Yeah, she's a promise for us, I'll take care so she can keep the promise, I must have better times. Yeah, I mean, that's a promise for a better living, for us I mean, she's gonna help us out of this point, you know, if we don't do it by ourselves, that's what best she's got to say, she's gonna get us out of here. So like I told you all our hopes are on her. Hope or Esperanza is what Latino immigrants rely on the most. I'm Paul Quadrus, North Carolina Public Radio, W-N-C.