To get to the United States, 11-year-old Adiel Granados traveled more than 3,000 miles by land, leaving his grandparents鈥� home in El Salvador to live in Silver Spring, Md., with his parents. They had immigrated eight years earlier and settled into work鈥攈is father drives a recycling truck, and his mother works for a local government program for young, pregnant women鈥攚hile Granados and his younger brother attended school in El Salvador.
Granados, now 17, said that as a child he missed his parents, who kept in touch over the phone but never returned to El Salvador. Though he always knew he would eventually make the move to the United States, he was nervous about the transition and leaving his friends.
After Granados and his brother finally arrived in Silver Spring, they found a large and well-established Salvadoran community, including several relatives. Many of his peers at Wheaton High School, where he is a junior and his brother is a freshman, also moved here from El Salvador or have parents or grandparents who made journeys similar to his.
The boys arrived in summer 2006. Their parents had already researched how to go about enrolling them in school, and Granados and his brother entered the Montgomery County public school system that fall. Granados entered an English-as-a-second-language program right away, and by 8th grade, he had exited the program.
Still, language was his biggest challenge, the teenager says. He has never had a Salvadoran teacher, and most of his teachers do not speak Spanish.
At first, since he spoke almost no English, 鈥淚 could only make a certain kind of friend,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t was about a year before my English got good enough to make other friends.鈥� But now, he says, he doesn鈥檛 stick to one group and is in classes with students from many backgrounds. 鈥淚鈥檓 from nowhere鈥擨鈥檝e never been a person [who] thought I represented my whole country,鈥� he says. Since arriving in the United States, however, Granados says it sometimes seems as though 鈥渆veryone [from El Salvador] is thought of as the same.鈥�
Granados and his brother attended school in a suburban community in El Salvador, but learning the system at his new school in this country took time. 鈥淗ere, there鈥檚 more money [in school], and it鈥檚 more organized,鈥� he says. There, often, 鈥渘o one was trying to learn.鈥� Here, too, he sees peers who seem 鈥渄iscouraged,鈥� he says, but he is set on college and has done well in school. Mathematics and science, in particular, made sense even as he was learning English.
According to Granados, the biggest difference between his home and school is the food. At home with his family, Granados mainly eats Salvadoran food like pupusas, whereas at Wheaton High, it鈥檚 鈥渉amburgers and stuff I would never eat.鈥�
At school, Granados plays soccer and is enrolled in several Advanced Placement courses. He takes his studies seriously and hopes to become an engineer. 鈥淚 want to go to college because I like to learn and because I want to be a better person. It will open many opportunities to do better. My parents want me to do better than them,鈥� Granados says. 鈥淎nd I want to help my parents so they can stop working.鈥�
鈥淚鈥檓 trying to help people see that it is possible鈥� for Hispanic students to do well, he says. He tells classmates: 鈥淵ou can do better than you think. You have to try hard.鈥�
