You haven't seen enough, you don't know enough "American" stories.
With that, I applied to Teach For America and on November 7th 2009, I received the long awaited welcoming me to the RGV! Today, I was reminded of the importance of the individual stories I moved down here to learn. One of my students passed along her "life" story to me and as today's blog post, I am honored to pass her story along to you. The following is the tale of one of the brightest students I have.
My name is
Danessa Benetiz. I’m a Hispanic 14 year old who lives in a town, not important
for the United States, but very important to me, named Roma. I was born in
December 15 1997 into a small poor loving family. I grew up in a trailer full
of rats. Every morning I would wake up with rat bites. Later on my father
uneducated tried to get a job. Not succeeding at times, but he got a job to at
least buy me food. I turned 5 and of to pre-kinder by then my dad and
grandparents gave money to make me and my parents, but not with another brother
and sister at home. Still struggling in life my parents fought and my dad left
for some days, but soon came back. However, I still managed to keep perfect
attendance and be at the top of my pre-kinder class. I turned 6 and went of to
kinder in a school in Garceno, TX named Rafala T. Barrera Elementary. Still
being at the top of my class, my mother was very sick. I didn’t see her for
about a week. On February 18, 2004, I had a bad feeling something was going
wrong as soon as my father walked in with his eyes full of tears rolling down
his cheeks and told me that my mom had to leave to be god’s angel. I knew she
had past. From there I struggled with even getting up in the morning, but had
to. I wanted to maintain my perfect attendance and not be behind in class.
Still with tears in my eyes I arrived to school finishing my work and headed to
the library to bury my head in a book and softly sob my eyes out. The pain
still there, but slowly decreasing I grew up with my grandma that I call mom
now. She became the person I looked up to when my dad fell into depression. But
then came my stepmother to bring him up and succeeded. However, I still
suffered because I knew the people around me can not take my mom’s place. As I
kept getting better, people judged me because of my weight. I cried about five
times a day, but I still managed to stay at the top of my classes. As I moved
up to middle school I got more exposed to drug all around me, with the mafa war
right across the border. Still seeing
people kill each other with brutal killing still I stood strong for awhile.
Until in December 16, 2011 my father was inprisioned and my suffereing became
bigger. Still I had my second mom and my second dad yet being my grandparents
still taking me as theres. My hard life has made me see that no matter how dark
a road might be there is always light at the end of it. This encourages me to
help people around me and around the world. This has been my life from a little
girl to now. Knowing there is always a reason to overcome disasters and never
give up on anything.
I moved to the Rio Grande Valley to learn the stories of 14 year olds living on the border of Texas and Mexico. More than that, though, I moved here to author a new chapter for kids like Danessa. I moved here to internalize stories like her's and ensure that one day Roma was important to America. Important because right now, kids are waking up with rat bites and faking smiles behind broken family induced tears. I'm wordless when I think about doing justice to Danessa's story or the similar stories of my other students, but now, per her words, you know her story. I think, to write the future this resilient young woman deserves, we all need to rally around her, rally around the pockets of America that seem "unimportant." Danessa, and every child with a similar story, deserve our love. Lord knows she'd return it tenfold if given the opportunity.
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