The girls of the Rio Grande Valley

MCALLEN, Texas – Growing up is hard. Doing it at the border is even more difficult.

In a sense, there is a basic scenario for American teens: ballet and football lessons, school and church, guitar and texting. But there is no scenario for teenagers growing up in the Rio Grande Valley, where Mexico and the United States are in a lush country of overgrown hills, fast-growing cities and deep and common history. They are trained in an extraordinary place at an extraordinary time.

The El Valle girls are Americans of Mexican descent; They are Mexican with American dreams.

They meet their friends at the shopping mall in Whataburger on the volleyball court. But many live the daily drama of poverty and deportation to homes where it is often not enough to buy a car, sometimes even a quinceañera dress.

In the family home of Isabella Ruiz, 14, in the town of McAllen, Texas, 16 kilometers from the border, in the Rio Grande Valley, they recently cut off water. His father, undocumented, had been arrested by the immigration authorities and all the family money had been used to cover the costs of the case. In the family, the level of immigration remains a concern: when Isabella went on vacation to Corpus Christi with her aunt, her parents could not go because to get there, it was necessary to pbad a checkpoint of the patrol. Border

"My dad did not want to take any chances," said Isabella.

Growing up in El Valle, it's living in a bilingual and binational world that challenges the barriers that divide the two countries. Some El Valle girls have parents on both sides and, depending on their schedule, they live on both sides. One day they sleep here; the other sleeps there.

Carolina Sierra, 15, lives in the city of Brownsville. Her boyfriend lives in Mexico and crosses the Matamoros Bridge every weekend to see her.

On the American or American side, as we say here, cities like McAllen and Brownsville are very similar to all other small towns and life is very suburban. But it is also one of the poorest places in the country, with teen pregnancy rates, dropouts and poverty among the highest. In Hidalgo County, 43.8% of children and adolescents under 18 live below the poverty line, a percentage that far exceeds that of Houston (25%).

On the Mexican side, life can be even harder: Clara Medina, 15, works every day of the week in a nail salon in Nuevo Progreso, a small border town popular with American tourists. He left school at the age of 12 to provide for his family.

"Life here is not easy," said Lesly Urbina, 16, who dreams of becoming Miss Alamo. "You have to make a lot of effort to be here, you will have to go through a lot of things but at some point, you will get there".

Here, in her own words, we present girls from the Rio Grande Valley for whom the border is their home.

Gwen Burnías turned 17 on February 4th. Four weeks later, she gave birth to her son Jaxon. Her boyfriend, Michael, is 16 years old. Gwen, Jaxon and Michael live in Michael's grandparents' house in Weslaco, Texas. Gwen's sister, 19, also had a baby recently.

It was very difficult because my mother wanted something else for me. He told us all the stories of why he wanted us to be better off. I did exactly the opposite. My father at first did not want to know anything about me. But then he apologized for what he said and, you know, now we're fine for the moment.

Mikey is very distracted now. Very distracted. And I understand, you know. He is only 16 years old. I did not expect to get pregnant at 16 years old. I had an entire life plan. I loved volleyball. That was fine I was captain three years in a row. And I lost a lot of things. I have cried a lot alone or with my aunt because he does not understand me. It's very immature and it's very frustrating because I feel I'll have to do everything myself and in the end I do it. And my mother tells me all the time: "We'll have to do everything alone, that's what we all do".

I need him to be the dad. I do not need him to be a teenager and to play sports. I need him to find a job and support us financially. And if he does not do it, I'll do it myself. I know I can.

Lesly Urbina, 16, is in her first year of high school in Alamo, Texas, and competes in beauty contests. He lives in one of the most irregular and poor communities on the border, with few basic services. In its block, the street lights work with solar energy.

We had to collect signatures to install them. Because at night it was very dark and we could not see anything, only pbading cars and little children were playing outside. So we said no, we need light. Then we gathered the signatures, then they came and put them on. And people started breaking them so now we have one that works.

This is the little Mex. So they tell him. Supposedly it is the most dangerous. Personally, I feel very safe here where we live. I think I would not feel very comfortable if we moved. Everyone cares for each other. We protect each other.

When we were little, we were very traumatic because we had a gang here in front. There was shooting and shooting in the car. We listened to the shots in the night and it was like, "Ah, that's normal."

Someone opened my window. When I was asleep And then I felt as if someone was touching me in the stomach here. I literally thought that they were going to drag me out the window or something of the sort. I think I had about ten years. So I was scared and woke up and went to my sister's room. The next day my father left and the window was still open. Since then, I'm afraid of windows.

I love modeling and I try to participate in volunteer activities. This Saturday, in fact, I had a contest but it did not go very well. I did not have the place I wanted. Next year, I will participate in Miss Alamo. At first, my parents did not really support me. They do not really support me, but I do it anyway.

When I started listening to Trump news, I was scared. But knowing my parents, they say, "Oh no, they're deporting us, we'll come back." And in fact, they are trying to repair their papers.

Isabella Ruiz, 14, goes to high school and wants to become a veterinarian. His father has no documents and he was arrested in December. They then sent him to the Puerto Isabel Detention Center, managed by the Immigration and Customs Law Enforcement Department (ICE), nearly 100 kilometers away. is from McAllen. They released him in January, but since then the family has experienced economic difficulties: they cut the water for underpayment and had to carry it in bottles and buckets from his grandmother's house. -Father.

When my father was in prison, my mother had to pay bail and everything. So at one point we did not have water for about two weeks. We had to go for a swim and then bring water into buckets. We filled them up there, and then we put them back in the car and brought them here.

My mother transports people who have to go on dialysis or elsewhere. My father is a chef in a restaurant.

I see that my parents are stressed. My mother wants a second job. I feel bad because they have to do all this and I am not yet 16, so I can not help them. As soon as I'm 16, I'll make requests to help with expenses and everything else. I mean, school comes first, but I have the intention to work and study to help them. My mother always said, "You go to college." I know it's going to be a fight, but I have to go. I want to do something in my life. I do not want to fight as much as my parents to support the family.

When my dad was in ICE, I did not want to go out or anything.

One time, a friend invited me out and I said no, but my mother forced me because she saw that I was only here at home . Sometimes we went to visit him, but then he made me sad because I only saw him through a drink. When they released it, we expected it. I saw him get out of the truck and I rushed to him. My mother and I went with him; He gave us a hug and I started crying.

Jocelyn Guzmán, 18, lives in Matamoros, Mexico, but crosses the border to go to school in Brownsville. She is a citizen of the United States. His mother earns the equivalent of $ 100 a week in a Mexican auto parts factory and spends half of her salary on transportation that transports Jocelyn from one side to the other of the bridge.

I have to get up at four in the morning, or sometimes, when I'm very tired, I get up at 4:10. My mom takes me to S Mart, a shop very close to here. There, I get in a van that drives us every day to a school.

From home to school, I think that with everything, it takes me perhaps two hours. It's counting the row on the bridge. I arrive at school around 7:40. The first and second clbad that I love. They teach us everything about nursing. At the end of the year, if I certify myself, I will be a certified patient care technician. I learned to do electrocardiograms. At this moment, we are witnessing a phlebotomy.

The bell rings at 16:05 and I head for the van to go home. We are next to a Family Dollar store and we meet the other vans.

Sometimes I go to bed at 10:00 pm while I do not have a lot of homework. But when I study for an exam, I wake up often. I'm going to sleep around noon or one in the morning. Sometimes it is difficult because it makes me very sleepy at school. Sometimes teachers can see you differently or judge you, so I do not tell many people that I'm coming and going. Sometimes I lose a lot of things because I do not live there. And I do not live there because my parents can not live with me. They are not American citizens.

As my mother said, my dad always fights for what he wants. And I learned that from him. My goal is to finish my studies, go to university, and I want to work and earn money to help them come to me from the other side. I want to pay them what they invested in me.

Emily Gurwitz, 18, is in her final year of high school. She is a ballet dancer, captain of the football team and teaches Hebrew in her synagogue. In her essay, she sums up in one sentence the experience of being Jewish in an American-Mexican city on the border with Texas: it's a Jewish Texan.

It was in a thing on vacation. It is the Welch Scholar summer program. I did research at the University of Texas for five weeks. I therefore lived in a dormitory and there were eight high school students and me. It was at that time that a lot of things began to happen at the border. We announced the news and they were in McAllen, and it was like: "Emily, it's crazy, you're from McAllen."

It sounds very crazy, but if you're in McAllen, you're in McAllen. Nothing is as dramatic as it appears on the news. People badociate McAllen with a landfill at the border or something, but nothing happens except arrests of unauthorized migrants. But it's not like that at all. We have a good education, a good social life, a great community. McAllen is great. The people with whom I have been this summer come almost all from the very rich and very white suburbs of the big cities; and me: "Dude, how boring it is."

I started volunteering at a migrant center with my friends. One day I spent three hours preparing sandwiches.

If you do not go to a temporary shelter, you will never see people crossing the border. I think that what moved me the most was the children who were there and who are my age. Because when you're 18 and you're like an adult, they have to put one of these monitoring devices on your ankle. There was a girl who had just washed and put on her new clothes and was saying, "Oh, I need a pair of scissors." I gave them and I told myself, "What scissors may want?" It was to cut his pants because he did not fit the device at the ankle. And he is my age. Imagine everything that happened just to get here. And now, he can not live normally.

Gaby Brown, 15, attended high school in McAllen and celebrated her quinceañera with parents from Mexico and the United States. His mother is Hispanic, his father is white and his mother's boyfriend, whom she calls her stepfather, is Hispanic. She supports the president's idea of ​​expanding the border wall.

My mother and I always talk about it. Honestly, I think it's a good idea. Go out and say we need it, honestly, I think we really need it.

I want to join the army as my mother. I want to join the army, but she wants me to be part of the air force because she says it's safer. And then I want to go out and I want to devote myself to the field of medicine to help people with mental problems. My mother had a lot of stress because of the army when I was growing up. You have post-traumatic stress disorder. And I have depression and anxiety. I want to help others who also have these problems.

Music is very important in my life. It helps me manage my problems. When I get angry, I can flee the world and just listen to music. I listen to independent music, R & B, hip-hop, rap, country, Mexican music, etc.

Beverly Godinez, 16, attends the first year of high school in Alamo, Texas, and is part of the reserve officer corps program. He spends summers on missions in Michoacán, in western Mexico. His father and his mother do not have any papers.

When I think that they take my parents, I get angry. When I see the Border Patrol, I think they're taking my parents. It makes things difficult in a certain way.

A few weeks ago, when we took my sister to Laredo, a policeman stopped us. I know you can not do anything because they're not part of the Border Patrol, but you get nervous. That's because one of my sisters was not wearing a belt and they stopped us.

I'm trying to get my degree with honors and to get my technical degree. We have a program here at school where you can take university courses and if you complete those that go with your specialty, you can graduate with a technical certificate. Now, when I arrive at home, I do not turn on the television or anything: I will immediately do the homework.

In my school, there are people who like to discriminate. In fact, I fought. Well, it was not a fight, but a discussion with a boy who was making fun of a girl because he did not speak English.

It was a few weeks ago. We were in the living room and I was sitting in a corner because I was carrying my phone. He spoke in English so that she did not understand. I think that's what I got because she could not defend herself. And I went in and as I told him to shut up. I told him that I was ignorant. And he replied, "Oh, you know what the word" ignorant "means, as he said I was stupid, then he was silent, I was angry, so I I kept silent too.

Copyright: 2019 New York Times News Service