Ju Hong initially distanced himself from a lot of his friends in high school. But he soon realized that there were many others like him, as he wrote himself.[9]
“As I was learning more about all of this, I also was finding stories of other undocumented immigrants. And this was very inspiring for me because I had thought I was all alone. But here were these other people in the same situation and a lot of them were speaking up for changes in the law. When I first learned about my status and that I could face deportation, I didn’t want to talk to anyone about any of this. But when I saw other people risking their lives to share their testimony about their immigration status, I thought it was inspiring.”[9]
There are many stories available from 2013, showing how undocumented students rose above all challenges and even earned graduate degrees from California schools:
“The application process was a difficult time for me because I was in removal proceedings. This means that while I was preparing applications and studying for the GRE, I was also reporting to immigration every couple months and attending court hearings, which would ultimately determine my deportation date.”[14] Read More
“I was the first undocumented student in the program. In undergrad, I was one of the few undocumented students but I did not have the sense of being the only one facing these unique challenges. My entire cohort was doing paid assistantships and while I received an offer to do an assistantship I could not do it because of my status (pre-DACA). I did an internship my first year, while my second year I couldn’t do one because I couldn’t financially support myself to do a non-paid internship. Instead I worked somewhere else to get paid, but it was not related to my field.”[13] Read More