Helen Guerrero
PO Box 2035
Smithfield, NC, 27577
Johnston county Middle College
245 College Road
Smithfield, NC, 27577
Dear Judges,
My name Helen Guerrero, I am a senior in Johnston Country Middle College High School. For my junior research paper I chose to write about the psychological effects of immigration on children. This topic was very dear to my heart, because my family had to go through this and it really impacted all of us. I really wanted to explore in depth how children are affected emotionally and psychologically to the various aspects of immigration such as separation due to deportation and a lack of English-speaking parents or family in their homes. I wanted my topic to cover those who didn't receive all the attention in the news, those who didn't really have a voice: the children of immigrants.
Since a child’s education was a huge chunk of my research paper and seemed one of the most affected by immigration, my product was to mentor a child in the ESL program. David is a first grader, born to Hispanic immigrants. He has taught me many things throughout our mentoring sessions, but one of ways he has affected me the most was the fact that at one point in my life I was David. What I mean by this is that I went through what he is going through in school and at home. When I first came to the United States from Honduras, I didn’t know any English, so I was put in the ESL program with a tutor that I would meet every week to work with on my grammar. I remember looking at my teacher’s mouth as she talked and frustration would hit, because I had no idea what she was saying to me. At the beginning, like David, all I could do was nod my head and smile. David helped me reconnect with my past and I knew had to push him like they pushed me. Going through the same experience, I know how scary it is for him to have a stranger come and try to teach you. Now, I am no longer the frustrated student but the patient teacher.
I think the most important thing I have learned while completing my project was to trust myself and trust my instinct. At the beginning of my senior year, when we were first started to work on our product I was so unsure of myself and what I wanted to do for my product. Then, when I finally decided what I was going to do, I was terrified about how I was going to go about it. When I actually started my project and everything came out as planned, I saw that there was nothing that can stop you from doing a good job if you have confidence in yourself. Only you know what it takes to reach your goals.
The easiest thing about this project was planning out how it was supposed to go, like filling out my product plan. The most difficult was the execution of the plan. Trying to connect with David and finding out his strengths and weaknesses in learning was by far the hardest thing I had to deal with while doing my senior project. He is very shy, and doesn’t talk much. When I wanted an answer from him or when I wanted to know what he was learning all I got was a smile. I had to figure out a way to break the ice and figure out what was his learning style. He liked to be read books, so at first that’s all we did to connect. I think building patience when frustration hits is the experience that will benefit me later on in life. The patience I had to have in teaching David various skills without showing him my frustration definitely taught me to take things slow and keep calm. I think this is a good skill needed in later life, because you will have to make relationships with people that are not always what you expect them to be, and patience is the key.
