Celebrating diverse cultures

He loads his bags in the cramped car and prepares for the 24-hour journey. His tiny house fades into the horizon behind him; he tries not to look back as his car spews black dust clouds into the air. He knows once he reaches America, everything will be different. He closes his eyes and tries to take in his surroundings. His eyes begin to well up with tears; he’s left everything he’s grown to know...

Barquisimeto, northwestern Venezuela, early morning. Once he was woken up by his father, he knew it was time for school. Classes until 1 p.m., lunch at home and tennis until the sun went down. School, lunch, tennis was his daily routine. Victor’s life in Venezuela revolved around going to the beach with friends and tennis. Victor started playing tennis at the age of four, introduced to t...

A young boy walks onto a commercial airplane, his family by his side. He drags his suitcase behind him, walking slowly as he savors the moments he has left in the place his culture was formed. The place where he played and enjoyed childhood without a care in the world. The place where his cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents live. The place where he cannot stay. He loads his suitcase into the overhang, hel...

She walks into what is described as “the cooler.” Her breath can be seen as she exhales, hands trembling. While hands search her body for illegal items, she turns around to look for her mom but notices she’s not there. Not long after, a uniform is pushed into her hands for her to change into. She then is shoved into a cell and given an ice-cold sandwich. As time passes on, it becomes...

With few belongings in her small backpack, a young girl admires her surroundings as she walks through an airport hallway. She didn’t know what to expect when she arrived in Dallas, Texas, but she was fascinated by the tall buildings and the way people spoke. She was oblivious to the fact that it would be two years until she would be able to return to her beloved country of birth, Cuba. Sophomore Sa...

A young girl stares at the ground watching it grow smaller and smaller as the plane rises higher into the sky, taking her away from everything she knows. She is moving away from her home in Brazil at the age of 13 to live in America where she is to start over and live a new life. She was sad she had to leave her family behind and scared because she had no idea how to fit into a place so differen...

In the streets of Ireland, a girl formerly from Nigeria stands to observe the new culture around her, the new people, the new everything. While most of her family is far away, she still takes the time to enjoy her surroundings and get to know Europe, her soon-to-be new home. Junior Jessica Chibuzor left Ireland recently to be closer to her family in the United States since none of her family liv...

She walks toward the plane and looks back one more time before heading off. She will soon be leaving behind the country that she grew up in, hoping for a better life in the United States. She gets on the plane and smiles one last time to her country. Senior Malynna Sam left her life in Cambodia four years ago to start a new one in the states. She hasn’t visited her home country ever since sh...

She was terrified but excited as well, with mixed emotions toward leaving her native country. At six years old she didn’t realize that she was leaving her extended family forever. Due to her fear of heights, the seven-hour plane ride was not comforting on her way to a new world. Junior Micaela Galvez is originally from Lima, the capital of Peru. She moved from Lima to Coppell, Texas at the age ...