Harvard Grad Hits Immigration Roadblock
"Back in the concrete suburb of Los Angeles where he grew up, they call him “Harvard.’’ He is the pride of a neighborhood of children who grew up just as he did, bouncing from one crowded apartment to the next, sleeping on sofa cushions on the floor, wired to the constant threat of violence.
Alan was not just a street-smart kid in a baseball cap but a gifted student who breezed through math problems and quoted Milton and Dante. He was a voracious reader, the high school salutatorian, and last month, he graduated from Harvard with a degree in the humanities.
But now Alan has hit a dead end, because one night 19 years ago his mother led him across the Mexican border into California, making him an illegal immigrant. His only legal employment option as a college graduate now is to return to Mexico, where he has few contacts and fewer prospects."
MARIA SACCHETTI in the Boston Globe.