Gabriel Alessandro Ortega Rojas

Country: Venezuela

Age: 14

I’ve been in America for five months already. I came to America because my grandmother has health problems and in Venezuela we couldn’t get what she needs, and we couldn’t get the medicines/treatment for her. Also, because Venezuela is going through a lot with the government’s money. People are fighting with the government and also with the cops.

It was not my decision to come here; it was my mother’s decision. At first I thought it was a joke because at first I didn’t believe it. The days were going by and I started realizing that it was true and it affected me because I wasn’t expecting it and I had to leave everything back home. I miss all my friends, and what I miss most is my family back home. All my cousins I grew up with are back home and I miss them. I am planning to go back later, but for now, I can’t because I have to stay with my family to support them.

My experience coming to America was a little complicated, but nothing too bad that we couldn’t fix. When I was at the airport, there was a little mistake and it had to do with my papers and they wouldn’t let me get through. The reason that they didn’t want to let me in was because my dad’s signature had a mistake or it was wrong. After they were checking everything, one of the guys said that we were going to miss the flight if they kept holding us so they told us to just go. I came to America with my mother, my big brother, my littler sister, and my grandmother. When I got to America, the first state I went to was Florida. I went to Miami, and then I went to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and after that I went to Nebraska, then Chicago, back to Miami, then Chicago again, and finally we stayed in Ohio.

I like America, but the only bad thing that I see is that is a very boring country. It does not have the same things as a Hispanic country. Back home I used to go to parties a lot, and here I haven’t seen a single one or haven’t been to one here.

My school back home was very small. There were like only a hundred kids. My school back home was private and that means that we had to pay the school so I could stay in there. Back home I was a sophomore, and now here I am a freshman.