American Dreamer

One of the 700,000 immigrants with DACA status plans her future in the Trump era

- Charlotte Alter

CORINA BARRANCO STARTS EACH AMERican day the same way she started her American life: by putting one foot in front of the other. Thirteen years ago, when she was 5, she walked across the Mexico-U.S. border into Arizona. On this Thursday in February, Barranco leaves her home in Lorain, Ohio, at 6:50 a.m. to walk through swirling snow, under purple predawn skies, past empty houses where she suspects drugs are sold. Her family does not have a car, so Barranco’s feet take her across this fading industrial city, from school to work to church, between a tangle of highways, on streets that lack sidewalks. Even when there is a hole in her boot, she is rarely late.

By 7:23, the high school senior is sitting in the front row of her computer class, plowing through brain puzzles. It’s busywork, the kind of low-stakes activity that most kids skip when there’s a substitute teacher, which is what they have today. A few seats down, a boy is playing video games and watching YouTube. Then the loudspeaker crackles, and the voice of the principal fills the room. Barranco stands, hand on her heart; she turns toward the flag and recites the Pledge of Allegiance.

Barranco has lived in the U.S. since 2005, when she and a family member walked for more than a week before reaching the U.S. Barranco remembers getting new Converse sneakers with Barbie on them. She remembers walking for days without food and being carried on the backs of her traveling companions. She remembers seeing cows drink out of a puddle and then lowering her own face to drink the same water. She remembers digging through a trash can to find her first bite of food in three days—a small bag of Oreos—and lying on the floor of a red car and resting her head on men’s boots. She remembers that when she arrived in Arizona, someone tried to feed her fried chicken, but her throat was too dry to eat it.