At 4 years old, Esperanza Mendez' parents headed north to America, leaving her with a grandmother in a small village in Mexico. She was reunited with her parents six years later in Los Angeles. Mendez, now an undocumented teenager living in Los Angeles, recounts her immigration story.
Mendez' essay is part of Entering New Territory: Dreams for a New Los Angeles -- a collection of essays from students at the Humanitas Academy at Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights, a predominantly Latino neighborhood in East Los Angeles.
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