Teen Love Letters to America

I seem to be getting less Foolish lately. 

Maybe that’s because the Foolishness in the world around me is getting so Crazy that it’s no longer Funny.

I hope not because we need to laugh as much today as we ever have.

I’ll get back to Foolishness as soon as I can but, in the meantime, please read this article.

Teen Love Letters to America

Students at a Queens middle school for immigrants pour out their appreciation.

By 

Bob Brody

July 4, 2019 2:20 pm ET

Migrant children play soccer at a shelter in Homestead, Fla., April 19. PHOTO: WILFREDO LEE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

“I came to the United States two years ago,” wrote Sara, because of “the civil war which made it unsafe for us to stay” in Yemen. “We had to leave to save our lives.” Sara, 13, plans to become a physician.

“A lot of fighting, robbery, murder and political problems” forced Taslima and her family to come to America from Bangladesh three years ago. The eighth-grader intends to be a cardiologist or neurologist. “I will study hard,” she promises.

“The situation in our country is horrible,” wrote Milagros, also 13, about Venezuela. Her family arrived here three years ago “looking for a better place to live.” Milagros dreams of becoming the first Latina to start a company valued at $1 billion. 

So go three letters from teenagers I recently received. In December the Journal published “Requiem for a Doorman,” my essay about Carlos Nino, who’d worked in my apartment building. I knew him for 40 years and called him a friend.

Carlos came to the U.S. from Colombia at 18 with little education or money. A model citizen, he worked two jobs and put both his sons through college. He retired prematurely to care for his ailing wife, only to die of heart failure months after her cancer went into remission.

Soon after my essay appeared, I got a letter from Evelyn Gomez, a veteran social-studies teacher at IS 235, the Academy for New Americans, a public middle school in Astoria, Queens, that serves newly arrived immigrants from grades six through eight. She had read the piece to her 20 students. Those students then sent me letters, too.

They explained why they had migrated—from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and elsewhere—to the U.S. Some had fled hardship. Most acknowledged pursuing educational and economic opportunities all but unavailable back home. They plan to be computer scientists, lawyers, dentists and mechanical engineers.

I was invited to speak at the school, among the few in New York City that specialize in educating immigrant children. In mid-May I gave my talk to some 150 students, teachers and parents. I told why I had honored Carlos in my essay. I revealed my own immigrant history, with both my grandfathers coming here in the early 20th century and eventually starting families and successful businesses. I explained, too, why my essays so often pay tribute to Queens, the most ethnically diverse place on the planet. Finally, I urged the students to write about themselves to benefit generations to come.

Afterward, a student handed me a packet containing handmade cards with personal messages inside from 81 of his schoolmates. Card after card spoke of families coming to our country to seek better lives and better futures.

I could write back to wish these kids luck. But that would feel redundant. Living here now, they’re already getting all the luck they’ll likely ever need.

Mr. Brody, an executive and essayist in New York City, is author of the memoir “Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes of Age.”