What it's like to be DACAmented

Diana Rodriguez's mother brought her to America when she was just 3 years old. It hasn't been easy.

Diana Rodriguez.
(Image credit: Jeff Hing/Pomona College)

The pickup truck bounced along the road, moving swiftly toward its final destination: the U.S.-Mexico border. Tucked away inside, 3-year-old Diana Rodriguez, her 6-year-old brother, and their mother were silent, with only the occasional hiss of "Be quiet!" in Spanish breaking through the stillness when young Rodriguez dared stir.

"My mother got the sense that we didn't know what was going on, but that something was going on," Rodriguez said. She was so young, after all, when they slipped undetected into the United States, then continued on from Arizona to Chicago, where their father, who had left Jalisco, Mexico, a year earlier to find work in the metropolis, was waiting.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.