{"id":17440,"date":"2023-08-25T11:21:07","date_gmt":"2023-08-25T15:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/?p=17440"},"modified":"2023-08-25T11:21:07","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T15:21:07","slug":"arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/","title":{"rendered":"Arlington Magazine: The Dreamers next door<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Christmas was just around the corner in 2015 when Bryan Viera stood in the morning sun, gazing at a hole in a wall along the Texas border.<\/p>\n

He was 15.<\/p>\n

His journey had begun 27 days earlier in El Salvador, but somewhere around Chihuahua, in Mexico, he\u2019d gotten separated from his stepmother and stepbrother.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were gonna check people with identities, and the smugglers split everyone up into different cars,\u201d he remembers.<\/p>\n

Now he was biding his time in a border town near El Paso with a group of equally desperate strangers. \u201cThey kept us there for like an hour, just hiding,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was like 5:30 in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he prepared to make a run for it, the others\u2014believing one could simply declare political asylum by setting foot on American soil\u2014told him he needed to get 1,000 feet inside the border. They advised the teen not to run away from the border agent in the distance, but rather toward him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would be sent to my dad, because I was underage and on my own,\u201d Viera says. \u201cIf I had been over the age of 18 they would\u2019ve deported me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the darkness turned to light, a cry went out among the assembled: Run, run, run!!<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so we ran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twenty-two years have passed since U.S. Senators Orrin Hatch and Dick Durbin sponsored the Dream Act<\/a>, legislation that would have allowed immigrants arriving in this country as children to apply for conditional\u2014and ultimately permanent\u2014residency in the United States. The rationale of the bipartisan bill was simple enough: Children who came here through no fault of their own should be treated compassionately by a country built upon the contributions of immigrants.<\/p>\n

But the Dream Act languished, un-passed, for years, until 2012, when it was replaced with an executive order by then Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano during the Obama administration. DACA\u2014Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals<\/a>\u2014was intended as a stopgap to preserve the protections outlined in the stalemated Dream Act.<\/p>\n

In June, DACA hit the 11-year mark with no permanent solution in sight. Terminated during the Trump administration and revived, to a degree, by the Biden administration, the program has become a poster child for kick-the-can-down-the-road congressional inaction. Some states have endeavored to protect it, while others have moved in the opposite direction. <\/p>\n

To qualify for DACA, applicants had to have arrived in the U.S. prior to their 16th birthday and lived here continuously since mid-June of 2007. Immigrants lucky enough to have DACA status can maintain it by filing for renewal every two years. <\/p>\n

The irony is that a system designed to protect evokes fear for many when the time comes to hit the \u201center\u201d key. Will this year\u2019s renewal somehow trigger an inquiry by immigration authorities? How protected is protected? Which form might trip you up this time around\u2014driver\u2019s license, college application, financial aid, a visit to the free clinic? What about a traffic stop? What\u2019s the difference between, say, the word \u201cresident\u201d (an immigration status) and \u201cresidence\u201d (your current address) to someone for whom English is not a first language? <\/p>\n

Of course, many of the first 800,000 DACA recipients are now well into adulthood. And immigration\u2014legal or not\u2014didn\u2019t just grind to a halt once newcomers ceased to qualify for DACA. There\u2019s an entire generation of undocumented arrivals for whom the notion of status protection is, well, a foreign thought. <\/p>\n

They\u2019re all described as \u201cdreamers,\u201d and many have made Northern Virginia their home.<\/p>\n

Marymount University in Arlington is on a bit of a roll. It\u2019s nationally ranked by U.S. News & World Report<\/em> for the first time in its 73-year history, and two of its sports teams (men\u2019s soccer and women\u2019s volleyball) won first-ever Division III conference championships in 2022.<\/p>\n

But if you ask President Irma Becerra to prioritize the Catholic university\u2019s recent accomplishments, she\u2019s just as proud to point to the school\u2019s 2020 designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution<\/a>\u2014the first such institution of higher learning in the Commonwealth of Virginia.<\/p>\n

To receive the title, a school must have a student body that is at least 25% Hispanic. With that, Becerra says, comes a higher calling toward serving DACA and undocumented students. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is both a faith imperative and <\/em>a moral imperative,\u201d Becerra says, estimating that between 1-2% of Marymount\u2019s student body of 4,000 is undocumented. \u201cWe are called to be cognizant of what it is like to be an immigrant and to attend to immigrants. Pope Francis has called all of us to pay attention to the pain that is going on around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

While some colleges and universities have tried to remain neutral on the issue of undocumented students, Marymount has been out front, issuing press releases highlighting its programs for dreamers. It touts the academic accomplishments of students like Karla Mercado Dorado, who came to the U.S. from Bolivia at age 2 and is a Campus Compact 2023-24 Newman Civic Fellowship recipient. The award provides leadership development, networking opportunities and scholarship assistance to students creating positive social change in their communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarymount told me from the start that it would be a supportive environment for me to continue my education as an undocumented individual,\u201d Dorado, a rising senior majoring in biochemistry, said in a press announcement. \u201cI have committed to uplifting marginalized voices on campus and building safe spaces for underrepresented students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becerra, who came to the U.S. as an infant, can relate. \u201cI am an immigrant,\u201d she says proudly. Though her family emigrated legally from Cuba in 1960, the stories of other families similarly uprooted still resonate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognize the pain that is associated with having to leave your place of birth and start over again,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s not by choice we left our country. Fidel [Castro] wanted to take our assets, and the way that he took assets for the revolution was by killing people who had means. Many people leaving their countries today are escaping violence, war, poverty. I think we have a responsibility as citizens [to help]. The United States is a country made of immigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n

After sprinting across the border into Texas, Bryan Viera was sent to live with his father in Reston, where they shared a house with extended family. \u201cIt was overwhelming,\u201d he says. \u201cHonestly, I didn\u2019t even recognize my dad that much. I hadn\u2019t seen him since I was 5.\u201d<\/p>\n

Viera\u2019s introduction to South Lakes High School, with its 2,500 students, was daunting\u2014but not as daunting as the years after Donald Trump was elected in 2016, when DACA applications were suspended and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were mobilized in full force.<\/p>\n

\u201cICE came to our house once and knocked on our door around 4 in the morning,\u201d Viera says. \u201cThey knocked for like half an hour, obviously waiting. Without a warrant they couldn\u2019t go in, but they knew there were undocumented people in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tensions were high back then. \u201cEveryone was scared of keeping the doors open,\u201d he remembers. \u201cWe always had the doors locked. If we had to go out at night, we were very cautious, looking around the house, making sure there was nobody out there. There were checkpoints in Reston, too. Once we were coming from a party in Arlington and somebody told us, \u2018Hey, make sure you don\u2019t take this road. There\u2019s an ICE checkpoint there.\u2019 It was a super scary situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIllegal alien\u201d is a term that still stings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it just sounds like I\u2019m not a person,\u201d he says. \u201cIt sounds like I\u2019m not one of you. I understand the illegal part. Yeah\u2014I don\u2019t have legal documentation here. But to be called an alien? Am I from Mars?\u201d<\/p>\n

With his high school graduation approaching in 2019, Viera began looking into avenues for financial aid. \u201cI wanted to go to college,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople knew about scholarships that didn\u2019t require citizenship or legal documentation.\u201d<\/p>\n

A South Lakes teacher who believed in his potential decided to call Marymount University on his behalf. \u201cShe asked if there was a possibility of me getting a little bit more financial aid,\u201d he says. As it turned out, Marymount had a program designed for students like him.<\/p>\n

Then came another crisis. Viera\u2019s family situation fractured, and he found himself needing a place to live. <\/p>\n

Again, his teacher came to the rescue, this time with a proposal: He could stay with her, rent-free, while he earned his degree. <\/em>\u201cIf I dropped out, I would have to move out. That was the deal,\u201d he says. \u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for her, I would\u2019ve been homeless. I would not have gone to school.\u201d <\/p>\n

Now 22, Viera has a degree from Marymount and is gainfully employed in IT. We\u2019re sitting at Northside Social in Clarendon amid a smattering of other digital denizens on laptops. <\/p>\n

\u201cI came here for prosperity and education,\u201d he says. \u201cBack then, the crime rate in El Salvador was a lot higher. The gangster groups were recruiting younger people. I had been asked to do that. If you refuse, you face consequences, and I had refused. So I had to just leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to know where he\u2019d be now, if not for his teacher\u2019s kind offer of room and board.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s like my second mom,\u201d he says. (His biological mother is still in El Salvador.) \u201cBut now I can pay for my food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why does he think she stuck her neck out to help? \u201cShe\u2019s an immigrant, too,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Danayit M. is sitting outside Idido Coffee and Social House on Columbia Pike, where customers of all ethnic backgrounds are streaming in. The word coffee, or \u201ckaffa,\u201d comes from Ethiopia\u2019s lush Kaffa region.<\/p>\n

Ethiopia is also where Danayit is from, having spent most of her life in the village of Bishoftu southeast of Addis Ababa. But at 20, she\u2019s taken a liking to American life and its melting pot of cultures. She watches baking shows; eats tacos, Indian and Thai food; listens to K-pop.<\/p>\n

She graduated this spring from Arlington Community High School and is getting ready to start fall classes at Northern Virginia Community College, where she plans to study computer science. <\/p>\n

In Ethiopia, she says, her career options were limited. Now they seem endless. \u201cI want to go to NOVA and explore<\/em>. I feel like coming to this country, I will have more opportunities\u2026choosing my major or just having the freedom to pursue any field I\u2019m passionate about. I think I have more of a chance to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Danayit came to the U.S. just last year and has no immigration status, yet she already feels safer in Arlington than she did at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, I\u2019m not scared that somebody\u2019s gonna come and make me leave my house because of my ethnic group or because of my name,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m not scared to speak my language in public. In Ethiopia, there\u2019s discrimination, especially with the war that just ended. That\u2019s why I left my country.\u201d<\/p>\n

What about the fear of deportation? \u201cIt\u2019s a possibility and I know it, but I\u2019m trying not to think about it in my daily life,\u201d she says. \u201cIf my asylum is not approved, there\u2019s a chance I would have to go back to my country, which would be unsafe for me. I\u2019m hoping that good things will happen.\u201d <\/p>\n

American optimism has fueled her assimilation. There\u2019s still so much of the U.S. she wants to see. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to visit Hawaii,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Why Hawaii?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. I feel like it will be so beautiful. So green and so beautiful. In Ethiopia, our city is known because it\u2019s so green. So many lakes. So I would say Hawaii is, maybe, a lot similar [to] the village I came from.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a long way,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know,\u201d she says. \u201cBut maybe someday.\u201d<\/p>\n

For decades, dreamers landing in Northern Virginia have found a champion in Emma Violand-S\u00e1nchez. Long before she was named a Fulbright scholar for her educational reform efforts in her native Bolivia, before she received the James B. Hunter Human Rights Award, she was Arlington Public Schools\u2019 first Latina teacher and administrator. <\/p>\n

Violand-S\u00e1nchez joined APS in 1976, overseeing programs for immigrants and refugees, including English for Speakers of Other Languages\/High Intensity Language Training (ESOL\/HILT) for K-12 students. She later became the first Latina on the Arlington School Board.<\/p>\n

In 2010, she founded the Dream Project<\/a>, an Arlington-based nonprofit that provides scholarships, mentoring, family support and advocacy to students who face barriers due to their immigration status.<\/p>\n

The nonprofit\u2019s mission statement is neatly summed up in two sentences on its website: \u201cOur organization started with a group of invested parents around a kitchen table. A decade later, our work is still rooted in the conviction that everyone deserves a place at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Violand-S\u00e1nchez has seen immigrant waves from all corners of the world. In the mid-\u201970s, Arlington welcomed an influx of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian refugees. Then came Salvadorans.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, we have students from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mongolia and Ethiopia,\u201d she says. The cultures are different, but they all share a steadfast belief that a better life lies ahead. <\/p>\n

Since its founding, the Dream Project has awarded nearly $1.4 million in scholarship funds to some 340 students. All of the students profiled in this story received either financial or academic assistance from the organization.<\/p>\n

Scholarships are only one part of the puzzle. Dreamers and their families may also need legal referrals, technology assistance, mental health support and emergency relief when curveballs threaten to derail their educational goals. The Dream Project addresses all of those things on a case-by-case basis.<\/p>\n

Violand-S\u00e1nchez offers an example. \u201cDuring the pandemic\u2026 the people who have undocumented status, where do they work? Restaurants were closed. If people clean houses, nobody wanted to have them in their house, right? Universities were closed and many students did not have computers. We had to provide computers, but then they didn\u2019t have an internet connection. They didn\u2019t have a place to go. Fortunately, we had one funder who provided $60,000 for emergency grants.\u201d <\/p>\n

Lately, the nonprofit has engaged in the fight to preserve in-state status for undocumented Virginia students seeking college tuition assistance. It\u2019s a protection that took years to secure, Violand-S\u00e1nchez says, which Gov. Glenn Youngkin\u2019s administration is now seeking to undo.<\/p>\n

Nataly Montano\u2019s American experience began in 2001 at a bus stop off Route 50 in Arlington. She had recently arrived with her mother from the Bolivian town of Cochabamba. The 6-year-old\u2019s ears popped in pain when their plane touched down on U.S. soil. Her mother rubbed her head and said, \u201cEverything\u2019s going to be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Sept. 11 attacks came a few months later, dashing their hopes of securing immigration and tourist visas. \u201cSo we just overstayed,\u201d Montano says. They never looked back. <\/p>\n

Montano\u2019s most vivid childhood memories revolve around school. \u201cI went to Barcroft when I first came here,\u201d she recalls. \u201cWe had moved in with my aunt, and our bus stop for elementary school was right at the same corner. I remember running around a tree with some other kids waiting for the bus. That\u2019s where I met my first friend. He lived down the street. His parents spoke Spanish and English.\u201d <\/p>\n

It really wasn\u2019t until middle school, at Kenmore, that Montano gave any thought to her undocumented status. \u201cThat\u2019s when the whole Don\u2019t tell your friends, be careful<\/em> stuff started,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

By the time she reached high school at Washington-Lee (now Washington-Liberty) she was keenly aware of what was at stake. Though public K-12 schools are prohibited from asking families about their immigration status, the fear of being exposed was always a thought. <\/p>\n

Typical high school rites of passage felt fraught. \u201cAnywhere there was a lot of beer, the cops came around,\u201d Montano says. \u201cTo this day, I do not like to be pulled over or have any sort of interaction with cops. It freaks me out. I think that\u2019s definitely from when I was young, being told to stay away from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

As her high school experience came to a close, Montano had a solid circle of friends. She was a two-sport athlete\u2014cross-country and crew\u2014and was beginning to see her life\u2019s ambitions crystallizing. Setting her sights on a career in medicine, she went off to Texas Tech, where she kept her status \u201con the down-low\u201d and kept her head up, even though she felt lonely. \u201cI didn\u2019t have any family in Texas,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

It was during her freshman year at Texas Tech in 2012 that she received her DACA confirmation.<\/p>\n

Montano had fully expected to encounter racism in the Lone Star State, where immigration tensions were high. She did not. <\/p>\n

What she wasn\u2019t prepared for was the exchange she had with a prestigious East Coast university when she called to inquire about transferring.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told them I was looking to transfer and they were like, \u201cOK, we\u2019re [sending] you to the Office of International Students,\u2019\u2009\u201d she recalls. \u201cI tried to explain that I wasn\u2019t<\/em> an international student, but they connected me to the international office anyway. When I explained to the woman that I was thinking of transferring and that I had DACA, she said, \u2018Why don\u2019t you just go swim across the Rio Grande and go back to Mexico?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Montano was both stunned and infuriated. \u201cI said, \u2018Um, first off, I\u2019m not from Mexico, I\u2019m Bolivian. And by the way, I flew here, I didn\u2019t swim here.\u2019 And then I just said, \u2018Thank you for your time\u2019 and I hung up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vindication would come later. After graduating from Texas Tech in 2016, Montano spent two years as a research assistant at the very university she\u2019d hoped to enter as a transfer student. Then, another two years in emergency medicine at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

And yet, she was stringing together two-year stints with no master plan. It wasn\u2019t until a mentor at the American Medical Women\u2019s Association asked her, \u201cWhen are you gonna be a doctor?\u201d that she finally allowed herself to seriously contemplate her lifelong dream.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had been working to help my mom and my dad. I was sending money,\u201d Montano says. By then, both of her parents had voluntarily returned to Bolivia. Working in medical research scratched the itch, but med school still felt unattainable. Her MCAT scores weren\u2019t quite where they needed to be. <\/p>\n

Hoping to polish her candidacy with experience, she applied and was accepted to a graduate program at Brown University, where she earned a master\u2019s in medical science. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I left to do my master\u2019s at Brown, I was like, This is my goal. My goal is to become a doctor and everything else is just noise. The stress of having to reapply for DACA is just a part of my life. I can\u2019t change it and I can\u2019t do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This fall, Montano will begin the next chapter of her career at Stanford Medical School\u2014on a full ride. She\u2019ll still have to re-up her DACA status every two years. Stanford will cover that $500 fee as well.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a long road. \u201cI cried a lot,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cDreamers are Americans,\u201d President Biden declared on the anniversary of DACA this past June. \u201cMany have spent the majority of their lives in the United States. They are our doctors, our teachers and our small-business owners. Dreamers strengthen our economy, enrich our workplaces, and during the Covid-19 pandemic, many served their communities on the frontlines.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an oft-repeated political sentiment that\u2019s done little to move the needle on meaningful legislation. Though studies have repeatedly found nearly three-quarters of Americans in favor of giving protection to immigrants who arrived here as children, the congressional stalemate continues. <\/p>\n

By the end of 2022, the number of DACA holders in the U.S. was around 580,000, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent health policy research organization. Today, the term \u201cdreamers\u201d also extends to the thousands of immigrants who came to this country as minors after the cutoff for DACA, many of whom are just now contemplating college. <\/p>\n

In his address, President Biden noted that 79% of immigrants are in the workforce, contributing a whopping $13.3 billion to the economy. It all seems like numbers until you start talking to actual human beings. <\/p>\n

Like Marymount graduate Bryan Viera, now a specialist in cloud computing architecture. Thanks to a non-DACA program (Special Immigrant Juvenile status<\/a>) for children who came here as minors and ended up under the protection of the court system as a result of parental abuse, abandonment or neglect, he is now a permanent resident. In five years, he\u2019ll be eligible for citizenship.<\/p>\n

What does the word \u201cdreamer\u201d mean to him? <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it means a desire to do something that you can\u2019t do in your home country. To strive. To achieve an education. To help your family as well, not just yourself,\u201d he says. \u201cI feel like it means that you can be an actual member of society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Viera and his friends took a trip to New York City, where he finally had a chance to see the Statue of Liberty. \u201cI remembered seeing it in the movies, and I thought, I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m here<\/em>,\u201d he says. \u201cI wish my mom could come here [from El Salvador] and see it, too. But I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s ever gonna happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlote V. still remembers so much of it all.<\/p>\n

She remembers the minibus pulling up to her house in La Esperanza, Guatemala, in June of 2010 to pick up her and her brother. The 15 days of walking and driving and more walking. The thorns that pierced her little hands as she crawled through brush. The eventual reunion with her family. Being mesmerized by the automatic doors at American grocery stores. She even remembers having no idea what to do with a hamburger on a bun. Do you just hold it in your hands?<\/p>\n

She was only 7.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s one memory that really stands out. Midway through her journey north, she became separated from her brother. Now she was alone. The driver of a white cargo van was beckoning her to get in. And every child in Guatemala (or anywhere else, for that matter) knows the cardinal rule: You don\u2019t ever get into a van with a stranger.<\/p>\n

Luckily for her, what she lacked in years she made up for in faith. Faith in God and faith in her parents\u2019 wisdom. Before the trip, her father had assured her the man behind the wheel would be trustworthy. \u201cHe said I was going to be OK,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Though she may have been too young to ponder it at the time\u2014a little girl about to embark on a solo journey with a smuggler\u2014 it\u2019s worth noting the name of the hometown she had just left. Esperanza means hope.<\/p>\n

And so Charlote got in.<\/p>\n

By the time she arrived in the U.S., the conditions for DACA protection had elapsed. \u201cI didn\u2019t make the cutoff,\u201d she says. She thrived anyway. <\/p>\n

Now preparing for her second year at the University of Virginia, she rattles off a list of the AP courses at her Arlington high school that helped get her there\u2014calculus, physics, French, English lit, statistics, Spanish. And to think that 13 years ago she didn\u2019t speak English. <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people have the same story,\u201d she says. \u201cMy parents came to this country for a better life, a better education. They didn\u2019t have support back in Guatemala\u2014they\u2019re both from sort of a broken family. My dad had to start working when he was very young. It was just a very hard life for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

So hard that they were willing to put their little girl in a van with a stranger\u2014who, as fate would have it, was not a kidnapper. The promise outweighed the risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a Latina, I am an immigrant,\u201d Charlote says. \u201cI believe in the American dream, where you work hard to have a good life, a successful life. But you need to put in the work. Nothing is handed for free. That\u2019s something my parents have always taught me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s thinking she wants to become a speech pathologist. As we drive back to her house in Arlington, tape recorder turned off, she giggles as a random memory from her first year at UVA pops into her head. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my suite mates had a habit of taking Ubers from our dorm room to class.\u201d<\/p>\n

I laugh, thinking of the white van, her harrowing journey through desert brambles, and the years of unshakable resolve that led her to this point. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to be kidding. Americans just don\u2019t get how other people live, eh?\u201d<\/p>\n

She looks ahead and just smiles.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read the original story on Arlington Magazine’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Christmas was just around the corner in 2015 when Bryan Viera stood in the morning sun, gazing at a hole in a wall along the Texas border. He was 15. His journey had begun 27 days earlier in El Salvador, but somewhere around Chihuahua, in Mexico, he\u2019d gotten separated from his stepmother and stepbrother. […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nArlington Magazine: The Dreamers next door - Marymount University<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  Christmas was just around the corner in 2015 when Bryan Viera stood in the morning sun, gazing at a hole in a wall along the Texas border. He was . Click here to learn more.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arlington Magazine: The Dreamers next door\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  Christmas was just around the corner in 2015 when Bryan Viera stood in the morning sun, gazing at a hole in a wall along the Texas border. He was . Click here to learn more.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Marymount University\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-08-25T15:21:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/700-3.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"420\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nmunson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"nmunson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"19 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/\",\"name\":\"Arlington Magazine: The Dreamers next door - Marymount University\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/700-3.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-08-25T15:21:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-08-25T15:21:07+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/#\/schema\/person\/2266f7e97a39aa87b435294a30d03814\"},\"description\":\"  Christmas was just around the corner in 2015 when Bryan Viera stood in the morning sun, gazing at a hole in a wall along the Texas border. He was . Click here to learn more.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/700-3.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/700-3.jpg\",\"width\":700,\"height\":420,\"caption\":\"Arlington Magazine: The Dreamers next door\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Arlington Magazine: The Dreamers next door\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/\",\"name\":\"Marymount University\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/#\/schema\/person\/2266f7e97a39aa87b435294a30d03814\",\"name\":\"nmunson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/38df618b1f7e8b4885474e1b4e965541?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/38df618b1f7e8b4885474e1b4e965541?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"nmunson\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/author\/nmunson\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Arlington Magazine: The Dreamers next door - Marymount University","description":"  Christmas was just around the corner in 2015 when Bryan Viera stood in the morning sun, gazing at a hole in a wall along the Texas border. He was . Click here to learn more.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Arlington Magazine: The Dreamers next door","og_description":"  Christmas was just around the corner in 2015 when Bryan Viera stood in the morning sun, gazing at a hole in a wall along the Texas border. He was . Click here to learn more.","og_url":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/","og_site_name":"Marymount University","article_published_time":"2023-08-25T15:21:07+00:00","og_image":[{"width":700,"height":420,"url":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/700-3.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"nmunson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"nmunson","Est. reading time":"19 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/","url":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/","name":"Arlington Magazine: The Dreamers next door - Marymount University","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/700-3.jpg","datePublished":"2023-08-25T15:21:07+00:00","dateModified":"2023-08-25T15:21:07+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/#\/schema\/person\/2266f7e97a39aa87b435294a30d03814"},"description":"  Christmas was just around the corner in 2015 when Bryan Viera stood in the morning sun, gazing at a hole in a wall along the Texas border. He was . Click here to learn more.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/700-3.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/700-3.jpg","width":700,"height":420,"caption":"Arlington Magazine: The Dreamers next door"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/arlington-magazine-the-dreamers-next-door\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Arlington Magazine: The Dreamers next door"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/#website","url":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/","name":"Marymount University","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/#\/schema\/person\/2266f7e97a39aa87b435294a30d03814","name":"nmunson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/38df618b1f7e8b4885474e1b4e965541?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/38df618b1f7e8b4885474e1b4e965541?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"nmunson"},"url":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/blog\/author\/nmunson\/"}]}},"modified_by":"nmunson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17440"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17442,"href":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17440\/revisions\/17442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}