Growing Up Academically Excellent and Undocumented

Marisol Conde-Hernandez is a law student at Rutgers University-Newark. By going public about her immigration status, Conde-Hernandez became one of the leaders of undocumented youth in New Jersey and is the co-founder of the NJ DREAM Act Coalition. In the first of a three-part series titled American Sueño, Conde-Hernandez talks about about her journey—how her family crossed through the desert, and upon arrival they became archetypal hard-working immigrants. “I felt protected because I was such a model student. Would they have cared if I had not been academically inclined?” she asks in the film. “My inclination is to say no.”

This film appears in the first issue of Newest Americans, a collaboration between Rutgers University-Newark, Talking Eyes, and VII Photo centered around America’s changing demographics. More information can be found on the Facebook page and Twitter account. This short film is part of an ongoing series on The Atlantic from Talking Eyes Media about movement, location, and identity called State of Migration.