Not a Monolith is a Teen Vogue series for Latinx Heritage Month 2023, highlighting the diversity of those in the Latinx community. From disability rights activists to rappers to drag queens, we're showing the range of backgrounds and experiences that inform Latinx culture today.
Editor’s note: This interview was translated from Spanish by the reporter. Teen Vogue withheld the source's last name to protect their privacy.
It’s raining when I arrive at a New York City homeless shelter one Saturday morning in September. The government converted the building into a shelter from a hotel last winter, amid an influx of newly arrived asylum seekers.
Moments after I reach the shelter, a familiar face emerges from the building's front entrance. It’s Christopher, a 15-year-old from Ecuador, with whom I’ll be spending the day. He’s staying at the shelter with his family while they apply for asylum in the US. Our first order of business today? Breakfast.
“If the weather were nicer today, I’d go to the park down the street to play soccer,” he says between bites of a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. The sport is a cornerstone of his weekend routine. “After soccer, I’d go back to the hotel. From there, I wouldn’t do much else, just spend time on my phone. That would be a normal Saturday for me.”
I first met Christopher two days earlier, when his family visited my apartment for a video call with an immigration judge — their first meeting through New York City’s court system since they arrived earlier this year. They couldn’t rely on the shelter’s spotty Wi-Fi for such an important call, so the family of four piled into my studio apartment for their morning appointment.
After three hours of listening to the judge address other cases, theirs was discussed for 10 minutes, during which time they learned their next court date won't take place until next summer. All the while, Christopher and his younger brother stayed put, passing their mom’s phone back and forth to watch TikToks. When I offered them cookies, they bashfully accepted. After they ate, Christopher brought their plates to the kitchen and washed them without saying a word.
That behavior might be unusual for a teenager, but Christopher’s circumstances are also unusual. His maturity is evidence of his lived experiences. During our breakfast, he walks me through his family’s decision to leave Ecuador. “Life was getting pretty tough,” he recalls. “We were working selling coconut water in the streets. We were hardly earning any money from it. The quality of life is so bad for so many people, and there’s a lot of crime among young people, so my parents made the decision to come here.”
Amnesty International defines asylum seekers as those who leave their home country for “protection from persecution and serious human rights violations.” Asylees generally have one year from arrival to apply for asylum, which would grant them the right to stay in the United States.
Historically, New York’s status as a sanctuary city has protected asylum seekers, but this spring, President Biden passed a rule that threw a major wrench in the application process. Dubbed the “Asylum Ban,” it states that those who arrive after May 11, 2023, are not eligible for asylum if they illegally cross the US-Mexico border, or don’t apply for asylum in another country before reaching the States. Families like Christopher’s, who arrived before the rule’s enforcement, will have to prove when they entered the country to show that they aren’t subject to its restrictions.
More than 2.8 million people are reported to have crossed the border between October 2022 and August 2023, and the ban creates a new set of worries for those who are still recovering from the life-threatening journey. According to the International Organization for Migration, almost half of migrant deaths recorded in the Americas in 2022 happened while en route from Mexico to the US, “making it the deadliest land route for migrants worldwide on record.” Christopher says his family traveled through Colombia, several Central American countries, and Mexico before they got here.
“We crossed through jungles in Central America,” he says. “A lot of people got stuck on that trek. In our final days going through the jungle, I didn’t even think we were going to get out. We didn’t have any food left, and we found an entire family — father, son, and a little girl — dead in a tent. Thankfully, we made it through. A lot of people didn’t make it out.”
Beyond the jungles, says Christopher, the family hid in multiple cities in Mexico prior to their arrival in Tapachula, a hotspot for those hoping to enter the United States. They spent the holidays sleeping in a park, and then set out for the Texas border. Christopher remembers how a barbed-wire fence almost kept his mother from crossing, but eventually, all four family members made it through: “Everyone’s tears started falling.”
In Texas, the family caravanned to a shelter, where they were given plane tickets to New York City, along with information about someone who would drive them to a shelter after they arrived. It was their first time flying. “When the plane started taking off, I got really nervous,” Christopher says with a laugh. “It was a new experience, but it scared me.”
The hardest parts of the physical journey may be over, but being a teenager comes with its own challenges, especially for those who lack the same resources as their peers. Christopher expresses an awareness of this, especially when it comes to his hopes for the future. “I want to be a professional soccer player, and I was working toward that in Ecuador,” he says. “But here, becoming a professional is tough. There are soccer academies and everything, but they’re really expensive.”
Over the summer, he and his closest friend from the shelter played in a free soccer league. Says Christopher, a spot on a competitive travel team feels out of reach when his parents can’t legally secure steady work, but he still has faith in his skills. “Hopefully, when I go to college, I can play for the school team," he says. "I want to play at a great school, where a pro team can see me and decide to sign me.”
When we finish breakfast, we head to the roof of my apartment building, which Christopher asked to visit after I mentioned its view of the Statue of Liberty. The rain obscures some of the skyline, but he still takes plenty of pictures. His usual afternoon soccer has been canceled due to the weather, so we decide to watch a movie in my apartment.
I toss out movie suggestions while Christopher plays me some of his favorite songs. Most are Ecuadorian salsa melodies in an Indigenous language (“I don’t understand the lyrics, but I love it"), but he’s also picked up other faves from friends at school, such as Lil Uzi Vert’s “Just Wanna Rock.” He mimes the movements of its TikTok-famous dance.
I ask if he ever posts TikToks of his own, and in response he opens the app and shows me video after video that he’s made, dancing to viral tracks. Some are of him alone in the family’s hotel room at the shelter; others are filmed with friends from school, most of whom are also newly arrived Latinos. Christopher says he posts a dancing TikTok almost every day: “I have a great time every moment that I’m dancing. When I make TikToks, I feel like all the difficult stuff is behind me and it’s finally time to enjoy my life.”
We agree to watch Spirited Away. A few minutes in, it becomes apparent that there are a surprising number of similarities between the plot and Christopher’s life since he left Ecuador. As Chihiro, the film's protagonist, encounters monsters and natural disasters on the way to her new home, I think of all the twists and turns Christopher endured before he made it to New York. And like Chihiro, a cast of unlikely friends helped Christopher along the way.
“[In Mexico,] we met a woman who was like an angel to us,” he says. “She told us to cross in a particular spot with shallow water, because in other spots it was too deep. I don’t know how she knew, but we crossed where she told us to and it worked.”
By the time Chihiro’s voyage ends, the sky outside my apartment is sunny. I ask Christopher if he’s hungry; as a teenage boy who's nearly six feet tall, of course he is. We set out for a local pizza spot.
As we walk, I notice his outfit is markedly different from what he wore to my apartment earlier in the week. Today, his pants are creased and his button-down shirt is bright white. I realize, then, that he dressed up to watch a movie and eat pizza with me.
While seated at the restaurant, we chat about the week ahead. Christopher will keep up his usual routine walking to school, walking back, and repeating the trip. “Just like every day,” he says. “If I were playing for a travel soccer team, it would be different. But since I’m not doing that, I’ll just be doing the same things as always.”
As we finish our slices, Christopher gestures for me to look through a window, and we can see his parents and brother waving from the sidewalk. We meet them outside, where I take a photo of everyone together.
Christopher’s family has until the new year to apply for asylum. It’s a complex, multistep process, but it’s one he knows will be worth it. “I already feel like this is my home,” he says. “My safe place is New York.”
As our day draws to a close, I ask Christopher what he wishes other Americans knew about asylum seekers like him. “There are times when people think that because someone’s Latino, they’re a bad person or they’ll try to hurt you,” he says. “It’s not like that. There are good Latino people and bad Latino people. Not all of us are bad, or even the same.”
