2024 Pedro J. Rodriguez High School Scholarship Winner’s Essay

By Kevin Aramburu

The government can help immigrants in many ways. I believe that one way in which the state can help immigrants is the power to give English classes to adults. There are many adults who do not speak English and this will help them because they are stressed out with already paying their bills, rent, and food. They can hardly afford to pay for English classes. Knowing a language is very important and I think that would be very good for immigrants since the main language is English.

The second way in which the state can help immigrants is also the idea of being able to offer finance classes. One’s country has a different way of business than here and a different way of finance, so when an immigrant comes to this country they do not know anything about financial issues such as credit, credit cards, and everything about financial matters to be successful in the USA. When they are going to want to do something like buy a car or a house they will not know how to do it correctly or what they are going to need to grow their money.

The last way in which the state can help immigrants, in my opinion, is to give resources where they teach young adolescents about the opportunities they have to make them feel that they are not alone. This happened to me when I came to this country because I felt sad and I felt like I didn’t have any opportunities in this country. Everything was overwhelming. I believe I’m not the only young person who went through that. I think those things are important for young people now in these times when we learn about more young people committing suicide because they feel alone and depressed. The topic of depression cannot be ignored. I think what a very good way to help young immigrants is to have a talk and show them that they are not alone, where they can go to be with others when they maybe feel very sad and depressed so we can prevent extreme situations. I know this country has a lot of opportunities but we need help knowing exactly what to do to get those opportunities.