NESTING TOGETHER

Canyon Nest offers classes to kids from shelter in Tijuana

At first glance, the Canyon Nest looks like the kind of private school where wealthy parents in the United States fight over waitlist positions.

The school, tucked into a hillside next to a bumpy dirt road in a Tijuana canyon, serves children from a nearby migrant shelter — children whose lives outside of the school contrast sharply with the experience of being inside it.

Set up last year by education equity nonprofit Pilaglobal, the school aims to give these children whose lives are in upheaval a sense of community and a sense of agency.

“When they come in here, parents ask, ‘Do I have to pay for this?’” said program director Glenda Linares.

No, she tells them. You are worthy of this.

Having this space contradicts the experiences of discrimination that many of the families carry, along with feelings of being disposable, Linares said.

The school serves roughly 50 children from the shelter and is planning to expand to accommodate more. It currently has a waitlist.

Templo Embajadores de Jesus, the shelter where the students live, is packed to capacity.

It has been receiving about 100 people a day who were expelled through a U.S. pandemic policy that sends asylum seekers back to Mexico or their country of origin without giving them access to screenings for protection. The families were flown from Texas to San Diego in order to be sent back.

And despite Biden administration promises, there is still no clear path for these families to access the asylum system to try to prove their need for refuge.

The indefinite limbo weighs heavily on them. Many fled life-threatening situations whose trauma lingers in parents and children alike and compounds with the fresh feelings of rejection from the United States.

At the Nest, teacher Vanessa Esquivel leads the children through grounding exercises including several kinds of meditation to help students find peace in what they have lived through.

She includes a lovingkindness meditation — a Buddhist tradition that has become popular as a secular and therapeutic practice — and invites the students to repeat each line after her, first directing care toward themselves and then towards others, especially newcomers arriving at the crowded shelter.

“Que sea feliz, que esté seguro, que tenga paz y que sea bondadoso,” she begins. May I be happy, may I be safe, may I have peace and may I be kind.

She and many of the children press their hands over their hearts as they speak.

On Thursday morning, she then offered her students a choice of five problems to work on. Among them were exploring why the bell used to signal the end of an activity rings like it does, building a fun course for a ball to roll down for the younger students who come in the afternoon to enjoy, and finding a solution to the class’s recent issue of remembering where items in the play kitchen go during clean up.

Each student selected what to work on, and they quickly bounced off into groups to collaborate on their ideas, designs and suggestions.

Esquivel, along with parents from the community who have been trained as “nesters,” moved among the groups to ask questions and support the students in discovering ways to solve the problems collectively.

Esquivel said the work has been rewarding, but it is also challenging because the situation for her students is always in flux.

Some families leave after a few days; others stay for weeks or even months. They may find a place to rent or a lawyer may help arrange humanitarian parole into the

United States. In other cases, they try again to cross over the border, or they give up and go home.

Esquivel recently had to say goodbye to a 9-year-old Haitian girl whose family was moving on.

“She said, ‘I’m very happy, and I’m sad. I’m happy that I’m leaving, but I’m very sad that I’m leaving you,’” Esquivel recalled.

But departures also make room for new arrivals from the school’s waitlist.

On Thursday, Esquivel welcomed one boy who was there for the first time after checking every day for there to be room for him.

Program director Linares said that the children are taught to treat the vibrant array of materials available to them with care and respect because they are tools for learning.

The students use many of them as prompts to tell pieces of their own life stories in ways that are healing.

Once, a student took all of the furniture out of the classroom’s dollhouse and filled it with people to mimic the way the families are living in the shelter, Linares said.

Linares recognizes the children’s need to tell their stories because of her own experiences as a young immigrant in Los Angeles after her family fled El Salvador’s civil war.

“When I got to the United States, I felt like I had gone through this experience and didn’t have anyone to tell about it, and no one was asking,” Linares said.

She was expected to learn English and go to school without any acknowledgement of what had happened to her. As a result, she said, she struggled with school.

“This is an important inbetween place,” Linares said. “They get to have this moment in their life where people want to hear their stories.”

ALEJANDRO TAMAYO U-T Two children paint last week in a courtyard at Canyon Nest school in Tijuana. The school offers classes to children living at a nearby shelter housing hundreds of asylum-seeking families expelled from the U.S. The school aims to give these children, whose lives are in upheaval, a sense of community and a respite from the chaos of migrant life.

Templo Embajadores de Jesus, the shelter where the students live, is at capacity. About 100 people expelled from the U.S. are received a day.

Two boys play with stilts at the Canyon Nest playground before school begins at 9:30 a.m. With their lives in limbo, many of the children have a sense of upheaval and rejection.

The school has different stations and areas for instruction, and the students are taught to treat their tools for learning with respect and care.

The Canyon Nest was set up by the nonprofit Pilaglobal to help migrant children. There is no cost to attend, but there is a waitlist.

Teacher Vanessa Esquivel instructs students to put their hands over their hearts during a grounding meditation exercise.