‘WE SEE THE STRUGGLE’
Danbury nonprofit honors children of immigrants with scholarships
DANBURY — The three students honored with scholarships by the Danburybased nonprofit The New American Dream Foundation are pursuing different majors — nursing, forensics and computer science — at different colleges.
But they share a common trait: all three college students are the children of immigrants.
Emanuela Palmares, vice president of the foundation, said it is important to support immigrant youth — “to look at them beyond GPA and academic performance.”
“We want these kids to feel seen and heard. We see the struggle. And we understand their experience. And we award them not for what they’ve done so far — but their will to keep going,” Palmares said.
The scholarships were awarded at the foundation’s annual gala Sept. 15 at the Amber Room Colannade, where U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, a Meriden native whose family relocated from Puerto Rico before he was born, gave the keynote address.
At the gala, scholarship recipient Julia Clara Ferreira, an 18-year-old from Danbury, thanked her parents, who are Brazilian immigrants, “for taking the hardships that they’ve been through and turning them into lessons for their children.”
She now attends the University of New Haven and is the first member of her family to both graduate from high school and pursue higher education. Ferreira described learning she had won the scholarship as a complete shock.
“I really did not think that my family and I’s experience was good enough to make it. … But I thought, ‘why not apply anyway and give it a shot,’” Ferreira said. “I had a little bit of hope in myself . ... I hope that this inspires someone to take that leap. Even though you might not think that whatever you are doing is good or interesting enough, there’s always going to be someone out there who thinks that you’re enough.”
She told Hearst Connecticut Media that she is majoring in forensics and upon graduating, she envisions working in a laboratory, “doing analysis of some kind, either DNA or blood splatter.”
Elvia Fajardo, another Danbury resident and scholarship recipient, attends the University of Hartford and intends to pursue a career in nursing. Her parents endured sleepless nights during a four-month journey by land from Ecuador to the United States.
Fajardo described herself as a “proud first-generation daughter from immigrant parents, who have always been my biggest supporters,” adding they never failed to provide for her.
Daniel Espin, a first year student at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, is studying computer science, with the goal of working in the field of artificial intelligence. Like Fajardo, Espin’s parents emigrated from Ecuador; their journey was by ship.
Espin described his family and their unwavering support as “the pillar to my success.”
The foundation has awarded more than $70,000 in scholarships since 2016, Palmares said.
Each recipient in this year’s group offers a different perspective on how their parents’ journeys impacted their own educational journeys, she said. For those who are fortunate to come to the United States with family, it is “the fabric that holds us together,” Palmares said.
In his address at the gala, Cardona took a moment to speak about The New American Dream Foundation’s leaders, Palmares and her mother, Celia Bacelar-Palmares, the organization’s founder and president. The Bacelar-Palmares made those sacrifices “all to build a better future for your family and a lasting legacy in your community,” said Cardona, who was also presented with the foundation’s life achievement award.
In remarks that seemed to reference the stories of the scholarship recipients, Cardona said, “we can’t talk about the achievements of our lifetime without the sacrifices of our parents. We can’t talk about our hopes for the future without thinking about how our actions today affect generations to come. Many of us face obstacles on our journey. Some of us were English learners, overwhelmed at first in a classroom, where we were made to feel like our languages were weaknesses or deficits to overcome, instead of assets.”
Cardona honed in on multilingualism, noting the contradictions in an education system that largely regards speaking a language other than English, particularly in early grades, as a weakness.
“In fact, many of us, still today, take students who know another language, another culture, and immerse them in another program that slowly subtracts their native language, only to then offer it as a prestigious elective 10 years later,” Cardona said.
He described the ability to speak multiple languages as a superpower, which has been shown in scientific studies to allow people to develop “greater intellectual flexibility” and to protect against the cognitive decline associated with conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.
“There’s also plenty of evidence that those cognitive superpowers translate into economic superpowers too. Multilingual people will tend to end up with better jobs and higher pay, in an increasing global economy,” Cardona said. “Why would we make the Americans who don’t speak English feel lesser when their knowledge of another language is such an asset? It makes no sense and it’s unacceptable.
“So let’s be very clear: Our beautiful diversity as a multicultural nation is our enduring strength as a global leader. That’s what makes us the best country in the world,” Cardona said.