American Ties: Street Gangs and Police Gunfight

american ties: And yet another described his harrowing trip from El Salvador with a smuggler who kept a pistol on his car's dashboard, just in case, according to Metro News. Not exactly the stories of typical sixth-graders. Another told how he finally left that country after he was hit in the leg by a stray bullet from a police gunfight. But this bilingual class on Long Island is hardly typical, made up almost entirely of 11-, 12- and 13-year-olds who fled street gangs in their native Central America only to wind up in a suburb that's now caught in the grip of violence from a street gang with Central American ties, MS-13. Some of the kids came as recently as October with a brother, sister or cousin, while others came with a parent. When I look back at how much I have suffered, I realize that challenges make you stronger, wrote Jocsan Hernandez, the boy struck by the stray bullet, who was among more than 20 students at East Middle School who have contributed stories to a class book titled Luchando por un mejor futuro Fighting for a Better Future . The 88-page book, handwritten in Spanish and illustrated with colorful drawings, was an end-of-year project that grew out of a classroom discussion about the students' experiences back in Central America, their immigration journeys and hopes for a better life in the United States. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.