Chit Su, Burma/Myanmar
I met Chit Su on her very first day of school, which, in fact, was already a few days into the school year. Chit Su came late, and she seemed to have arrived out of nowhere. She only spoke a few words of English—"handball" was one word she knew, and "butterfly" was another—and, as it turned out, no one in the entire school spoke her language. READ MORE
Jessica, China
I heard about Jessica before I actually met her. At the time, I had been asking teachers at the school a question: “When you go home at night, who are the students you can’t stop thinking about?” For one twelfth-grade English teacher, that student was Jessica. The teacher had just finished reading Jessica’s college essay, and she was shocked to learn that one of her best students, who had always seemed so together in class, was living alone in New York City—completely on her own. READ MORE
Freeman, Togo
Since he emigrated from Togo, Freeman has changed his identity almost as many times as he has changed his Facebook status. As an underclassman, he rocked a singer-songwriter look. By senior year, Freeman had reinvented himself again, this time as a hip-hop-styled player with a penchant for pristine white Nikes and designer jeans—and a new nickname, Pollo Frito. READ MORE
