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A mother reflects on raising her daughter in America

Alex / Flickr

Over the past six months student reporters from Mills College in Oakland have been tracing the path of the American dream. Jessica Toyota brings us the story of Erika Monico, a mother who explains what she’s gained and lost by moving from Brazil and raising her daughter in the U.S.

Our culture says you stay with your parents until you have a reason to leave, like, you're gonna start a family. Or you know, if I need to go work somewhere else. But here we raise kids saying: ok, when you are 18 you're gonna go to college. You're gonna go away, but we didn't prepare ourselves, as parents. We knew that she was going away, but we didn't prepare ourselves for the moment. She is ready, we are not.

This piece is part of a series of stories, "Waking up to the American Dream," created by student journalists at Mills College in Oakland. 

Crosscurrents