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When Jehibert Valderrama Hidalgo moved from Venezuela to the United States in 2024, he thought his new high school would look much like those he saw in Hollywood movies, with the jocks, the nerds, and the popular kids banding together. He, a foreigner with a faint grasp on English, would be the bullied outsider. <\/p>\n
But Jehibert was surprised at the warm reception he got from his American peers when he enrolled at Ogden High School in Ogden, Utah.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll always find that gringo who says, \u201cHola, amigo!\u2019\u201d Jehibert told his schoolmate Yoana Estrada Altamirano, who moved from Mexico to Ogden and attended Ogden before she graduated last school year. <\/p>\n
Their conversation\u2014about moving to a new country and adapting to the food, culture, and their new high school\u2014was featured on a podcast series called the Untold Stories of Ogden, a collaboration between the Ogden mayor\u2019s office of community engagement and 2892 Miles To Go, a project that aims to highlight young people\u2019s untold stories about their communities of origin. <\/p>\n
Three episodes from the series, dubbed \u201cNew Americans,\u201d featured free-flowing conversations in Spanish between six students who\u2019d moved to Ogden from Spanish-speaking countries in the last two years.<\/p>\n
The podcast series, produced by the six teenagers, aired last May against a backdrop of the Trump administration\u2019s intensifying immigration crackdown that has depressed attendance and enrollment in schools with large immigrant populations. <\/p>\n
A podcast that highlights immigrant students speaking about their experiences in a language they\u2019re comfortable with serves as a good antidote to harmful and untrue stereotypes about them, said Alejandra V\u00e1zquez Baur, co-founder of the National Newcomer Network, a coalition that addresses challenges newcomers to the country face in schools.<\/p>\n
It can also influence policymakers, she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe can point to all this research and the data that show why it\u2019s important to support immigrants\u2019 integration into U.S. society,\u201d Baur said. \u201cBut the stories are what sell.\u201d <\/p>\n
Courtesy of Amanda Salgado<\/span><\/p>\n Courtesy of Amanda Salgado<\/span><\/p>\n At first, newcomers at Ogden High were reluctant to take up the podcasting opportunity, said Amanda Salgado, a teacher at the school who helps new entrants from Spanish-speaking countries with their English-language skills. Of the 1,100 students at Ogden, 190 students are multi-language learners. <\/p>\n In the six years she\u2019s taught at the school, Salgado\u2019s classroom has also become a safe space for students to share their struggles of adapting to a brand-new life in the United States.<\/p>\n Salgado knew she wanted a wider audience to hear and learn from stories that students have shared in her classroom\u2014what it\u2019s like to leave their families and friends behind, get used to a new culture, and navigate an increasingly anti-immigrant political climate. <\/p>\n When Salgado learned about the podcast opportunity in the community, she jumped on it, emailing the mayor\u2019s office to get her students slotted in. Getting students to record their stories in their own voice, and language, could \u201copen minds a little bit, and maybe create more empathy and curiosity about other people\u2019s experiences,\u201d Salgado said.<\/p>\n She picked six of her most outgoing students, who worked in pairs to decide what they wanted to talk about on the podcast.<\/p>\n Production started in February, and it took two months to pick discussion topics, create a loose script, record, and edit the podcast. Representatives from the mayor\u2019s office helped Salgado and the students pick up the technical skills they needed to record and edit the podcast.<\/p>\n The students\u2019 conversations are mostly in Spanish, peppered with English phrases they\u2019ve picked up.<\/p>\n In each episode, the students run through their first impressions about their new country\u2014bland food, quiet neighborhoods, muted New Year celebrations\u2014and tackle deeper subjects, such as deciding on careers to explore. <\/p>\n Moving to a new country and adapting to a new culture is challenging enough, but doing it as they\u2019re about to transition to adulthood can make the move much harder, Salgado said.<\/p>\n \u201cI get sophomores, juniors, and seniors, and they\u2019re trying to figure out their path in life,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re [also] dealing with the kind of the social-emotional effects of missing their countries and families and the things that they knew before.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The number of students in Salgado\u2019s newcomer classes has swelled in the last three years, though this year, she\u2019s noticed a dip in students who are new entrants to the country. (That aligns with reports from schools across the country.) Still, she has more than 50 students this year to teach and help them adjust to life in the United States.<\/p>\n Salgado said new students go through a \u201cculture shock curve.\u201d At first, they\u2019re excited to come to the United States because they have a particular image of the country in mind from social and popular media. <\/p>\n \u201cAs soon as it\u2019s not so new anymore, there\u2019s a dip for them emotionally and they have to cope with difficult feelings like, \u2018This isn\u2019t my country. I don\u2019t know if I want to be here. I don\u2019t like the food here,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n All three podcast conversations acknowledge this struggle. The students shared that they often felt embarrassed or frustrated when they couldn\u2019t find the right words in English to respond to their friends and teachers, or had to use translators to get their point across. <\/p>\n Valeria Mendez, another student featured in the podcast, expressed her fears that she wouldn\u2019t be able to meet career goals without perfecting English. Students like her \u201cfeel we won\u2019t succeed if we don\u2019t speak English,\u201d the aspiring lawyer said.<\/p>\n As newcomer students find extracurricular groups and activities they\u2019re interested in, they\u2019re motivated to improve their English and break out of their shells. Jehibert, for instance, joined the school\u2019s baseball team, which pushed him to learn the English words for \u201cbat\u201d and \u201cglove.\u201d Through a mix of gestures and simple English phrases, he can interact better with his coach and teammates.<\/p>\n The students also acknowledged some clear advantages of attending high school in the United States. They\u2019re exposed to several subjects\u2014such as STEM or career and technical education tracks like welding, robotics, and medicine\u2014that they wouldn\u2019t be able to access until college in their home countries.<\/p>\n Since the podcast aired, more students from Salgado\u2019s class have shown interest in sharing their own stories and creating a homegrown version of the podcast at school. Jehibert said he enjoyed learning about how others like him processed their moves to Ogden, and would like to have similar conversations with non-Latino students as well.<\/p>\n Salgado has noticed the newcomer students becoming more comfortable in their new school: Students who once stuck together during lunch are now more interested in participating in the broader school community. <\/p>\n Salgado encourages these interests by connecting students to different coaches and teams, stepping in to translate for them, and gathering information for her students about tryouts and other opportunities.<\/p>\n When newcomers join teams, Salgado said she\u2019s noticed English-speaking students want to get to know them better. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s still difficult with the language,\u201d Salgado said. \u201cBut both groups are now willing to try.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Jehibert Valderrama Hidalgo moved from Venezuela to the United States in 2024, he thought his new high school would look much like those he saw in Hollywood movies, with the jocks, the nerds, and the popular kids banding together. He, a foreigner with a faint grasp on English, would be the bullied outsider. But<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[5356,20548,2879,8147,515,678],"class_list":{"0":"post-36990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-belonging","9":"tag-newcomer","10":"tag-path","11":"tag-platform","12":"tag-podcast","13":"tag-students"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Students talk about \u2018riding the culture shock curve\u2019<\/h2>\n
Group activities can engage newcomer students better<\/h2>\n