Working while attending school, overcoming misplaced perceptions, and struggling to learn English often leaves young English language learners (ELLs) with the tough decision on whether or not to stay in school.

It’s a decision that frequently hits children of foreign-born parents.

“I didn’t know anyone here. Didn’t have any friends,” Lily Rivas, 18, a freshman attending Lehman College, told the Norwood News. “I couldn’t even talk to anyone because they wouldn’t understand [me] and I wouldn’t understand them either.”

Rivas, a former English as a second language (ESL) student, graduated from the Leadership Institute High School in the Bronx last year. She immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic when she was 15, with her mother and two younger sisters.

“The two options were either you come [to the U.S.] or you stay there [in the Dominican Republic] forever,” said Rivas, adding that her mother wanted her and her sisters to have better job opportunities as they got older. “In my country, even if you go to college, the possibility of getting a job is low.”

Rivas, the oldest of three, also faced pressure to take care of her younger siblings.

After immigrating to the Bronx, Rivas said she felt isolated in her new surroundings because she spoke only Spanish. She also had to dissolve important family ties and friendships in the Dominican Republic, leaving her father and friends behind. “At 15 years old, I had my friends and everything there,” she said. “I thought I had my life completed.”

For many immigrant students, maelstroms have swept their lives. They may be living away from their families, or be responsible for taking care of their younger siblings, said Joe Luft, the executive director of the Internationals Network for Public Schools, a nonprofit organization that collaborates with 15 international high schools in New York to serve newcomer ELLs and students with limited English proficiency or interrupted formal education.

Some immigrant students are even “breadwinners” for their families, according to Eve Stotland, the director of the Legal Services Center at The Door, an organization that provides ESL classes, legal services for undocumented immigrants, and GED classes. “Many of them are sending money back to families in their home country,” she said, adding that many adolescent immigrants arrive to the states on their own.

In some instances, immigrant youth have experienced traumatic events, with some youth from Central American countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, having “seen siblings shot and killed.” Stotland also said foreign born parents have been known to leave their children in the states and in the guardianship of an adult who would sexually abuse them.

Established negative stereotypes also create challenges for immigrant students looking to finish school. A 2010 U.S. study titled “Being Mexican: Strengths and Challenges of Mexican-Origin Adolescents,” found getting a leg up in school comes with moments of discrimination toward Mexican youths.

One study participant denounced the view that “just because you’re Mexican … you’re one of those, like, gangster people … who steal … who get high … you’re gonna drop out … you’re gonna be pregnant.” These stereotypes often affected how teachers interacted with students of Mexican origin, according to the study.

On the subject of teachers, another participant said, “They all expect you to do bad in classes and they don’t pay attention to you because they all think you’re going to fail anyway.” Mexican immigrant students are stigmatized and overlooked by their teachers and the general community due to stereotypes such as susceptibility to crime, recruitment in gangs, pregnancy, and dropping out, according to the study.

In addition to these challenges, immigrant youth often find it difficult to understand content taught in English. This was something that Rivas had to overcome when she first arrived in the U.S. “I couldn’t understand the teachers or the classes,” she said. “We all came here without knowing a word [of] English.”

“I was in high school, two years before graduating, so I had a lot more pressure to learn because I needed to learn [English] in order to graduate and then go to college,” Rivas said. Her perseverance resulted in commendable outcomes: She was the valedictorian of her graduating class.