For as long as I can remember, my parents have worked incredibly hard to give my siblings and me a better future. My name is Cristopher Maldonado Urbinas. I’m 15 years old and I’m from Honduras. There are five of us in my family: my older brother, my younger sister, my dad, and my mom. We’ve always been a close-knit family. But in 2019, we had to leave the country because of the gangs. We were among the many victims of death threats from organized crime. I was nine years old.

So we had to leave Honduras. On the way to Guatemala, we had to travel by bus. When we arrived in Guatemala, we wandered the streets in the early morning hours looking for a place to stay. Thank God, my parents never let their guard down: after a long search, we found a budget hotel. My mother washed our clothes by hand so we could take showers. We left the clothes to dry until the early morning, when we left to continue our journey.

At one point, we crossed a river into Mexico; there were many police officers there. But they didn’t see us because we went under a bridge, right in the river, against a strong current. When we finally arrived in Mexico, we had reached the state of Chiapas. It was early morning, and again we looked for a hotel where we could stay for a few hours. The next day we went out to find a place to eat or buy food. Luckily, there were relatives of some family friends in that area, and they let us stay in their house. We were there for about a month or two.

One day, we saw a news report showing people from Haiti who had formed a caravan. The caravan was going to meet in a beautiful park in central Chiapas. We decided to join them for the journey north. When the people gathered, we were with them, and we started walking toward a place called Viva México, where immigration officials were waiting for us with the Mexican National Guard, intending to stop us and break up the caravan. The officers formed a human wall to try to stop us — but they couldn’t get stop all of us.

After walking many kilometers under the sun and rain, we arrived at a town called Mapastepec. There, officials caught us, and for the first time we were detained. To make a long story short, we joined two more caravans. When we were in the third one, immigration officials arrived with buses offering to help people get closer to the border and provide them with a permit. We were a little suspicious, but we had more faith in God. We got on one of the buses, and they took us to a place where they told us they would give us the permit. And despite our doubts, they did. When they had given us that document, they took us to Guadalajara.

It was the only bus that went further than the others. Thank God, we arrived in Guadalajara, and from there we went to Ciudad Juárez. There we had to stay in a shelter where we were mistreated, and they had to transfer us to a different shelter. At that time, we wanted to apply for asylum in this country, which required us to download an app called “CBP One” that allowed us to communicate officially with the government. With that, the agents who had accompanied us let us cross the border legally. But throughout this whole ordeal, we suffered a lot.

While at the border, we needed a resident to meet us so we could cross — thank God there was a person named Elena who met us. When we entered the United States, we went to live in an apartment where a childhood friend of my mother’s lived.

My dad started work the next day, and my mom stayed home helping us and handling the paperwork for the school my sister and I had to attend. I started seventh grade at a school called Ojeda, but halfway through the year, we were transferred because my sister was bullied — she had trauma from Mexico due to mistreatment she had received from strangers – but that’s the life of an immigrant.

Then I was transferred to a school called Lamar. And honestly, I don’t regret it at all because Lamar is a very special school — it’s a school where the teachers are excellent and there’s no racism. And at Rigdetop my sister received a lot of help with her trauma and fears. My sister is still at Ridgetop, and I started at McCallum. It’s been the best school for me because, thank God, I’ve felt very comfortable, and the teachers are very attentive.

Just remembering what my family and I went through hurts so much. But at the same time, I feel better because the effort was worth it. I’m a musician, I serve God, and now we’re more stable. Thank God, every leg ache, every headache was worth it. I have a future. My family supports me, and we all serve God. That’s why, above all, despite everything we went through, I’m so grateful to God. And I wish the best for those people who are going through the same thing I went through.