First Generation Graduate.
Maria Yepez Damian was 7 when she began wrestling with government bureaucracy. The first person in a family of Mexican immigrants to be born in the United States, she was the one her mom relied on to translate legal documents as she applied for permanent U.S. residency.
This year, she’s also the only one who will be able to vote. Her older sisters aren’t yet U.S. citizens; they received green cards, making them permanent U.S. residents, just this year.
From the time she was in high school, Yepez Damian has been able to spend part of her summers in Mexico, getting to know grandparents and other family members. Her older sisters could not. When she was 13, Yepez Damian’s mom explained the family’s bifurcated status to her: “You’re the only one who has papers. You’re the first American in the family.”
Masrat Zahra is a photojournalist driven by a commitment to visual storytelling. Forced into exile due to the challenges faced while documenting the complexities of life in Indian-occupied Kashmir, she now resides in the United States.
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