Like so many children of immigrant parents, Katherine Tabares, 17, has found opportunities in the U.S. she wouldn’t have had back home.

A first-generation immigrant from Colombia, she is the first person in her family to attend college. She is a freshman at LaGuardia Community College and graduated from the International High School at LaGuardia at the top of her class. In her free time, she volunteers with Make the Road New York, an immigrant advocacy group in Queens.

But for Tabares to be where she is, the family has had to make many sacrifices. Her mom works weeknights and weekends and her dad moved back to Colombia after he was unable to find steady work in New York.

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