Mentoring Immigrant Youth in Flushing: Planting Seeds of Acceptance and Openness

New York City and its five boroughs are home to roughly 1.8 million children and teenagers under the age of 20 — nearly 20% of the city’s total population. For many of these kids, especially in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, building a stable sense of identity is one of the hardest parts of growing up.

There is beauty in the masses. Individuals are allowed to explore elements of themselves with less judgment, culture’s definition is fluid for each person, and the odds of finding something you align with are inherently higher.

And yet there is equally pain in the masses. Individuals can become invisible, consistency can feel like an impossible task, and the misfortune of slipping into something you may not align with is inherently easier.

For youth in New York City, these extremes are only heightened. In a society where immigration is the backbone of its population, where over 44% of public school students speak a language other than English at home ( per NYC Public Schools), discovering identity can feel abstract. It can be frustrating. It can be isolating.

A Youth Storytelling Program Takes Root at PS 244 TALES in Flushing

Two teachers at The Activity Learning Elementary School (P.S. 244, TALES) in Flushing, Queens, are trying to make it easier for their students. Angela Valco and Fanny Roman started a group called “We Are All the Storytellers” last year. The goal of the program was to help their elementary students develop a sense of connection and identity through a creative lens.

“We wanted to do something that’s different from what we do in school, where we allow for more freedom and creativity and more student choice,” Angela said.

TALES, like Flushing, is a predominantly Asian community; the NYC Small Business Services reports that the neighborhood’s demographics are 67% Asian. The storytelling group is very diverse, including students with Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern, Hispanic, Malaysian, and Filipino backgrounds, to name a few.

“We have a mixed group of kids of different ages,” Angela said. “It’s a really great group. We have different languages respecting each other and embracing each other.”

Last year, through collaborative projects like puppet shows, creative videos, and family celebrations, the group experimented with innovative ways to help kids build connections. This year, a few new elements were at the centerfold to help solidify the foundation. 

Barnabas Project Fellows Bring Mentorship to Immigrant Youth in Queens

Joel Perez and Sianna McKenna are Fellows of The Barnabas Project’s New York City cohort. The Barnabas Project is designed to build civic leaders who desire a mature and reflective faith and models who demonstrate how to care for the social and spiritual renewal of their cities.

Marina Mason, the cohort’s co-leader and a close friend of Angela, recommended that Joel and Sienna connect with the program because of its location and mission.

The duo originally started working at TALES in September with a smaller group of about five or six kids. In October, Angela moved them into a larger group, with about twelve kids. Initially, it was an adjustment. Joel and Sienna were relatively new to mentoring and working with youth, and now here they were, showing up week after week to help kids from varying backgrounds explore their identities.

“When we went in, we focused on helping them and supporting them and just guiding their needs because they’re in elementary school,” Sianna said. We were alongside Angela, just being there to step in as that helping hand.”

The Barnabas Project’s training program is rooted in mentoring. The cohort members all learned how to holistically build relationships with students and equally outlined flaws to avoid.

Walking into a room full of elementary school students and expecting them to immediately respond positively is naïve. Like any relationship, trust is built over time and through authenticity — not through transactions.

As the duo continued to show up weekly, they noticed consistency was starting to pay off.

“There was a time in January that I had to go to California for a class. Angela would say that some of the kids would be asking for me while I was gone. So just knowing that the hour we spend with these kids, and them remembering our names, remembering that Sianna likes to cook, or that I’m into music, was meaningful. The kids really enjoyed us being there, and seeing how they benefited from it was, for me, what kept me going,” Joel said.

Storytelling Through Food: Building Cultural Identity One Meal at a Time

This year, the program’s initiative was to take a unique approach at their weekly meetings: storytelling through food. Given the ethnic diversity at hand, food was a practical, tangible way for kids to showcase their culture while simultaneously familiarizing themselves with other cultures.

 

The ideas started with having the kids make videos at home, demonstrating how their families cook meals. Eventually, this evolved into students and leaders bringing in their own food for others to try. And to cap off the year, the group led a food crawl through the Flushing community.

On that food crawl, Joel witnessed firsthand how his mentoring and presence were making an impact.

Let’s rewind.

At the beginning of the program, Angela pulled Joel aside to inform him that a particular student in the group was quite shy and preferred to speak English — not his first language — as little as possible. Joel took particular note of this student throughout the rest of the program.

Every month, the Barnabas Project’s curriculum had Fellows answer prompts directly related to passages from the Bible and other resources in that particular month. The prompts aimed to draw parallels between biblical stories and the events unfolding right before our eyes. Joel noticed that he was responding to these prompts about this specific student more and more.

“I would realize that he was coming to me, and he’d ask me for help, and he’d ask me in English,” Joel said. “He would talk about what he had for lunch, talk about his day, kind of without me prompting him to.

“When we did the food crawl on our final event, he was talking to me the whole time. Just to see that we could foster that relationship with me just being there, not really prompting him or imposing on him to speak, but him being able to come to me over time, feeling more and more comfortable. That really stood out.”

Why Authenticity Matters in Youth Mentorship

One of the biggest priorities for Joel and Sianna was authenticity. They wanted the students to never feel that there was a “façade,” or that they were bringing the world’s busyness into the group. They literally used to stop at the door before entering, calm each other down, and go in with a fresh mindset.

“We just wanted to show the kids that it’s cool to be who you are and that treating people the right way goes a long way,” Joel said. “And when you’re there, and you’re present with them, they’re going to feel that, and they’re going to feel more welcomed to approach you and speak to you.”

For Sianna, working with the kids weekly gave her a new perspective on how she can become a more complete version of herself. In the past, she has worked with adults of varying ages, but this was one of her first hands-on experiences with kids. Assisting kids with creativity, homework, and even learning a new language stems from a place of diligence.

“This experience taught me to be a lot more compassionate, a lot more patient, a lot more observant, and pay attention to detail — paying attention to what they really need,’ Sianna said. “It taught me how to be more compassionate, not just towards the kids, but also other people now.”

As Angela watched her students build these new bonds, she gained a new perspective on the students she sees every day.

“I see the boys gravitate to Joel. I’ll give them some time to play, and I see them playing basketball together,” Angela said. “I love that they feel very safe with them… I know certain students in a different way as a teacher, and so when someone comes in as a mentor, they might have insight and see other things that I don’t even see, even though I’m there every day. It’s been a great way for me to get to know them on a different level.”

A phrase that Joel and Sienna both reverberated was “the person that you are when you’re older is the person that you felt most safe around as a kid.”

Amid a room full of different languages, different ages, different stories, different journeys — all within one of the world’s largest cities — seeds were planted.

Identity was being encouraged, and identity was being formed. Students felt safe enough to share personal elements of their culture, be curious about new things, and have conversations with people much older than them whom they would normally never have.

Why Youth Identity Development Deserves More Attention in NYC

If the youth in New York City make up almost a quarter of the entire population, then there should be a focus on making them feel seen, making them feel heard, and encouraging them to be themselves.

And while they may seem like a daunting task, it comes in small pieces. It comes from showing up. It comes from being yourself. It comes from inviting creativity. It comes from being compassionate.

It comes from the heart.