Santa Fe resident Lupita Hernandez hopes to gain legal status.
Crying and clutching the letter denying her application for permanent residency in the United States, Lupita Hernandez phones a friend from outside her lawyer's office in Albuquerque. "I'm not sure what my future will be, Hernandez said that day in February. "The only thing I want is to stay here. Eleven years have gone by now. What would I return to in Veracruz? What kind of life could I give my children there?"
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Ivanna Hernandez, 10, takes part in a hip-hop dance class at the National Dance Institute of New Mexico. Her mother, Lupita Hernandez, has worked for Ivanna to be involved in all kinds of activities. "It's my life. All I want to do is dance. I don't want to do homework," Ivanna said.
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Ivanna Hernandez looks to her mother and her mother's boyfriend for help as she tries to quiet her little brother, Ian, during Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Santa Fe. Ivanna was an altar girl during this Mass in October.
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Lupita Hernandez gets a kiss from her boyfriend before she heads to surgery at St. Vincent's Hospital in Santa Fe. Hernandez's partner, who asked not to be identified by name, sat sobbing in the waiting room during the surgery in August to fix a problem dating back to the birth of their son, Ian.
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Lupita Hernandez and her daughter, Ivanna, laugh in the rain as they leave the National Dance Institute of New Mexico. At the time of this photo in March, immigration raids and arrests in Santa Fe had made many undocumented immigrants uneasy. "I don't want them to take my mom away from me," said Ivanna, who is a U.S. citizen.
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Lupita Hernandez dances with other parents during rehearsals for a show at the National Dance Institute of New Mexico. The performance this spring featured students and their parents on the same stage.
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