Six thousand students flood Brooklyn Technical High School’s labyrinthine halls every morning. Down one corridor, you can hear a symphony of sighs as students pour out of an elevator whose doors have once again opened in apparent resignation — the third breakdown that week. A panicked first-year student parts the sea of bodies in a full sprint toward the staircase.

These fatigued students, hurrying together to class, are the children of the tired, huddled masses who arrived in New York. At home, their parents speak Bengali, Chinese, Korean, Hindi, and Spanish. These students seek social mobility for themselves and their families.