She learned differently in August 2011, when her mother gave her some upsetting news, she said.
“She came home crying like I’d never seen her cry, and she just told me, ‘Your dad’s with ICE,’” Vivian said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal law enforcement agency within the Department of Homeland Security that deals with border security and illegal immigration.
Vivian, 19, who asked that her last name not be used because of her immigration status, was one of about 30 immigration reform activists who rallied outside Boston City Hall at lunchtime Wednesday before marching down Tremont Street to the headquarters of the Student Immigrant Movement.
That organization coordinated the event, in cooperation with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. Inside the office, activists held a teach-in on immigration issues where Vivian and others shared personal stories.
Vivian said that by November 2011 her father had been deported, after spending time in an immigrant detention center where his health declined as a medical condition went untreated.
She came to the US from Guatemala with her mother and her sister when she was 8, Vivian said, to reunite with her father, who had already lived here for about 7 years. She now lives in Lynn.