Erica Hellerstein: [00:04:49] this ethos of soccer as a sort of global language and this really emotionally safe space is really core to how they operate.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:04:58] Today, how immigrant youth are finding solace in soccer.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:05:06] Obviously, immigration’s probably the biggest story right now. You’re an immigration reporter. I imagine you’ve been really busy. But why did you want to focus on immigrant youth and young newcomers in particular?
Erica Hellerstein: [00:05:22] I really wanted to look at how this population was experiencing the first few months of the Trump administration.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:05:32] Erika Hellerstein is a senior immigration reporter for El Timpano, a Spanish language news organization covering issues affecting Latino and Mayan immigrant communities in the Bay Area.
Erica Hellerstein: [00:05:46] Alameda County has the second largest population of unaccompanied minors in California, which some people also refer to as newcomers. So these are children who came to the U.S. On their own, and they’re often placed in households with a sponsor, and that sponsor tends to be a family member or somebody maybe who their parents knew back at home. So there’s a lot of young immigrant children who are resettling in the Bay Area. Oakland Unified School District in particular has a lot of not just unaccompanied minors, but children maybe who did come with their family members as well within the school district. And so as the Trump administration issued a policy revoking sort of longstanding guidance that said basically immigration enforcement can’t conduct ICE raids at schools. I really wanted to focus on the emotional journey of newcomers as they experience the Trump administration and the federal immigration policies that are coming down the pipeline.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:06:58] Well, I know you talked with a young person who recently immigrated to Alameda County. Tell me about Adelaida. Who is she and what’s her story?
Erica Hellerstein: [00:07:07] So Adelaida came to California when she was 12. She came from a pretty rural part of northern Guatemala. Adelaide asked us just to use her first name because she’s an immigrant and wanted to maintain her safety and security.
Erica Hellerstein: [00:07:23] And when did you arrive in the United States?
Adelaida: [00:07:26] I arrived in 2019, at the beginning of the pandemic.
Erica Hellerstein: [00:07:30] She arrived in the U.S. When she was 12. It was the winter of 2019. And so just as she was kind of beginning this process of trying to acclimate to her new home, the pandemic happened and was completely disruptive, which we all remember, obviously.
Erica Hellerstein: [00:07:48] When you arrived, were you in a virtual school?
Adelaida: [00:07:53] Yes, we were in a school, but it was virtual. But it’s not the same. Communicating with people is such a vital thing in this life.
Erica Hellerstein: [00:08:01] You know, school shut down, and so just kind of all of the, like, places that a teenager or a soon-to-be teenager would try to, you know acclimate to a new place and make friends and just build relationships, immediately kind of shut down and she was just shut down at home. And she, you know, she was… Trying to learn English. So it was also just really hard to keep up with school. She described it as sort of a series of two shocks at once, coming here and then experiencing the shock of the pandemic.
Adelaida: [00:08:31] And during the pandemic, we couldn’t do anything. When we left the pandemic it was difficult to adapt to the situation.
Erica Hellerstein: [00:08:38] And that sense of isolation really persisted for her over the years. She kind of struggled to rebound from the pandemic and just never really feeling like she found her community.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:08:54] Tell me about the first time she came across a soccer team.
Erica Hellerstein: [00:08:59] Walking home from school one day, a bit over a year ago, and saw a group of girls like outside at a high school soccer field, messing around. She just felt immediately intrigued by this group.
Erica Hellerstein: [00:09:15] They were laughing, having fun, playing so freely, and I said, I want that.
Erica Hellerstein: [00:09:26] The way that she saw them playing, she just saw so much freedom. So those are the words that she used. They just felt very free to her. They felt like they were having fun, messing around, joking. And that was exactly what she had been looking for. And then she learned that they were part of a team that was overseen by a nonprofit called Soccer Without Borders that basically staffs soccer teams largely made up of refugee and immigrant youth in the Bay Area, but also in other parts of the country. And she approached the coach and was like, how do I join? Sign me up. She became a really, really committed player and member of this squad, the majority of whom are girls from Central America.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:10:17] So these are people just like Adelaida who share, I imagine, many of the same experiences of immigrating here and looking for community. And I know you actually went to one of these matches. What was it like?
Girls at soccer game: [00:10:31] Get up, get up, you’re good, you good. You got it, you got it!
Erica Hellerstein: [00:10:35] Yeah, so I went to a few games during the team’s spring season and I went to one in April. And it was a really vibrant environment. There was the team’s family members that were there and cheering them on. And it was really like intense competitive game.
Maddie Boston: [00:10:54] Remember what is the best shape to pass in it’s a triangle the reason why I do this
Erica Hellerstein: [00:11:00] Maddie Boston is a program manager at Soccer Without Borders. And so when I went to the games, she was coaching a team. And her role is to just basically be relentlessly enthusiastic. And I was just kind of blown away by her energy level that she was able to sustain the entire game.
Maddie Boston: [00:11:21] Keep it up, girls! Keep trying! Come on, come on, Come on!
Erica Hellerstein: [00:11:23] But also, I think what Maddie kind of embodies is just that it was a very fun-loving league. The girls are really goofy, joking around, having a lot of fun, and I think expressing themselves fully in a way that maybe is difficult to do in other spheres of their lives
Girls at soccer game: [00:11:42] Thank you, I’m so proud of you! Look how good your English is! Oh, it’s beautiful, girls! Okay, get your team over there.
Erica Hellerstein: [00:11:49] A lot of them did describe it as we’re like, we’re creating this one kind of safe space that these children have, especially as the administration is, you know, coming after immigrant communities. Schools are no longer necessarily feeling safe. Churches are no long necessarily feeling save. Immigration policy is changing every five minutes, so spaces that maybe felt okay, like immigration court, now aren’t because there’s detentions. So… They’re trying to create, I think at the very least, a sense of emotional safety and security in these fields and spaces. And I think that is something that I saw, just a level of trust between the players internally with each other, but also the coaches.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:12:40] Coming up, what immigrant youth say about the importance of soccer. Stay with us.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:12:51] I mean, talk a little bit more about this organization, Soccer Without Borders. It seems like it’s specifically made for immigrant youth.
Erica Hellerstein: [00:13:01] It is, and that’s who’s playing on these teams. Places have used, and organizations have used soccer as a integration tool for children to feel more comfortable. I knew about the work of Soccer Without Borders, and it just seemed like a really natural place to start speaking to people because they work exclusively really with refugee and immigrant youth. And I think they, this ethos of soccer is this sort of global language and this really emotionally safe space is really core to how they operate.
Katie Annand: [00:13:36] I would say that soccer is a very common and excited response for many of my clients.
Erica Hellerstein: [00:13:43] Katie Annand is an immigration attorney at Immigrant Legal Defense. She basically said that soccer provides a sense of freedom and emotional security for newcomers that’s very distinct.
Katie Annand: [00:13:56] I remember working on a declaration with a client and talking about, again, things that bring this client joy. And we’re talking about soccer. And I asked him how he feels when he plays soccer. And there was no hesitation. His first words were, I feel free.
Erica Hellerstein: [00:14:15] And that was interesting to me because that’s something Adelaida told me as well. And so there is this through line. I think something about soccer allows children to feel unburdened.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:14:26] Yeah, tell me a little bit more about Adelaida. I want to come back to her. I mean, what does she tell you about how soccer has helped her through some of the challenges that she’s experienced as a newcomer in the Bay Area?
Erica Hellerstein: [00:14:40] She really pinpointed soccer as the starting point for her of beginning to consider Oakland her home.
Adelaida: [00:14:54] It has helped me to feel more integrated to this country, to them, to the school, more part of it.
Erica Hellerstein: [00:15:03] By the end of the conversation that we had, we started, she came here, it was a pandemic. Everything shut down, she was completely isolated. That was 2019. Now it’s 2025. She told me, Oakland’s my home. I consider this place 100% my home, so to have that kind of trajectory was interesting and she told me that’s, yeah, that’s because of soccer. That’s because the people that I met, people who have played on team sports. Maybe can relate to that, that you just develop relationships with other players on your team or the members of your team. And she kind of all of a sudden had this built-in network of people who could not, who not only shared her experience because they were also newcomers and spoke the language that she speaks, Spanish, but could give her advice on like, maybe if, you know, some people were a little bit older and had, or had been here a little longer. Had a little more experience and would just give her tips on like, here’s how you deal with this thing at school. Or, you know, just kind of insider info that I think she was feeling like she didn’t have before when she was just cooped up at home and then searching for like her friends.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:16:19] And I mean, you talked earlier about there being just so much fear right now, even in schools and in courthouses and churches, places that were traditionally considered safe places. I mean did you get the sense that folks who are part of this league are feeling safe playing soccer outside with a bunch of other immigrants or do they worry about being a target even on the field?
Erica Hellerstein: [00:16:45] I think the stories that they shared with me were that they feel safe. But I think it’s emotionally safe. And that’s maybe different from the realities of, yeah, this is a time when we’re all seeing what happened in LA, and there’s protests, and people are getting picked up at courthouses and at Home Depots. And so it’s a constantly ever-shifting environment of, where are you actually safe? But what I heard from them was at the very least a sense of psychological safety, which when you consider how much of the intent of the administration is also to, I think, create fear. Psychological safety for a lot of people is also really important. Some kids, yeah, they come to practice and they want to talk about what’s going on. Some kids really, really don’t. Some of the coaches said, you know, if it comes up, it comes up, but like our job is not to facilitate a discussion every practice about the administration if that’s not where kids are.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:17:50] Yeah, and as you say that, it just makes me think about how amazing it is that just thinking about and looking at the photos of those girls on the field, how much it took all of them to get to that field.
