Every year we have a writing contest for all students in NC. This year it was a non fiction story.
This boy wrote his account of coming to the US for a better life. There are many stories like this and some much worse.
I don't know if you would be interested in using this on the class website.
I think it would of interest. He won an award for his work which was limited to 300 words.
Coyotes Are Not Always Animals
One day when I was seven years old my family and I were traveling north to cross the border into the U.S. My father Paulino said we would have a better life there. There were seventeen of us walking through woods and scrub. After walking for a day we came upon three trucks parked in the desert where we met our guide or "coyote." Our guide had been in a cartel gang and guiding other Mexicans for a few years. He told us to bring guns just in case we were stopped by the "drogas." As we approached the border we passed a drug cartel gang. The gang, with over fifty armed men stopped our truck and told us to get out.. but we refused. One of the gang members fired a gun and a gunfight started. We were mostly farmers and we had experience with firearms. I had a small pistol and shot a man in the leg and then my father used his rifle to smash his head. When it was over, the gang members escaped or were killed. Three of our people were killed. We heard screaming from a barn nearby and inside we found hostages the gang had captured so we freed them and some went back to Mexico and some came with us. We now had 46 people so we kept on going more confident of our selves after fighting the cartel. We had to avoid other gangs as we continued driving.
When we got to the border we jumped on a train going north to Canada. After a few hours when we got into the U..S. and the train stopped we jumped off and went our separate ways.
Gustavo Barajas Ruiz
Morehead City Elementary School
5th Grade
Crystal Coast Reading Council
