FABIAN VILLENA

JUNIORS | 09 HOME ALONE IN ANOTHER FABIAN VILLENA COUNTRY

Miami Palmetto Senior High junior Fabian Villena is only 17 but is living the life more typical of a college graduate. Five months ago, due to political and economic turmoil in his home country of Peru, Villena moved to Miami. The catch? He came without his parents.

However, this is not Villena’s first time in America; it is his third. Villena was born in Miami, making him a U.S. citizen. He returned to Peru until he was 10, when his father received a two year contract with the World Bank to represent the Peruvian government. From 2014 to 2016, Fabian’s family lived in Rockville, Maryland before moving back to Peru.

On July 25, 2021, Villena returned to the States. Since his parents do not have U.S. citizenship and work for the Peruvian government, they were unable to immigrate alongside him.

Moving in July was not always part of the plan. Initially, Villena was going to wait until he graduated from high school in November 2021 before moving to the U.S. for university. However, due to the increasingly unstable situation, Villena and his parents made the difficult decision to expedite plans.

“There is a lot of delinquency in the streets and civil unrest in Peru. There’s no efficient judicial system, so there is not a lot of political action,” Fabian’s father Jose Villena said. “To send a kid to university in Peru is to put him at risk.”

Luckily, Fabian has relatives here, including an uncle, whom he now lives with. But given his work schedule, Fabian rarely sees him. This means that Fabian mostly takes care of himself, making his own meals, doing his own laundry and for the most part, transporting himself to and from his obligations.

“You want to be independent, but once you’reactuallyaloneandyourealizeyou’re eating breakfast, you’re eating dinner in a complete silence like the kind in the middle of the night – it is horrible,” Fabian said. “You don’t have someone to ask you about your day, even though at the time it was annoying.”

The adjustment has not come without its own set of obstacles. For one, Fabian entered Palmetto as a junior, a difficult time to be a new student.

“Everyone else already has friends here,” Fabian said. “It’s been hard to actually get to know someone, especially when you have 3,000 people in one school. In Peru, there are roughly 500 people, counting primary and secondary schools.”

Back home, most of his friends have graduated now, so they have moved onto different stages in their lives. But while theymaybemovingon,theyadmireFabian for choosing a more unconventional path.

“I think that many people — including myself — would have a really hard time doing what he’s doing. I, and probably many, don’t even know how to wash their dishes,” Fabian’s childhood friend Ana Lucia Campos said. “But I think it’s really valuable and really impressive that a teenager can do something like [what Fabian is doing].”

Besides the social aspect, the course load at U.S. high schools is very different from Peruvian high schools, especially since Fabian is taking rigorous classes like AP English Language and AP Spanish Language.

“The school work here is long,” Fabian said. “But I get it that here, they want you to have a good GPA, so they assign you a lot of homework.”

On top of balancing other obligations, Fabian works at Publix. He saves some money for college and sends the rest to his parents to provide additional support. Unfortunately, the distance has made it difficult for him to stay in touch with them. They are able to track his location, but they only talk about once a week.

“[Moving] had a cost — a real sentimental cost,” Jose said. “It costs us a lot to deal with our family being dispersed around the globe. It’s not the same talking to [Fabian] on What’sApp or on Zoom.”

Despite the challenges and many responsibilities, Fabian does not regret the decision to move, especially because he has wanted to live in America since he was young.

“[Fabian’s] very determined at everything he does… and he had always had this goal of going to college in the U.S.,” Campos said.

In the future, though, he hopes his parents can join him here as well.

“I want to repay [them] the favor of sending me here. So I want to stay here, go to college, have a good job and eventually, I want to bring them here,” Fabian said.

Katriona Page Senior Copy Editor k.page.thepanther@gmail.com Eitan Greenberg Copy Editor

e.greenberg.thepanther@gmail.com PHOTO BY RYAN MCKEAN DESIGN BY GIANNA HUTTON