As safe spaces shrink, immigrant youth find refuge, solace in ‘beautiful game’ of soccer

IN THE WINTER of 2019, Adelaida, an immigrant from Todos Santos, a rural region in the northern highlands of Guatemala, arrived in the Bay Area. The timing was not ideal. The then 12-year-old resettled in California just a few months before the pandemic shut down the kinds of communal spaces that could help a teenager adjust to a new life on the other side of the world. Cooped up at home, Adelaida stumbled through her online classes. She struggled to make new friends. The lockdown made the already difficult acculturation process even slower. “I never had a chance to go out, explore what was out there,” she said in Spanish. “It was very hard to adjust.”

As the years passed, Adelaida’s sense of isolation persisted. She was navigating the routine stress of any teenager’s high school life — grades, homework, the social scene — all the while thousands of miles from the familiar comforts of home. Then, one afternoon last winter, while walking home from school, Adelaida caught a glimpse of a scene that filled her with longing. A group of girls, roughly her age, enjoying the simple pleasure of an outdoor soccer practice. “They were laughing, having fun, playing so freely,” she recalled. “And I thought: ‘I want that.’”