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Honduran teens, mom navigate life after US reunion

In this July 24, 2014 photo, Nicole Valerio Zelaya, center, 12, sits with her mother Denia Zelaya, right, and her sister Anita Medina Zelaya, 16, at their mother's home in Miami. The family, originally from Honduras, has been reunited in Miami, having arrived separately. As thousands of Central American children have come across the Southwest border these past months, this family found each other again. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
In this July 24, 2014 photo, Nicole Valerio Zelaya, center, 12, sits with her mother Denia Zelaya, right, and her sister Anita Medina Zelaya, 16, at their mother's home in Miami. The family, originally from Honduras, has been reunited in Miami, having arrived separately. As thousands of Central American children have come across the Southwest border these past months, this family found each other again. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) In this July 24, 2014 photo, Nicole Valerio Zelaya, center, 12, sits with her mother Denia Zelaya, right, and her sister Anita Medina Zelaya, 16, at their mother's home in Miami. The family, originally from Honduras, has been reunited in Miami, having arrived separately. As thousands of Central American children have come across the Southwest border these past months, this family found each other again. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

By Associated Press 5 min read

MIAMI (AP) – Denia Zelaya arrived early at the Miami International Airport. She had last seen her eldest daughter nearly 10 years earlier, when she’d kissed a sleeping Anita and then slipped out of her family’s house.

“I didn’t tell her goodbye,” she recalls. “I knew if she awoke, I couldn’t leave.”

Anita was 6, her younger sister, Nicole, not yet 3. But Zelaya had made a choice: to flee the violent gangs in her native Honduras and come to the U.S. to find work. The plan was to save enough for a smuggler and then send for her children when they were old enough to endure the journey.

This past April, Nicole, now 12, made it safely across the Texas border and on to Miami. That inspired 16-year-old Anita to attempt the trip with her own child, 3-year-old Emily.

At the airport late last month, Zelaya worried she might not recognize her daughter. Then her eyes locked on a figure hauling a toddler on her hip. As the girl approached, Zelaya saw her mirror image: large hazel eyes, corkscrew curls and a tentative smile. Zelaya pulled daughter and granddaughter into her small frame. Anita buried her face into her mother’s hair. A lone cry burst from her throat.