5mo ago

11-year-old Texas girl bullied over family’s immigration status takes her own life

www.latintimes.com

11-Year-Old Texas Girl Bullied Over Family's Immigration Status Takes Her Own Life

Summary

Jocelynn Rojo Carranza, an 11-year-old girl from Gainesville, Texas, died by suicide after enduring months of bullying over her family's immigration status.

Classmates allegedly mocked her and threatened to report her family to ICE. The school was aware of the bullying but failed to notify Carranza’s family.

Her mother, Marbella Carranza, only learned of the harassment after her daughter's death and is now working with investigators and the school to understand what happened and why she was not notified.

News @lemmy.world

ByteOnBikes @slrpnk.net

5mo ago

11-Year-Old Texas Girl Bullied Over Family's Immigration Status Takes Her Own Life

www.latintimes.com /11-year-old-texas-girl-bullied-over-familys-immigration-status-takes-her-own-life-575984

133 comments

"It [the bullying] had gotten so aggressive, Carranza was meeting with a school counselor multiple times a week. Her family, however, was never notified."
What the literal fuck. The bullies said the bullying wouldn't ease up until her family got deported. She was meeting with the school counselor several times a week and the school didn't separate the bullies out? They didn't notify the parents? I hope people are held personally liable. Your beloved little girl taking her own life is an unimaginable tragedy.
The president is setting such a shameful example.
- That’s what hit me the hardest too. This was completely preventable. The lack of response by the school is even more to blame than the bullies. The knot in my stomach wants to deck that school counselor.
  
  I agree that the adults here are the most responsible, but I hope those kids understand the gravity of what they've done.
  
  I was thinking she can't even sue, without risking her own precarious safety.
- Even in my time the person who reported the bullying was treated worse than the bullies, and I’ve been out of school for a while. From what I’ve heard, it’s been getting much worse.
  
  Seriously, the only way to defend yourself against bullying is to beat the crap out of the bully. And you will get repercussions for it, but the bully will think twice next time.
- Nobody will be held liable. It will be spun as a horrible tragedy and the school will move on.
- Yet they pass these laws forcing teachers to rat on trans kids. Bet if this poor kid went by Carlos instead of Carranza they would have called right away!
  These motherfuckers.
  
  I don't understand this. why would her last name being Carlos change anything? that's not even a last name
- He's setting a shameful example while feeling shameless, that's the part that boggles my mind... like the one day he signed more of his 'executive orders', upsetting who knows how many people's lives again, then hopped away afterwards to go golfing.
- I hope the school is sued into bankruptcy. And that all the bullies are suspended indefinately. Why didn’t the councilor call the parents?
- Prolife. Smh
  
  It's just pro-birth. They don't give a fuck after the cog I mean baby comes out
At 11? Christ, that is devastating.
- Yeah I'm kinda speechless. It doesn't bear thinking about but I kinda wonder how aware she was of the consequences of what she was doing.
  
  Yeah, let's blame her.
  
  If it doesn't bear thinking about, remove your comment.
  
  She was fucking 11, you dumbass.
  
  What was she doing?
  
  I promise you, at 11 you know what death is. And it’s the ADULTS responsibility to protect you anyway. Why are you blaming the victim?
  
  Oh you're asking if she could relatively conceive of what life would be like without her in it, especially to her family and friends. If she had that level of mindfulness and could pre-meditate the consequences.
  I mean, she was 11. And even fully grown adults can barely know what the consequences of their actions will be, so I doubt this was ever something considered.
  It was probably a combination of short-term pain felt by herself and shame felt towards her family that led to the breaking point. Makes me dissociate just thinking about this story
And I'm sure that MAGA scum are cheering about it.
- MAGA are all about keeping the children unsafe.
  There’s no greater threat to a child than a Trump supporter.
  
  Yes but God loves fetuses!
  /s
I grew up illegal in the US. I was brought on a travel visa at the age of 5 and it wasn't until my mid 20s that I became a citizen.
I vividly remember being in elementary school, around her age, in music class where we were learning the national anthem. The entire class would stand up and we should sing "I'm proud to be an American" and I remember silently crying as I stood up and sang the song.
I cried because I understood even at that age that I was not an American. I was part of everything while simultaneously always being detached from everything. Never fitting in, but pretending to. I think long-term it created a strange sense of detachment from society. This shit fucks you up and it's heavy stuff for a child to process. It wasn't until my adulthood that I really started to understand and internalize a positive narrative from my upbringing. An 11 year old child does not have the capacity to process this.
And I'm in my 30s now- I grew up illegal before social media and before this xenophobic outburst started circa 2016. I'd imagine it's so much worse today.
I feel for this little girl. I feel for all the children in the country who's only crime was existing. Obama, while famously being the deporter-in-chief (both Obama terms aw more deported than Trump's first term), at least did offer DACA as an executive order for these children.
Really, I think you can tell the state of a society by how they treat the vulnerable. And the US is getting increasingly brutal and cruel. We're in for a wild fascist ride, comrades. It's only just begun.
- You are an American.
  
  Thank you. I feel like one these days. Especially after the naturalization ceremony. This is a country of immigrants and I'm part of it. I'm not ashamed of it anymore. I was when I was younger.
  
  are is not was
- Wanting to reaffirm that no matter what anyone says you're just as valued and important as anyone else in this country.
  I hope that one day our society and law will accurately reflect reality.
  Wishing the same for my family and friends who bear the same burdens. It's very depressing our world is still caught up in racial problems and not important problems like food and shelter.
  
  thank you, i appreciate the kind words. like i said, after processing and coming to terms with my upbringing, I see it as a positive these days. I got a unique outlook on life that most people don't have the privilege to see.
  I know things about this country Americans don't have any clue about. By being sort of "in between" cultures, it lets you zoom out more easily. the world which was once small gets bigger.
  It’s very depressing our world is still caught up in racial problems and not important problems like food and shelter.
  I think people are scared. Americans are insecure about their future. Financially, emotionally, and societally.
  I think we have to go through this painful phase but we will come out the other side with a new 21st century ideology. Once that fixes the contradictions of the 20th century one we still have.
- exactly this. later on as an adult I realized I had my own path and that path was always going to be different from the average. got me thinking differently, opened my mind, etc. I think also knowing 3 languages helps
  ideology gets impressed upon you at an early age already, especially here in the US.
- Never fitting in, but pretending to
  Not trying to deny your experience or anything like that, but a lot of people feel that way, especially around that age, are you sure it was because of your lack of citizenship? I know I have always felt like that, and I was born in Boston, Mayflower descendant too...
  Not the point, I know.
  
  you're correct it's not a unique experience to feel isolated from the rest of your peers. i feel like it's an experience that might actually be increasing. i think social media ironically adds to this in the youth. many biracial people also experience something like this (ie, too white for the blacks, too black for the whites)
  when i got here initially i moved to a place where nobody spoke my native language. so when i went to school, i would get put in a class all by myself with a nice lady who would hold flash cards with pictures on them. she would show me a card, it would say something like "cat" or "ball" and then she would repeat them over and over.
  so the first year or so of primary school I was alone in a room because I didn't speak english yet. really what eventually taught me english was cable TV
  another element in the experience is being afraid of authority. the police were dangerous because at any moment if they caught us the family could get separated and we could get deported. one time my parents were cleaning an office late at night (they worked in cleaning when they first arrived in US) and they brought me with.
  i didn't understand what a fire alarm was so i pulled it. my parents, scared that the authorities would arrive and see a young child, took me and put me in the backseat of the car where people's feet usually go and they put a blanket on me. they told me to be very quiet and not make a sound otherwise we could all be deported. so i hid in that car for an hour or so until the emergency services left
  i share these things not to say i had a hard life or anything like that. I think I had a good upbringing. and I understand many Americans have had much worse experiences and also feel alienated as well.
  But I share these things just because the story in the OP touched me because I was that 11 year old child once. It's a life and a set of experiences a lot of Americans don't really think about very much. Or at least historically has been more or less ignored.
  Nowadays illegals have attention but unfortunately an overwhelmingly peaceful people become "rapists and murderers". if you look up statistics, illegals are 2-4x less likely to commit crime than native born americans (if you get any charge at all, you can get deported.. even if you get acquitted or the charges dropped!). so naturally they tend to be more careful breaking laws
God damn , I hope these good Christians will burn in hell.
- They're celebrating. This is what they want. They want all Hispanic people gone. They never cared about immigration or legal status, they hate Hispanics and they want them all gone, and children are the Hispanics they hate the most. I don't know if you've ever really listened to their rhetoric, but ''I drove by a school and all the kids were Mexicans'' is a BIG taking point on the right and has been for decades. They want out kids gone by any means.
  
  I never understood them. The American Southwest always had a very large hispanic population... I mean they were there before settlers from the US came along, even racist cartoons from the 1890s and 1900s showed hispanic looking people as being part of the culture there.
  
  I know, just around me that they can look at their black ass, hateful souls, "read" the new testament, and mental gymnastic themselves into believing they good, upstanding Christians.
  
  This is the stupidest thing I've read all day. I'm Hispanic, nobody wants all of us gone. Stop fear mongering. This is an issue about illegal immigration, from any country.
- I'm athiest but deep down hope there is a hell. Just to see all those "christians" down there.
- Unfortunately they won't because it undeniably doesn't exist and they know it too
Hey US, that's when you know fascism is taking over.
https://www.suicideinfo.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/07-Suicide-under-the-Nazi-regime_-A-Case-control-Study-among-Amsterdam-Jews.pdf
The US regime believes in notifying parents, irrespective of the possible harm, if their child might be gay or trans but won't bother with bullying so severe it leads to suicide. The US is fucked.
Unfortunately, that's mission accomplished for team red, as that's one fewer brown person growing up to take yer jerbs.
This was not a suicide. The Trump regime and her classmates murdered her.
"failed".
What are the chances they just ignored it, intentionally?
- I'm willing to bet that's exactly what happened. Dollars to doughnuts these were MAGA bullies at a MAGA school with MAGA teachers/"leadership" and the adults either tacitly endorsed the bullying or participated in it themselves. They're probably glad that she's dead and (privately, if not publicly) laughing about it because it's one less "illegal [pejorative]" polluting their white community. I genuinely think we're at that level of near-genocidal dehumanization at this point.
  
  Exactly. And it is Texas we’re talking about here.
The school never bothered to tell the parents their kid was being bullied.
- Oh but being Texas they sure as F would've told her parents if she was expressing gender dysphoria right? Ye gods what a dumpster fire of a society.
  
  The only reason any of those teachers even wanted her to get older was so they could tell the authorities if she ever missed a period. They're an unsalvageable species in Texas.
RIP Jocelynn. The Hispanics should move out of Texas and watch the shithole collapse.
The MAGAts are sub-human shit.
- Unfortunately, Texas does a great job of brainwashing a lot of people with Texan pride. Most of them are probably of the "Texas is the best" mindset.
Rage. This is so incredibly tragic. I'm sitting here at 6:45 AM just crying when I should be getting ready for work. This is the type of world they're trying to build.
- This is the type of world that is already and needs to be dismantled.
  
  And those responsible must not be allowed to reenter society and be forgotten. They cannot be simply ignored anymore. Fuck all of them and anyone who would support this. I wish we had the time as a society or as a planet for more options, but the clock is ticking.
The bullies are modern day Hitlerjugend
This is utterly heartbreaking. Only 11 years old.
Fucked up
Is that the pro life, they've been talking about
Disgusting. Fuck those hateful bullies and the parents who taught them.
Straight up heartbreaking...
Never let the intolerant win.
There's going to be so much blood on Rump roasts hands... I don't know how he can look himself in the mirror. That's okay. Karma's a bitch. The next go around won't be so easy for them, I'm sure.
- Karma isn’t real, don’t count on it handling anything.
As a parent this is extremely disturbing. Not only for the topic but that the child felt the need to take her own life instead of asking for help.
On the other side I am very involved with my children and ask them constantly how school is going. If they are having issues they always tell me so I can help. My concern is the daughter did not feel like her parents would help which is why she did not tell them. She would rather take her life. These parents need to take a hard look at why their daughter didn’t want to come to them either this. My heart goes out to the family.
- Maybe the daughter knew the parents were already anxious about the growing bigotry surrounding them. The school had already shown her it wasn't going to help so she may have felt she'd be adding to a burden that her parents couldn't do anything about. If you want to blame someone, the bullies and the school seem like the appropriate targets.
  And yeah, lots of people think their kids tell them everything until they find out their kids are keeping secrets.
Kids are awful.
Adults are awful.
People are awful.
- Cruelty like this is a learned trait, too. These kids didn't come up with this on their own, they learned the hatred at home.
- Texas is awful. The United States is awful.
Welcome to the new america, I guess.
- same old racist america just with flashier gadgets
This is terrible. It's sad, so sad. The USA is complicit for the deaths of the Gazan kids by Netanyahu already, and now this. This is how decadent hegemonies look like.
I know everyone here is going to be talking about Trump but there's also the complete negligence of the school to talk about too. Bullying happens every day and it causes suicides all the time. Schools decide to take the easy path of ignoring it or blaming the victim every day too. Until there's accountability for the staff and bullies this problem will keep taking the lives of children and we will keep raising kids who see violence as a legitimate means to get ahead.
- Honestly seeing this problem makes me thankful I went to a very small school. Like there was only 200 students in the whole school. Which meant everyone knew everyone so if you were being a dick, 199 people would know about it. It helped bullying go away honestly so small schools are the way to go. Shame there's a teacher shortage.
I hope the parents sue each individual school administrator and the school board. It won't bring back their kid, but it's still a form of justice.
Then again it's Texas, so justice is more of a concept than any kind of expectation.
omg that is just heart wrenching. Poor little girl….I am so sorry for you and your family. <3
This is a tragedy. And everybody knows the US is a rogue state now. I'm more interested in reading about solutions, then further emotionalizing the debate. This isn't helping anymore, it just makes ad money and attacks peoples mental health. Everyone already picked a side, so what do you want to do next?
Those kids should be forced to hear her name every morning they wake up for the rest of their lives.
- Removing her from their lives was probably their intent with the bullying. Whether or not they considered death over deportation, they got what they wanted.
  Maybe I'm too cynical as an outsider looking on to the US but I don't think these kids will even remember her name in 5 years. Only that they succeeded in preventing whatever DEI /woke word vomit their parents and the media warned them about.
May the bullies live to very very old age, haunted and ashamed by their crime, and always remembering with profound anguish this smiling face and these sparkling eyes that they extinguished.
- haunted and ashamed by their crime
  If only they had the capacity for that. :-/
  
  they were also children, presumably echoing the narratives of their parents. it is not a foregone conclusion that they are incapable of empathy.
Rest in peace girl.
RIP
I would like to remind everyone that there are many MANY POC that deal with this, suicide or not. It's much more common that POC are often the first to be bullied b/c others think they can get away with it. If you want this to stop, you have to call out every instance of it. It's not just Trump that's responsible. It's also all those that sit back and let it happen. If you say you're against it, then do something about it.
- Thus is not a POC this is is a kids are assholes and bullies rarely get in trouble. The fat kid the weird kid the poor kid the kid whatever all get bullied.
  
  Being POC is absolutely a huge factor in being bullied, and I never said it was only a POC thing. All the groups named can be bullied, but in the context of this article, POC-based bullying is absolutely a correct statement to bring up.
Not that we're undocumented or anything but bullying is yet another reason I'm homeschooling my kids. Fucking little shits. Nothing like Lord of the Flies blind-leading-the-blind mentality while the adults either endorse it (conservative fuckwits), or are too overworked to do anything about it.
- I was bullied relentlessly throughout school. Kids told me to kill myself daily. And I tried to multiple times.
  My mother contacted the school and the police when my bullies broke into our house when they thought I was home alone and the authorities just said, "Boys will be boys." We moved shortly after.
  
  I'm so sorry. That's so fucked up... I hope things are better now for you.
Very tragic to see.
This is horrible, but I can't help but read all these comments generalizing the situation. There are millions and millions of Mexicans/Hispanics all over this country, no one cares, no one is making it an issue. I remember when all of Lemmy, and Reddit was quick to say that not all illegals are murderers after the Lakien Riley incident.. but now, apparently, it's okay to say the entire country is filled with bullies and idiots like these kids at this school. This article is fear mongering, nothing else. It's equivalent to what the Right does about illegals, and yes, I say that as a person who votes primarily Right.
- but now, apparently, it’s okay to say the entire country is filled with bullies and idiots like these kids at this school.
  i mean… yeah cuz it’s kinda true. 22% of US students report being bullied—that’s 1 in 5, and those are 3 times as likely to show suicidal behaviors, which is the second leading cause of death in high schoolers.
  compare that to criminal convictions for murder by illegal migrants in FY24: 29. not 29 hundred, not thousand. twenty-nine.
  bullying is a huge problem. don’t get me wrong, i’m friends with former self-admitted bullies. it doesn’t mean a person is irredeemable. but bullying is a big deal that’s worth talking about.
  
  I meant bullying specifically targeting Mexicans/Hispanics who are "illegal." This article is to rile up the Left.

133 comments