Juan Cifuentes, right, with his father, Jesus, at his restaurant in Astoria, Los Perros De Chucho. Credit Scott Heins for The New York Times

By Remy Tumin, The New York Times
Jan. 7, 2019

Juan Cifuentes and his family never knew when the call would come.

For nine years, he, a sister and their parents waited in Pereira, Colombia, their hometown, outside Medellin. When he was 17, just after he finished high school, the approval for their visas came through. They were going to join his grandmother in New York City.

“It was challenging, but it was very, very exciting,” Mr. Cifuentes, 25, said of arriving in the United States in 2010. “Being an immigrant, you encounter things you never expect and feel things you don’t know about. It’s all part of the process.”

Mr. Cifuentes’s family was happy in Colombia, but they wanted a better life in America.

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