When Wina Aaron arrived to the United States from Eritrea in 2010, around age 7, she remembers being shocked by the number of cars on the highway leading her away from the airport.
Aaron s family left the east-African country, which for years experienced a violent war with Ethiopia, its neighbor to the south. She lived with her mother and two younger siblings her father had gone ahead of them to the U.S. In my head, I thought he was just trying to leave us, she said Thursday. Growing older, I understood that that s not what it was. He was trying to keep us safe, move us to a place where I wouldn t have to be afraid of going to school. Where I could go out in public without having to be terrified.