♪ ♪ I'm Alan Domínguez, filmmaker and film teacher.

I teach film production here at C.E.C.

Early College of Denver, a high school that serves a predominantly Latino population made up of many first-generation American citizens.

After getting to know some of them so well, the last time I usually see them is at their graduation.

So for the first time, I've decided to turn my camera towards them and see what happens to some of the best and brightest after they walk through our doors for the last time.

♪ ♪ C.E.C.

is a high-performing school by district standards, so the teacher in me thinks we do right by our students in preparing them.

But the filmmaker in me wants to know if it is enough and if they are able to live out their dreams and where their individual roads have taken them.

♪ ♪ LUÍÍS: Because I was like so set.

"I'm going to do film," and like, this is thing I'm going to do.

And I enrolled, and I... and, it's just like, I realized, I'm like, "No, never mind.

This is not my thing."

- So you actually took film classes?

- I took it, yeah.

I was in there and doing it, and then I realized, like, "No, I should probably pursue something else."

And now I'm at Community College of Denver and working at... working at a warehouse with my dad, so.

The pressure that I have on me as a student and as a child of two immigrants, I feel like... it's, it kind of weighs down on me a lot.

I kind of have to really push myself to do my best.

I think everybody is a storyteller in a way, whether it's through writing, film, music.

I don't know, I feel, like, a sense of pride saying that, because I feel like we all have something to say.

This is the neighborhood where I went to high school.

They call it the North Side.

♪ ♪ I guess stepping on the college campus first time was really terrifying.

Because you're like, you're still a little kid, basically.

You're coming in, and, like, these adults and like people that have, like, real lives; just realizing that life's real and it's not a game anymore.

(both speaking Spanish) Okay.

FATHER: LUÍÍS: I'm kind of, like, torn between two things tugging at me, because I have to stay close to my parents and honor them and their, our culture and their heritage.

At the same time I'm so involved with the life here in America, it's like... kind of like, where... where is the balance at, you know?

It's just a balancing act.

FATHER: LUÍÍS: I think I have to finish what my parents started in a way, because they weren't able to go to school and have all these opportunities.

It's something I can handle, but it's something that, it just keeps me on my toes.

♪ ♪ GRACE: I just went up to CSU, and I've been up there, studying human development and family studies.

What I don't think I was ready for was the culture shock of going to a primarily white institution.

You, you feel like you don't belong or you feel like you can't.

And you're like, "Well, why am I the only one here?

"Why isn't there more people that look like me?

Why isn't there more people that look like me?"

Why did I stay?

Because I didn't want to go back home.

There is just something about Fort Collins that I liked.

There's like a strange empowerment of being like, a few, one of the few people of color up here.

You enjoy it more, because you're like, "Oh, these people understand me.

These people are up here with me."

So you guys, like, enjoy it just a little bit more when you all come together.

The first time I really realized that I was, like, away from home and that, like, things were different, the culture I was in was different when I didn't have tortillas for breakfast.

♪ ♪ I just felt like if I went back home I wouldn't change or I wouldn't try and progress.

And up here I'm kind of forced to, like...

I'm forced to come out of my shell and really advocate for myself, because I can't, I'm not going to just go home to mom and dad.

And so I... it really forces me to grow up a bit.

♪ ♪ Definitely being a first-generation student, having my, my parents be undocumented, they're looking to me.

This is all they want for me, is to finish my education.

And my parents could care less if I make money.

They just want me to have a degree and to be able to say that somebody in our family got a college education.

For children of immigrants, it's... they have a big role in helping their parents out when they're here, because the kids are the ones that kind of speak the language most of the time.

And they have to help out with translating whenever they have to go to the doctor, whenever they have to go to their school or whatever, talk to their teachers.

They have to, to kind of help their parents out as much as their parents kind of help them.

♪ ♪ As far as the academic side of it, I was always... it always came really easy to me.

I was... most of the time when I was growing up, I was the smartest kid in class.

I wanted to study screenwriting and go to film school.

I applied for a full-ride scholarship, and if I had gotten it, I would have gone to the University of Southern California, because I did get accepted there.

I didn't get the scholarship, so I started kind of thinking smaller.

But I ended up not pursuing it because I didn't want to kind of feel the pressure of... um, people needing to, to like my work in order to really make a living and support myself.

That's why I chose to, to really not pursue that path.

- Where are you working at?

I work for the post office; I'm a mailman.

I started... stopped thinking about, like, what other people had told me was the best path for me.

I started thinking about what I wanted my path to be.

I kind of came to the conclusion that college was not the best choice for me.

♪ ♪ When I told my mom that I wasn't going back to school, it was hard, because I knew that, I knew she was going to be disappointed.

And I knew that it would be hard for her to understand that that wouldn't be the right path for me; it wouldn't be the right road.

♪ ♪ Since I was born here and I've never even been to Mexico, there's definitely, like, a big distance between the, the life that I know and the life that my parents knew.

I think I would definitely want to go to Mexico one day, but go there with my parents.

And that's definitely difficult to do, considering their legal status.

It would make it easier to, to relate to them to, to kind of see it in person and see, like, where they grew up and, and where they had their hardships and why they wanted to leave.

And, yeah, I would like to go to Mexico one day.

Um...

But it's hard.

Frustrated in explaining is the fact that people... people ask me, "Well, why don't you just become a citizen?"

And that, like, that boils my blood.

Because I'm like... - You're all, "What, never even thought about it!"

- I'm like, "Oh, my God, I had no idea.

You're so right."

People think that there's a really long line to get your citizenship, when really there's no line that I could get behind, because I would have already gotten in line.

But there is no line.

♪ ♪ When the president had recently taken away DACA, I kind of just didn't know where my future stood.

It was hard, because I didn't know what was going to happen after graduation.

I didn't know what my life was going to be like.

So I kind of just wanted to give up, I was very disillusioned.

♪ ♪ I, I did always know that I was undocumented, but I never really knew what it meant until I got into high school, and people were getting summer jobs and people were getting their licenses.

A lot of my peers are able to get federal financial aid, and a lot of my peers are able to get loans and to rely on loans, and I'm not able to do that.

So I have to...

I can't just have a backup plan; I have to have one plan and stick with it.

The only problem that I have currently is that when I graduate, my DACA will have been expired for two months, and I don't know what that means for me.

And I don't think I will know until the time comes.

I try not to think about it.

It's hard.

Sorry, I get... (sniffs) I ended up enrolling for nursing, so I've been in nursing school, taking my pre-reqs.

Now I'm actually in nursing school, and I got a job at Children's Hospital.

♪ ♪ DOMÍÍNGUEZ: As they left that night, I realized that the paths after high school for these first-generation Americans were unpredictable, and their studies could only partially prepare them for what the world would bring.

I also realized that they had enormous strength.

and what endured was their connections.

Connections to families living somewhere in between; connections to an unknown past; and connections to an uncertain future.

And it is these connections that will guide them through their next turn.

♪ ♪