After Fleeing Violence in Guatemala, Their Child Was Killed in a U.S. School

Josselin Corea Escalante was 9 when she and her mother and younger brother left Guatemala to seek asylum in the United States, believing it would offer them safety.

They ended up in Tennessee, where Josselin — whose family calls her Dallana, her middle name — celebrated turning 15 in 2023 with a spring quinceañera in a Nashville ballroom.

But last week, another student shot and killed Josselin, 16, in her high school cafeteria. Now her family, still waiting for an asylum decision, is questioning whether it is worth staying. The main reason they made the harrowing trip to the United States — on foot, nearly two months — was fear that Josselin and her brother would be kidnapped or killed by gangs in Guatemala.

“We had a dream for a better life,” her father, German Corea, said in Spanish this week. “But the reality is that it’s not better anywhere. In Guatemala, you’ve never heard of someone killing someone in school.”

He and his wife have already made one wrenching decision: to send Josselin’s body back to Guatemala for burial, a way to guarantee that they will be reunited if they decide — or are forced — to leave the United States. Mr. Corea came to the country before his wife and children and is not part of the asylum case, so he is at more risk of being deported.

“This is the country that took her away from me,” Mr. Corea said. “And if one day we go back to our country, she’ll be there with us.”

Josselin had been thriving in Nashville, where she loved to sing and play soccer. She had once turned down a three-day trip to make sure she did not miss school. She wanted to become a doctor, her uncle, Carlos Corea, said: “A doctor saves lives, and this was not fair to her.”

On Jan. 22, a student who the police said had espoused hateful rhetoric online brought a pistol to Antioch High School in South Nashville. He opened fire, killing Josselin and injuring another student before shooting himself. The police have not said whether the shooter was targeting Josselin.

A month into 2025, there have been at least 15 shootings on or near a school campus, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database.

The loss of Josselin, who frequently translated for her family, has driven some of them to speak out.

“I am not scared — I’m telling the truth, I’m telling people how I feel,” Carlos Corea said in Spanish.

That is why he and another of Josselin’s uncles, Juan Corea, found themselves on the steps of the Tennessee State Capitol on Monday, surrounded by a crowd of Democratic lawmakers, students and gun control activists. As they left the nearby church where they held a funeral service for Josselin, they saw people gathered with pictures of their niece and understood what was going on.

“We never thought that we’d be in this position, but we wanted to give people our message,” Carlos Corea said later. The two men carried pictures of Josselin, in her quinceañera tiara and a glittering red gown.

There have been protests for gun control in Nashville before, most notably in 2023 after three third graders and three staff members were killed at a private Christian school. But with lawmakers arriving to debate the creation of a state immigration czar, the crowd at this protest repeatedly tied together the threat of immigration enforcement with their fears of gun violence.

Through a translator, Carlos Corea spoke to the crowd on behalf of his family. As they cheered, he raised a fist in the air.

In the silence of the home where they gathered for weekly meals, Josselin’s relatives have been unable to rest. Her Uncle Juan has been thinking about the dance they shared during her birthday celebration, where he told Josselin he loved her. Her father is contemplating activism in her name.

“We have support, but what I tell all parents that have had their children taken away in schools: Don’t let it stay that way,” German Corea said. “Continue doing what you can so that there is justice for our children. If we remain with our hands tied, this will continue to happen again.”

While Antioch High School has reopened, with an additional school resource officer and new metal detectors, Josselin’s cousins who attended the school with her are too afraid to return. They will enroll soon at a new school, family members said.

On Thursday, Josselin’s pink coffin was loaded onto a plane for her journey home to Guatemala. There, her grandparents and aunt were waiting for her.