As the old­est daugh­ter, Iris, an 18-year-old high school junior, felt it was her respon­si­bil­i­ty to keep the fam­i­ly afloat.

That all changed in the fall of 2013. Luis had long suf­fered from dia­betes, and flu­id reten­tion in his legs made it increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to work on his feet all day, as his ser­vice jobs demand­ed. Even­tu­al­ly he had to severe­ly cut down his work­ing hours. The bal­anc­ing act became more precarious.

Work­ing two jobs and trad­ing child care respon­si­bil­i­ties sus­tained them through the boom of the 1990s and even the ini­tial dip of the 2008 reces­sion. From 2005 to 2013, both had steady cook jobs at a Burg­er King in the Mon­trose neigh­bor­hood of Houston.

Her par­ents, Luis and Jose­fa, both crossed the bor­der from Mex­i­co in the mid-1990s. They met in the U.S. and set­tled down in Hous­ton, where they had Iris, the old­est of four girls, soon after. Thus began the bal­anc­ing game. As Luis and Jose­fa worked low-wage jobs in ser­vice or day labor to sup­port them­selves and their chil­dren, the fam­i­ly was in con­stant dis­cus­sion about how to save a lit­tle here, a lit­tle there. Maybe that meant sec­ond­hand clothes or going with­out new school sup­plies. Or it could mean a few extra nights of work for Luis or Jose­fa at their sec­ond jobs as cooks.

“I was telling [my par­ents] I need­ed to get a job,” she says . ​“I always see my moth­er and she is stressed, I see my dad and his legs are swollen.” She’d tell him, ​“I know we need mon­ey, but I need you to calm down and relax.”

Against the wish­es of her fam­i­ly, she, too, took a job. Four or five days a week, Iris works at Smooth­ie King, a local chain, for the min­i­mum wage of $7.25 an hour.

It’s not uncom­mon for young peo­ple to work. Of the 16.7 mil­lion young peo­ple aged 16 – 19 in the Unit­ed States in Novem­ber 2014, 28.6 per­cent were employed and anoth­er 20 per­cent were look­ing for work, accord­ing to the Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics. Sim­i­lar­ly, a quar­ter of Lati­no youth like Iris are employed.

But what dis­tin­guish­es Iris is the rea­son she entered the work­force — eco­nom­ic need. The chil­dren of poor fam­i­lies already start off fur­ther behind for a slew of rea­sons, includ­ing food inse­cu­ri­ty, grow­ing up in a neigh­bor­hood with­out ade­quate resources, and sim­ply the stress of being poor.

Act­ing as a bread­win­ner while still a teenag­er may push these youth fur­ther behind at a crit­i­cal time in their edu­ca­tion. That’s not true is every case—most schol­ar­ship on the issue is mixed as to whether get­ting a job while in high school helps or hurts over­all achieve­ment — but jug­gling school and work may exac­er­bate the dif­fi­cul­ties faced by low-income youth. A 2002 report by the Pew His­pan­ic Cen­ter high­light­ed this dilem­ma, find­ing that, for sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion immi­grant chil­dren, ​“pur­su­ing an edu­ca­tion beyond the age of 16 involves an eco­nom­ic sacrifice.”

The chil­dren of immi­grants — even those born in the Unit­ed States — are more sus­cep­ti­ble to find­ing them­selves in such a bind, because they are more like­ly to be in pover­ty. In Texas, chil­dren in immi­grant fam­i­lies are 13 per­cent more like­ly to be in pover­ty — 34 per­cent in 2012 — than chil­dren in U.S. born fam­i­lies, 21 per­cent of whom lived in pover­ty in 2012.

Numer­ous young peo­ple from immi­grant fam­i­lies are in the same predica­ment as Iris, says Emi­ly Timm, deputy direc­tor of the Work­ers Defense Project, a Dal­las-based work­ers cen­ter. ​“They have an imme­di­ate need to work instead of focus­ing on mov­ing into col­lege or a career,” says Timm. By pri­or­i­tiz­ing work that will sup­port their fam­i­lies — rather than sav­ing for school or tak­ing on col­lege-appli­ca­tion-friend­ly after-school activ­i­ties — they risk their edu­ca­tion­al prospects. ​“That can cre­ate a whole oth­er gen­er­a­tion of unskilled work­ers that will con­tin­ue to be stuck in the types of employ­ment their par­ents are stuck in,” says Timm.

In nav­i­gat­ing the chal­lenges of pover­ty, the biggest dif­fer­ence between undoc­u­ment­ed and non-immi­grant fam­i­lies is access to fed­er­al and state assis­tance pro­grams, accord­ing to Gio­van­ni Peri, a pro­fes­sor of eco­nom­ics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Davis. ​“The chal­lenges in receiv­ing assis­tance for undoc­u­ment­ed fam­i­lies are incred­i­ble,” says Peri. In the case of Iris’ fam­i­ly, dis­abil­i­ty insur­ance for Luis could have helped the fam­i­ly stay afloat with­out Iris going to work, but as an undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grant, he was inel­i­gi­ble. ​“Essen­tial­ly, they don’t have access to any­thing except for emer­gency health­care,” says Peri.

The emer­gency room wasn’t enough to cov­er Luis’ med­ical needs as a dia­bet­ic. He began strug­gling with his health soon after he moved to the Unit­ed States — ​“there were so many restau­rants here,” says Iris. He’s not alone: A 2008 Health Dis­par­i­ties report by the City of Hous­ton found that Lati­nos in Hous­ton are more like­ly than the white pop­u­la­tion to have neg­a­tive health indi­ca­tors and are less able to access pre­ven­tive ser­vices. Because he is undoc­u­ment­ed, Luis isn’t eli­gi­ble for cov­er­age under the Afford­able Care Act, and the ser­vice jobs he works rarely pro­vide health­care. With lit­tle dis­pos­able income — and a grow­ing fam­i­ly — he neglect­ed his dia­betes. Right now, he buys med­i­cine that is import­ed from Mexico.

The fam­i­ly is hang­ing its future on sev­er­al hopes. One is that Luis and his wife will receive work per­mits under Obama’s immi­gra­tion exec­u­tive action announced on Novem­ber 20. Because all of their chil­dren are Amer­i­can cit­i­zens, and they have been in the coun­try for near­ly 20 years, they are eli­gi­ble to receive a work per­mit through a deferred action pro­gram, which will also keep them from fac­ing depor­ta­tion. How­ev­er, they have not yet applied. Many immi­grant fam­i­lies are adopt­ing a wait-and-see approach to the per­mits, con­cerned about fines or wary of expos­ing them­selves legal­ly by step­ping out of the shadows.

Anoth­er is the future of Iris and her sis­ters. Iris is still deter­mined to get a degree and is count­ing on a patch­work of aid and schol­ar­ships to help her attend com­mu­ni­ty col­lege and even­tu­al­ly uni­ver­si­ty. Hav­ing seen her par­ents strug­gle in the low-wage econ­o­my, Iris is adamant that she wants to help sup­port them.

Iris and her par­ents are also pin­ning their hopes on a move­ment — the Fight for 15. In ear­ly 2013, all three became involved with the nation­wide push by retail and fast-food work­ers for $15 an hour and a union.

Ear­li­er this year, Iris was among a group of pro­test­ers arrest­ed for block­ing traf­fic as part of a wave of nation­al fast-food work­er strikes. Not only does she see a need for a high­er min­i­mum wage, but also for con­trol over one’s sched­ule and the right to com­plain about work­place abus­es — espe­cial­ly for the days ahead when she is jug­gling work and college.

Iris is proud of her par­ents’ activism and insis­tent that they have the right to speak out. ​“Just because you’re undoc­u­ment­ed, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a voice.”

This sto­ry was report­ed through the Insti­tute for Jus­tice and Jour­nal­is­m’s Immi­gra­tion in the Heart­land fellowship.