Amid immigration crackdown, a Buford Highway youth orchestra brings refuge
On a recent Wednesday, retired music teacher Juana Alzaga drove to an immigrant-serving nonprofit along Buford Highway and tried to get a room full of third graders to harmonize — and also sit up straight.
“You and your instruments are one,” repeated Alzaga, 71, known to her students as Miss Juanita.
The young children before Alzaga — some of them dwarfed by the string instruments before them — were the more novice members of the Buford Highway Orchestra Project.
What started in 2021 as a creative outlet for underserved kids has become a place of refuge, where music drowns out the noise of an increasingly tumultuous outside world marked by surging immigration enforcement. While the bulk of her students are U.S.-born, Alzaga estimates that around 90% of their parents lack legal status.
“They pick up on the tension. … They live it every day in their community,” Alzaga said.
Orchestra, she added, represents an “escape.”
Alzaga began the Buford Highway Orchestra Project on Zoom in the immediate wake of the pandemic. Now, she meets with her cadre of 52 young musicians at the Latin American Association in Brookhaven, where they play with donated instruments.
In 2024, a documentary crew embedded with Alzaga and her students. The ensuing film, released Nov. 25 on PBS and PBS streaming platforms, captures the steadying influence of the orchestra on the lives of its members. In interviews, students discuss their love for music, their goals for the future and their fear of being separated from their parents.
Immigrant families’ day-to-day lives have become more difficult since the documentary was shot, after the Trump administration took office in 2025 and has overseen a vast funding increase to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as it seeks to enact mass deportations.
Alzaga said she has had to partner with a local taxi company to arrange transportation for her students, since many parents are too scared to drive them to rehearsals and performances. Driving without a license is among the most common offenses that put Georgia immigrants on ICE’s radar.
The music teacher, herself a Cuban immigrant, has also temporarily hosted students at her home following their parents’ arrest by immigration authorities.
“I’m always fighting for my kids,” she says.
According to Alzaga, her hope for the documentary, titled “La Orquesta,” is that it humanizes immigrant children and gives viewers a greater appreciation for their families’ contributions.
“They’re not criminals,” she said. “They are people that have been here working their butts off contributing to this society.”
Tough love
In its close-ups of Alzaga during rehearsals, “La Orquesta” shows a teacher who is animated, loud and does not shy away from being tough.
“My main thing is, of course, music and that children who are underserved are not to be underestimated. … I do not underestimate my kids. I don’t lower the bar, OK?” Alzaga said. “When you expect greatness from kids, they step up, they deliver. I’m tired of hearing: ‘Oh, poor immigrant kids.’ No. I don’t care where they come from. Just give them an opportunity, treat them as equal and you’ll see that they’ll step it up.”
A former teacher for the Gwinnett County public school system, Alzaga described high expectations as integral to her teaching style.
“Excellence is what I’m all about. I require it from me, and I require it from the kids.”
Immigrant children, she added, “have to learn to work three, four times harder just to say: ‘I’m here.’”
Near its conclusion, “La Orquesta” touches on Alzaga’s health challenges.
In 2012, she was diagnosed with a neuromuscular disease. In 2023, she faced what she described as a breast cancer bout. In the film, she expressed uncertainty about how much longer she can carry on at the current pace.
“When I have my down days, I look at the kids, I come here and say, ‘I gotta go on,’” she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I have to go on for these kids.”
Individuals can donate to the Buford Highway Orchestra Project at donorbox.org/buford-highway-orchestra-project-individual-giving.
The documentary “La Orquesta” is co-produced by Latino Public Broadcasting and produced and directed by Stephanie Liu and Monica Villacinencio. It premieres as part of the POV SHORTS showcase airing on Nov. 25 on PBS (check local listings), PBS.org and the PBS app.
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