Roxana García sat in a packed classroom on a recent night in Jackson Heights, Queens, with 38 strangers — a chef, an I.T. technician, and a business manager among them — all with a single goal: To get a job in construction, one of the few industries open to New York’s surging migrant population. Ms. García, 36, a nurse who flew to New York three months ago from Guayaquil, Ecuador, with her partner and two children, has subsisted since then on housecleaning jobs, but in construction, she sees a future: being able to afford better care for her prediabetic teenager and the means to take her family to Disneyland. “I came here with a suitcase full of dreams,” she said in Spanish. “If I can make this into a career, that would be excellent, because I can’t focus on what I once was.”

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Persons: Roxana García, García, ” Locations: Jackson Heights , Queens, New York, Guayaquil, Ecuador