I Am An Immigrant – Voices

My parents are from Mexico and I was born in USA. What I first started noticing, growing up in Tennessee, was that there were few of us. My family was only the second Hispanic family that lived here. Everyone sees you differently here. You go to the store and everybody just stops and stares like they’ve never seen someone like you. My parents have been here since the 70’s. They just became citizens like 2-3 years ago. It was awesome to witness that.The message that I’m trying to put out in the world is that we all have a dream, we’re all trying to get somewhere, and we’re all have a passion for something. You just hear about one person doing something bad and they bring everyone (Hispanics) down. It’s just hard to hear stuff like that. Then you hear them taking out the dream act and that’s education. I recently went to my first DREAM Act rally. I hear about it all the time and I wanted to experience it because I know a lot of people who are going through that situation (The repeal of the DREAM act). It was good hearing everybody’s stories because there are so many kids out there that are going through that situation right now. I heard 3 or 4 stories about kids who are trying to better themselves through education. You hear about these young kids, and it’s crazy because their parents came over here and they don’t have anything to do with it. It’s not their fault that they were brought here at a young age where they didn’t know anything about what was going on. I don’t think it’s right for them not to have an education. It’s just crazy to hear the stories from this generation.