I Am An Immigrant – Voices

Growing up with such a diverse background, my mother being from the Dominican Republic and my father from Germany, I believe makes me more aware of the social injustices that minorities face in day to day life. Growing up, my mother always taught us to be completely tolerant of people no matter their background or their race. Just because people are different from you, that doesn’t make them any less of a person than you. I’ve personally witnessed my mom being oppressed because of her ethnic background and skin color. She has multiple master degrees from Columbia, making her qualified for many jobs yet continued to get passed over, and denied because of her skin tone. Meanwhile, nine times out of ten when she used to go for interviews, she was the only Hispanic in the room. That just shows what kind of world we continue to live in. Society continues to show us time and time again that if you’re not the typical white male, you will most likely be overlooked when it comes to employment. It’s absolutely ridiculous. That’s actually one of the main reasons why she started her own nonprofit organization. She was tired of being pushed around and looked down upon because of her ethnicity. People have always been judged and treated differently, but since Trump all of this division seems to have been magnified. It’s just sad to see that, especially since I was taught to treat every single person equally from such a young age. And now that I’m older, I am really seeing the magnitude of division there is in our country. It needs to change, no one should feel like they don’t belong.