My parents are Americans. They are citizens of this great country, which they are proud to call home. They are also immigrants.
My father immigrated to this country from Mexico in 1972 when he was 18 years old. At the time, he wanted little more than to provide for his growing family. My mother, then pregnant with my oldest brother, had come over a few months earlier. Before crossing the border, my dad was told to squeeze into the spare tire compartment of a station wagon as they drove through customs in Tijuana. For more than an hour, he prayed and thought of his young wife while he tried not to inhale too much of the exhaust that was seeping in from the tail pipe.
That night he slept in a country where dreams come true, in which people from all over the world are risking death just to live.
The next day, my father went to work at a plant nursery earning $1.35 an hour. He worked there for five years. In 1977 he started working for General Motors where he drove cars off the assembly line. It was a turning point in his life: My dad didn’t have to hide in the spare tire compartment anymore.
As a first-generation American born to Mexican immigrants, I remember reciting the Pledge of Allegiance every day before class. It gave me the clarity of something I could depend on. The words came out of me like a song, and the rhythm seemed to synchronize itself with my heartbeat. I was taught to base the rest of the day on the simplicity of the Pledge. I would focus on the passage, “liberty and justice for all.” At the time, it just did not occur to me that even though anyone could cry out his or her allegiance to this country some people would simply never be heard.
Countless communities across the U.S. are filled with people who have no say. In Shelbyville, where I live, we are repeatedly reminded of the plight of immigrant families who have no confidence in a system they feel has little use for them.
We are constantly receiving reports of honor students being told they cannot continue their higher education because they do not have a Social Security number. Victims of crime have come to me and said they are afraid to file a report after they have been robbed simply because they fear legal-status scrutiny by police. We have spoken to children who say they become worried when their parents are coming home late because they believe their mothers or fathers have been detained by immigration authorities.
In order to bring a logical and rational solution to our immigration crisis, the people must first be heard. We are students; we are teachers; we are engineers; we are builders; we are civilians; we are soldiers; we are dreamers; we are human; and we are here. And we are marching for America.
