Kids that are born and raised in America think they have it bad; they feel like they’re struggling, but I say they have a lot more opportunities at hand that they take for granted. People that are born outside of America travel long hard distances to the land of opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their kids. While kids living in the United States complain about how a restaurant doesn’t have Wi-Fi or how the pasta isn’t up to their standards. The article I found most interesting was “Lorena” left her Puebla, México at the age of six with her mother and stepfather to come to California. Lorena a twenty-two-year-old college student whose story I could relate to and really motivated me. At very young age Lorena struggled with obtaining a social security number. Most kids born in the United States don’t even see the struggle of getting a social security card. People that immigrated and are undocumented like Lorena falsification lie and struggle just so they can get a job to work in the United States. When Lorena started working she pretended to be legal by using her friend Sabrina’s social security. …show more content…
My Aunt who was the middle person between the real Sabrina and me called me and said, “you need to quit Sabrina needs her identity back.” (Page 147). That was one the saddest thing I read when reading this passage, that shows me how easy it was for her to lose everything she worked for. Knowing that she has no rights to work in America. That’s something an American child wouldn’t have to deal with. I would say Undocumented immigrants work harder than those that were born here; they don’t see the real struggle in other
I thought that Diane Guerrero who is an American actress speech about her family’s deportation was interesting. She recently appeared on an immigration themed of Chelsea handler’s talk show. Guerrero is the citizen daughter of immigrant parents. Guerrero mentioned how her family was taken away from her when she was just 14 years old. “Not a single person at any level of government took any note of me. No one checked to see if i had a place to live or food to eat, and at 14, i found myself basically on my own”, Guerrero added. Luckily, Guerrero had good friends to help her. She told handler how her family try to become legal but there were no sign or help. Her parents lost their money to scammers who they believed to be a lawyer. When her family’s
I remember the first time I came to America; I was 10 years old. Everything was exciting! From getting into an airplane, to viewing magnificent, huge buildings from a bird’s eye view in the plane. It was truly memorable. After staying few days at my mother’s house, my father and I wanted to see what Dallas looks like. But because my mother was working the whole day, it wasn’t convenient for her to show us the area except only on Sundays. Finally, we went out to the nearby mall with my mother. My father and I were astonished after looking at a variety of stores. But after looking at different stores, we were finally tired and hungry, so we went into McDonald’s. Not being familiar with fast food restaurants, we were curious to try American
Even if these students have achieved the highest honors and have the brains of an engineer, they aren’t able to reach their greatest potential because they simply do not have documents. Those who are undocumented are doomed to working backbreaking jobs that pay substantially below minimum wage. Spare Parts has challenged and shown me that it takes an immigrant double, or even triple the amount of toil to achieve anything in life. These boys endeavoured through adversities that many of us will never encounter. Luis luckily had a green card, but Lorenzo, Oscar, and Cristian were all living under the fear of deportation. They all wanted more after graduating from Carl Hayden but their dreams quickly vanished because the reality was that they’re illegal immigrants. When we hear the word “immigration”, we automatically think “illegal”, but what we don’t see is that these illegal immigrants are trying to reach their own American Dreams by coming to America. As the author includes Patrick J. Buchanan’s perspective on immigrants, “...families came to the United States to leech off government services.” (35), it shows us how immigrants are perceived.
A mother sees her children off to school at the school bus stop; however, they would never see each other again. The mother’s trip to the immigration check-in has caused a dramatic change in both her’s and her family’s lives. A story such as this, one where a parent is taken away and deported, is far too common in the U.S.A. An unsympathetic system of deportation has torn many families apart and has thrown away all the effort that immigrants have put into coming to America. Throughout the novel Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario, a young boy named Enrique struggles to immigrate to the U.S. and faces many obstacles that infringe on his right to immigrate. The right to immigrate is threatened both in the U.S. and around the world by corrupt dysfunctional
Sonia Nazario, herself an immigrant, was aware of the acrimonious debate on undocumented migration through her work as a prominent Los Angeles journalist. The issue was brought to a head when her housekeeper’s son arrived unannounced from Guatemal...
As an attempt to escape the possible tragic proceedings following cultural conflicts, Latin American immigrants seek refuge in America. Once in America, immigrants seek to gain new opportunities that can enable them to essentially achieve a better quality of life. Additionally, Henderson argues that immigrants from Latin America migrate to the United States for roughly the same reasons as other immigrants: “they might wish to join family members, have a lust for adventure, or need to escape something in their home country; but mostly they need jobs, which are scarce back home”
In the story Jubilee by Kirstin Valdez Quade A young very bright Latin American woman, Andrea, struggles with feeling like she’s been accepted in today’s society despite all of her achievements. These feelings tend to peak and turn negative whenever she’s around the family of her father’s lifelong employer, the Lowells, and in particularly their daughter Parker. Although the Lowells, as a whole seem to love Andrea and her family, she finds that their success and good fortune directly correlates to her family’s second rate citizenship. This story reveals that obsession with being accepted as an equal can be an ever increasing stressor that can severely damage a child’s identity, social skills and ultimately lead to misplaced resentment and
Before answering this question first, we need to understand Linda Chavez was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico but now lives in American so she is considered Spanish American, and also she is a liberal. So her opinion is going to be somewhat the same as a liberals views, but because she is Spanish American she has some different opinion on illegal immigrants. So why did she bothered to write about this topic because illegal immigrants happened in the 2009 and is still happening today. Also she has Experience with this topic because she is Spanish American. What she was hoping would happen is for her reader to see that illegal immigrants are not as different from native-born and immigrants may have better family values that us. After reading her writing she wanted her readers to be aware of this situation happening around them and how immigrants are not what everyone thinks. In the texts we can see this because the percent of the both parents in a household was higher with immigrants than native-born. She also states that a lot of illegal immigrants are hard works but people may say that illegal immigrants are “lazy” and she shows us this with percents “ Nearly half of illegal immigrants between the ages of 18 and 24 who have graduated from high school attend college. A surprising 25% of illegal immigrants adults have at least some college, with 15% having completed college.” (Kennedy, 525). Linda Chavez would not see these percents and think that illegal immigrants are
However, a much more modern example is one such as Yasmina Shaush, She came to the United States when she was only seven from the Ukraine with her family. They came here seeking refuge from the chaotic state of the government. She wrote an essay on the American Dream her high school senior year and is now a college student. Here is a portion of what the essay talked about. " To be born in America is a gift, one that should never be wasted. Even through today’s pessimistic climate, I find it easy to be optimistic, simply because of where I
Throughout the course of my life, I have always encountered individuals wanting to better their economic situation especially those within my community. Those who come from impoverished communities in other countries risk their lives and lifetime savings to come to the United States hoping that one day they will regain everything that they lost. Their only motivation to come to this country is to be able to provide their family with basic necessities and in order to do this, they must work two or more jobs that pay at minimum wage and are taken for granted. However, many individuals do not see this side of the story and categorize immigrants as unambitious people. In order to be completely aware of what immigrants truly go through and how they succeed in life, one must be willing to place themselves in their shoes and hear his/her story. We must acknowledge that the hands of these people work in back breaking jobs in order to sustain their families. While some Americans may be against immigrants arriving to the United States in search of a better life and the American Dream, in The Madonnas of Echo Park, Brando Skyhorse further reveals that immigrants are exploited as cheap labor, and although they contribute greatly to the everyday function of American industry, they are quite invisible.
Humans have a never ending thirst for a better life, and a better existence for themselves and those they hold dear. Jose Antonio Vargas was sent away from the Philippines by his mother hoping that he would be able to achieve a better life, and be happy. In “Outlaw: My Life in America as an Undocumented Immigrant” Vargas is able to find his better life and happiness in America but also fear and anxiety. Vargas gives us a look into the life of an illegal immigrant the good, the bad, their achievements and their constant struggles. Very much like Vargas my father immigrated to America, but legally in 1986.
Illegal immigration has been an issue in this country since its founding. However, in recent years, more and more people are deciding that the conditions in their native countries are too dangerous and impossible to overcome, so they decide to take on the journey to try and enter the United States, “the land of opportunity”, without the proper documentation. In the novel Enrique’s Journey, by Sonia Nazario, we see first hand the expedition many of these people take in order to fulfill their dreams of helping the families they leave behind. Many of these people, like Lourdes and Enrique, come thinking that the “American Dream” will be easily obtained through hard work. Unfortunately, times have changed, and this promise of riches is no longer the norm. Those undocumented immigrants that are lucky enough to make it to the United States are faced with a harsh hit of reality when they realize that the perception they had build of America, with an abundance of jobs, is actually flooded by poverty and an unsteady job market.
The book A World-Infancy through Adolescence, 12th edition, by Diane E. Papalia, and Ruth Duskin Feldman specifies that immigrants’ children have less income than those who are white (13). As the author continued explaining that majority of immigrant parents make about twenty thousand dollars a year. Therefore, such small wages decrease the opportunities
There is a common consensus among people around the world that the United States of America is the greatest country in the world because it is the land of opportunity, and the land of immigrants. In fact, the United States of America has always been the epicenter for the world 's greatest minds, and where hard work is recognized and rewarded. A place where boys become the future leaders of the world. A place where everyone, regardless of the color of their skin and their religion collaborate to solve the world’s future/current problems. Recently though, many Americans claim that undocumented immigrants steal their jobs, don’t pay any taxes, and still reap the benefits such as free public schooling. However, the author of “My Life as an Undocumented
America is often known as the land of opportunity, a place where you can be free. Many Immigrants came to America so that they could have a greater possibility at succeeding in life. Immigrants took a leap of faith when coming to America, for some it worked out well but for others they had a difficult time here. Despite the struggles that the immigrants encountered such as; standing out from others, being separated from their families, and breaking their culture, the immigrants are still grateful to be in America because they were in better conditions than they were in their home land. When viewing interviews or looking at an immigrant’s perspective you get many responses to being in America, some major things that stood out were the amount of freedom the immigrant had, and the age of the immigrant. These two things had a huge impact on the opinion of America from an Immigrants point of view.