The Reason we Reach for the Sky (Rough Draft)

It seems that at times, people will not act to do the right thing until they are, unfortunately, struck ironically with the same problem that others suffer from. This horribly sad, yet subtly funny little fact taunts me over and over in my mind. And here I am, trying to amend for all the things I’ve ever done wrong, in hopes that I can help the others around me, and my mother who is currently being held in prison for deportation. It seems selfish of me to only now attempt to truly speak my mind, but I do hope that you will give this essay a chance. I also hope that if you are an American citizen who agrees with separating children from their families, that you continue to read my essay with an open mind for I assure you that many of your complaints about illegal parents are simple misunderstandings. I urge you to keep in mind as your reading that we are all humans, living on earth, and that at times life can be very beautiful when we choose to walk back towards our drawers and gently set aside nativism. We as Americans have always been a nation of immigrants; it has never been “something of the past” and never will be something of the past.

Our American forefathers had once woken to the violent crashing of the waves hitting the side of their ship, its wooden dreams pierced by the heavy lead nails of perseverance. They ran from their native countries for many reasons, most of them familiar to us from years of staring at our semi-glossy textbooks. And the very moment their tired souls and aspirations sunk into the earth they achieved the first step. Immigration. The most fundamental step. Before they could run from political prosecution, poverty, and the scars of their past, they had to leave their native country, many of them secretly. Alright, sounds logical so far, until upon further thought we take a rather well known fact into account. There were people already living here, and they really didn’t like us being here! Let me remind you that many of the settlements had very violent encounters with Native Americans, and if you put it into perspective we were invading their land without notice, it just so happen that we had the better weapons. Despite this, the concept of the dream of a better life still remains heavily evident, and it should be noted that under so much pressure these people did what ever they felt was necessary to find this better life, not just for them but for the future of their children. I find it hard not to make the same connection today. This dream is still beating strongly, and the very thought of it fading into oblivion is absolutely absurd. Most, if not all, of these illegal parents have had to “brush” their teeth with salt and water or walk to school wearing nothing but shorts. Some of these people have spent their entire live hearing gunshots and listening to the eternal cries of rape in the distance. Some of these people couldn’t listen to American music because it was illegal at one point (or give children American names). These pressures created dreams and aspirations. Dreams of tasting sweets and seeing children run about freely in parks with no worry. Are these two dreams really that different? Is it really wrong that the dream of life has still endured for centuries; that others look at our country as if it were the very night sky above our heads? Should we really scorn the hands of the poor and suffering for reaching up at the sky?

Many of our parents took a very dangerous and long journey from their countries simply to solve one goal in mind. They were thinking the entire time about how to improve the living conditions of their children (or future children). I read one comment on a forum that clearly stated that it was the parents’ fault that children are suffering from these separations. I find that to be an extremely ill-informed comment. Yes these parents did indeed know that what they were doing was illegal (more detail on that later), but considering the conditions of their countries, the obstacles their governments purposely put in their way, and the poverty and lack of education they had to endure, what these parents did was not only brave, but the right thing to do. If anything they choose to sacrifice themselves for the sake of making sure that their children would not in anyway suffer the conditions they did. The parents that made it here to the United States successfully ensured that their children would have cloths, food, an education, toys, and as safe of an environment to play and grow. These parents are our heroes. They have given us everything. I also encountered the term anchor baby. According to many Americans, illegal parents come to the United States and have children in the hopes that because their children are citizens, they too will earn citizenship. Not only does this concept paint our parents as selfish and evil, it is completely fictional in nature and I find the very fact that someone could even make something like that up absolutely revolting. I am quite certain that this concept was concocted because of the immigration rage America is currently undergoing. What more perfect way to make illegal immigrants seem more evil then to have their children think that the entire reason they exist was simply to provide someone with citizenship. Is this immigration scare so immense that now our parents can not raise or bare children in the country of dreams without having some sort of evil plan conveniently attached to them? It almost feels as if there is a sense of nationalism growing in America, almost as if a concept of a pure American is emerging. The very sound of Spanish is vehemently cursed, yet its whispers tolerated behind the skillet of a Wendy’s. It seems almost as if being an illegal immigrant is currently the worst crime one can possibly commit here in America.

...to be continued

A great many of our parents are currently locked up in regional prisons or other detainment centers for crossing the border. They are being treated as if they murdered someone. Finding these dreams and trying to improve the lives of their future children and current ones is according to the law, equivalent to plunging the cold steal of a knife deep into the warmth of another person. This is enough reason to separate a mother from her daughters or a father from his heirs. It is not good enough that they will be deported anyway; they must be locked up, and placed in very remote locations so that their families must drive 4 hours to see them for 15 minutes behind a bullet proof glass. It is absolutely necessary for this country to harm its own citizens by having them smear their 14 year old tears onto the glass, knowing that on the other side their 52 year old mother is doing exactly the same. I saw my sister do this, and at that point I realized that something about this was wrong. I spent the next 4 hours in the car thinking of all the other 14 year old girls doing the same with their mother else where. We are citizens, and according to these current laws, this is best for us. Separating us from our mother is the best thing for our development and wellbeing. Does no one else think this is flawed? At times I would get up at two in the morning to search the internet to see what it is others think of this. What I see are comment with no thought in the hard ships our parents suffer. “Send them back, they broke the law, the law is the law”, “Send them all back, children and everything”, “They knew what they were getting into, they deserve this”, “They shouldn’t have broken the law, send them all back, we don’t need any more of these people”, “broke the law, end of story”. Is this what our country has become? Hateful and ignorant? This must be some mistake, perhaps simply a misunderstanding. A lot of these comments seem to assume that using the term “law” seems to give pure invulnerability, rendering all other comments null. I think people seem to be forgetting that laws were never said to be ethical. Just because something is a law, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do, or that it takes into consideration the hardships of other. This country once had laws that supported slavery, and punished fugitive slaves. This country once thought that African Americans were inferior beings, and that enslaving them was the right thing to do. This country relocated thousands of Native Americans, and killed just as many. One of our presidents, Andrew Jackson was very well known for supporting “ethnic cleansing” of many Indian tribes and for supporting Native American removal. We used 7,000 armed troops to remove Cherokees at one point, and yet this was law. We once forced more then 110,000 Japanese-American citizens into internment camps during World War II, simply for being of Japanese decent. Because of the limited things they could bring, many of their personal items were stolen or destroyed, many establishments such as stores were sold, and so were houses, and many people died in the internment camps due to lack of medical care. Yet this was law, and law is good is it not? The government simply said sorry a couple of years later, and only gave a fraction of their losses back. Many American may argue that these were mistakes, but people learn from mistakes so why is it that now it seems that law is making the same mistake again. Should our parents really be punished so severely, that it should cause depression and feelings of insecurity to hundreds, if not thousands of children, some barely the age of 10?

It seems as though many Americans seem to feel that Illegal immigrants come into the country simply to ruin their lives. These people were not sitting under a tree, chewing on a juicy foot long sub dressed in gold thinking, “Gee, I sure do want to make Americans angry as all Hell today!” These people, as I stated before, were suffering from immense poverty, political oppression, and lack of freedom of speech. They endured unimaginable hunger, have seen children suffer from lack of education and clothing, and have worked in unbearable conditions to support their families. These are people who work just as hard, if not harder then some Americans right now. Yes they knew that they were breaking a law by coming in here, but at that point breaking a law to save your child’s future sounds like the logical option over staring at their starving eyes. And yes, many of these parents also crossed the border in hopes to improve their own living conditions. And what is wrong with wanting to not starve? What is wrong with wanting to live a better life, or living in an apartment, or working hard to improve one’s own life? Is it really that selfish to want to at least walk around wearing shoes instead of walking around barefoot all the time? Can we as Americans really be so selfish that we want others around us to have less then us? So we couldn’t afford our 6th television, it must be the immigrant’s fault for coming into our country and stuffing his family of four into a one bedroom apartment eating Chinese food on three-legged table. One supposed argument is that Americans are using taxes to support illegal families, but this simply just isn’t true. These families work hard, and pay bills, and try their best to educate their families, many of them living in poor neighborhoods, in small cramped apartments, eating at McDonald’s for anniversaries and birthdays. At times our parents refuse to go to the doctor, despite being dangerously sick because they don’t have health insurance. So if these taxes are really supporting Illegal immigrants, why are their living conditions only still considered poor compared to maybe the average middle-class American with two cars? This is not to say that there are not white Americans who aren’t poor, but that Illegal immigrants do not really benefit at all from not paying taxes. I assure you that none of them are currently building a castle of gold, or own 20 cars. We are all humans, living on earth together. Why don’t we take a second to better understand each other’s plight? Is language such a strong barrier that emotions such as misery and love dissipate into the air like the exhaust of the factories are parents are slaves to?

As we near the end of my essay, I would like to address three last issues of concern. One of these issues is why parents don’t just apply for citizenship legally. Although there are many who do indeed do this, and go through the very complicated and expensive procedure, one must once again understand the conditions and plight of the native countries our parents come from. Not only are our parents dirt poor, but many of them have had a relatively poor education, and it is rather difficult to understand the citizenship process. It should also be noted that some of our parents come from countries of great and strong political oppression. I can assure you that countries such as Cuba and Venezuela will not allow you to apply for citizen ship to the untied states, note that both countries are communist in nature. Considering the time and expense of applying for citizenship, it gives off the allure of being a rather impossible task to accomplish, as such our parents decided to just simply cross and ensure that they would start new lives for their future children and/or the lucky children that could come with them. The second and third issues are related to each other, dealing with ourselves, the children of illegal immigrants. I would like to bring up an earlier quote from above, “Send them all back, children and everything”. I’ve noticed that many Americans have brought up the concept of sending parents back with their children. They are suggesting that the United States deport its own citizens and/or children who came to this country so young that they don’t even remember they came here in the first place. First of all, these children grew up in this country, and many of them speak very poor Spanish. In fact many of these children actually don’t actually speak Spanish at all and barely understand it. How are these children to survive in a country where they can barely communicate in? Aside from communication these children have spent a great portion of their lives accustomed to American life. Watching blues clues, and going to a nice school, well dressed. Sending these children to a third world country with entirely different customs and a poor education system is absolutely horrible. The third and last issue is that of sending these children to foster care. Instead of sending them to foster care, they should be reunited with their mothers and fathers. These parents are taking wonderful care of their children. Taking their parents away is inhumane; these children are going through a very important development phase that requires the attention of their loved ones. Do you really think these children won’t notice that their being taken cared of by someone other then their mother? This kind of situation can cause depression and other harmful emotional conditions, these children love their parents and simply handing the child to another adult in hopes of replacing his/her mother will not erase the problem. These children are not some kind of pet or object, they are feeling emotional humans who need the love of their mother and father. What will happen when these children grow up? What will these citizens think of their own government when they are constantly reminded of how their mother was taken away, when all she did was hug them and feed them, love them? I am not a college professor. I am not an engineer or a politician. I am in no way a writer or a well known speaker. I do not host my own tv show. I just barely graduated high school. All I know is that I am an older brother who wants to see his mother sitting on her big comfy chair, smiling at my sister while my father drinks coffee calmly in the background. We just want to see our families as a whole again, not as a shattered whisper slipping away into oblivion.