For a long time, my parents’ struggles as legal immigrants defined my perspective on illegal immigration. I grew up hearing stories of hardship and difficulty that my parents had to overcome during their teen and young adult years as immigrants.
Prior to moving to the United States, my dad, aunt and uncle had to stay in South Korea while their parents took jobs in America as factory workers to save up enough money to send for their children. A year later, when the siblings arrived, my uncle, then three, clung to his brother and sister, unable to recognize his own parents.
About ten years later, my mom arrived in the States with her family. My mom lived in New Bedford, a predominantly Brazilian-Portuguese town at the time. The dropout rate was 90 percent for New Bedford High School. Teachers didn’t care enough to help a student who spoke no English.
My mom, to this day, remembers math worksheet after math worksheet that she was given because algebra required almost no knowledge of the English language.
Knowing my parents’ struggles as immigrants, I felt a deep connection to the “immigrant story”: the American dream of a better life, the fight to survive, the overcoming of odds and succeeding.
Millions of people have to wait for their applications to go through in order to pursue their dreams. In my eyes, entering the States illegally in pursuit of a better life was almost like cheating and cutting to the front of the line, taking the easy way out. Though I did not actively support deportation of people who were here without legal status, I was not against it.
Though I heard of the horrors of exploitation of non-legal residents, I felt little sympathy. They had broken the law and had made the choice to immigrate, despite knowing that their lives would be difficult on the other side of the border.
I believed that the law is the law, no matter the circumstance. However, my opinion changed when I started my first job.
Many of my coworkers were Latino immigrants living in the States without legal status. At first, nobody spoke to me. It was not that language was a barrier; I spoke sufficient Spanish. It seemed like they were afraid and nervous to talk to me.
Being the outgoing person that I am, I could not stand the tension. I initiated conversation and banter and, eventually, tense smiles and hellos developed into inside jokes and comfortable friendships.
In the beginning, my stance on residents without legal status did not change. I didn’t associate my coworkers with the prejudiced picture I had created in my head: sneaky, selfish people who crossed the border and had no regard for those who had to wait for citizenship. However, I got to know my coworkers and began to realize that they were not legal residents.
For the first time in my life, I saw them as people, rather than as a vague, stereotyped entity. The shaded-in silhouette that once stood for “illegal immigration” in my mind had been transformed to include the faces of my funny, light-hearted, loving coworkers. The only things that separated us were two labels: legal citizen and non-legal residency.
My moral and ethical values became muddled as I struggled to define my stance on illegal immigration. It was difficult to be spiteful towards individuals who were so trapped.
My coworkers were paid in cash below minimum wage and borderline abused by our boss. There was no better prospect for their lives in the United States.
Still, they had made the decision to immigrate, knowing that life might not turn out better here. They broke the law, something that I felt could not be condoned.
Then it all became clear when my mom told me a story.
Around her sophomore year, my mom’s parents were desperate for someone who spoke English and Korean to translate between them and their tailoring customers. So my mom
skipped school to work in her parents’ shop. When she didn’t show up at school for a week straight, her guidance counselor became concerned and asked my aunt where my mom was. My aunt told her, and the guidance counselor intervened immediately. She set up a schedule that allowed my mom to go to school from 7-11 a.m. and work from 11 a.m. onwards. In essence, the guidance counselor saved my mom’s life. My mom graduated high school, went on to graduate from pharmacy school and never looked back.
The compassion of the guidance counselor is what shaped my opinions on illegal immigration. Had it not been for that guidance counselor, it’s very possible that my mom could have ended up trapped in poverty in New Bedford forever.
Because somebody cared enough about her to give her a chance, my mom became a successful, contributing citizen to this country. I believe that regardless of legal status, people deserve a chance to strive toward contributing to this great nation.
The United States is a country of opportunity and hope for improvement of quality of life. If we continue to oppress people based on their legal status, exploiting them to try to better ourselves, we are nothing more than hypocrites.
While we must be careful not to allow room for the interpretation that breaking the law is acceptable, we must also not be so quick to throw out the people who are already here.
I’m only a high school student. I don’t know how our country is going to deal with the increasing number of residents without legal status every year. But what I do know is that if we want to move forward as a country, we must shed our prejudiced ideas and stereotypes of people who immigrate to the United States illegally.
They are not a force of evil invading the United States and taking away jobs. They are not a uniform group of people, all exactly the same. They are not outsiders or aliens.
Immigrants are individuals with talents, flaws and many dreams of a better life. They have something to offer the United States beyond manual labor.
Immigrants are people who have the right to strive for a better life. And we need to be open to extending those opportunities.
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