From the beginning of his emergence in politics, Donald Trump and the Republicans have focused on making a boogeyman out of immigrants currently in and arriving to the United States — especially when they are undocumented and from Latin America the Global South. In this, Trump and his cronies have found additional support from a spineless media and political opposition apparatus that has generally refused to counter the baseless narratives weaponized against immigrants. Now with his return to power, the blatant lies attacking immigrants have rapidly crossed from talking point to government policy. Every day across this country, immigrants are being subjected to state violence, forced separation from their families and communities, and a larger regime of destructive fear, virulent hatred, and emboldened bigotry. I know this not because of what I read in the papers, watch on screen, or witness on social media. I know this because my family, my friends, and I are suffering through it. all at the epicenter.
I have lived in the United States as an undocumented immigrant for most more than 90% of my life — that percentage grows each day. In our home countryBack in the country we migrated from, my parents did all they could to be “successful”, build our family, and provide us a stable livelihood. One of them even graduated with a college degree, in hopes that it would provide our family a ticket to prosperity. They opened several small businesses, all while they also sought and maintained additional jobs. Nevertheless, despite their best efforts, the aftershocks of a U.S.-exacerbated armed conflict and economic disruption the constant intervention of U.S. neoliberalism all but destroyed any chance sense of socioeconomic mobility in our country. We were left with no choice but to migrate. To this day, my parents always sayaffirm that their impetus for immigrating was not a baseless pursuit of money and materialistic desires. Their sole reason for immigrating was always the belief that there existed a country that would protect, defend, empower, and love their child just as much as they did. What pushed them to embark on a treacherous journey, one that almost cost all of us our lives, was the belief that out of anxiety and desperation, our family would create hope, a future for us, a life for us.
My parents are not criminals. I am not a criminal. Is it a crime to hope? To love your child? To fight for your family? What has been our crime since arriving here? Going to work? To school? Graduating from college with two degrees? Beginning graduate studies? Welcoming my sibling to our family? I am sickened and enraged by how this country has painted my family. A wave of fury engulfs every inch of me when I compare the false rhetoric of criminality on the television with the sleepless nights of aches, pains, and debilitating chronic health issues that plague my parents. My parents continue to slowly kill themselves working for a country that views them as dispensable garbage. Each day, a billion white hot knives slash and stab every fiber of our being as my young, single-digit age sibling asks, “I thought the police only came for people who hurt others?”. Recently, I have caught my mother, every morning, before we all rise out of bed, standing at the doorway of my room and at the foot of my sibling’s bed. Though she thinks we are asleep, I hear her soft sobs, her anguished prayers begging for safety and protection as she cries, “Mis hijos necesitan a su madre.” How infuriating and debilitating is it is to see a mother crying out for divine intervention as a last resort. I have always known my parents to be unbreakable, fearless, determined people. Maybe as a child, that was all they allowed me to see to protect me. But now, for the first time in my life, maybe with the clarity of emerging adulthood, my parents seem afraid, tormented, and anxious.
In my own life, I have come to feel like Sisyphus — eternally condemned to work hard, exceed my own abilities, all to wake up each day and realize I have to start from the beginning all over again. When my friends with legal immigration status or citizenship speak about experiences that have been made synonymous with youth and growing up (traveling, going out to social events, getting theiryour first job, building a career after college, etc.), I find myself staring ahead blankly. My life as an undocumented immigrant meansrequires that such conversations and luxuries are not meant for people like me — even though I look, sound, think, sleep, breathe, eat, cry, laugh, anger, and live like them. I have done everything this country has expected of me and more. And yet, despite that, I have never been enough, never been worthy. To be undocumented is to be suffocated by a slow-choking noose while you stick your fingers in, flail, and do all you can for one more gasp of air.
And yet…even amidst this crippling fear, through gritted teeth and watery eyes, I am grateful, empowered, and determined to fight back.
I am grateful to my parents, my siblings, my friends, my teachers and mentors, and all those in this country who have always seen me and treated me as human. Even when this country sought to crush me under its weight, I am grateful to have found those who wiggle under the boot under me and help push it off (even if only momentarily). I am empowered because immigrants have never been voiceless, powerless, or hopeless. Immigrant communities have always vehemently fought back against injustice, especially here in the U.S. Immigrants do not wait to receive the just world they envision and long for; they build it with their own hands, hearts, and minds each day. Immigrants, communities of color, all marginalized communities have defeated and triumphed over fascism, white supremacy, and imperialism before — and we will do it again.
All of this, TtThe truth I know from my own life, makes me determined to fight back and fight forward. Now is the time for all of us, immigrant or not, to act boldly and quickly against these attacks. While immigrant families and communities like mine will be on the frontlines of this assault on non-whiteness and poverty, it will not stop with us. Do not wait for the day that the knock of fascism comes to your door; it is already infiltrating homes in your neighborhood. In this moment, I urge us to remember that hope does not happen on its own, it does not is not found existing on its own accord. Hope is, and must be, created.
As we launch this new column, my goal is that we can begin to create that hope together. Hope and truth go hand-in-hand and I am ready to share mine, even if under a pseudonym for my and my family’s safety. Throughout these entries, I hope to open the doors of my home and my heart so that you may learn and understand what it really means to be an undocumented immigrant in this country and what we are really fighting for. Above all, this is a reclamation of our (the immigrant community’s) agency and power. For more than 20 years, my family and I have sought to earn back the humanity this country extracted from us from before we even made the decision to immigrate. I am the student you sat next to in math class. My dad is the stranger who held the door open for you at the doctor’s office. My mom is the neighbor that babysat, fed, cared for, and loved your child. My sibling is your child’s best friend at school. We are the family that ate behind you at the restaurant, held your hands with you in prayer at church, that drove past you on our way to a theme park. My family and I are somebody. We are people too. We are not your enemy nor are we aliens. This is our home, this is our future, and we will fight for it to our last breath. I invite you to join us.
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