The purpose of this text is anything but a dramatic change, quite the contrary actually. I would like for everyone involved in America’s political system to have a point of reflection. I would like all you fine people to try to put yourselves in the place of people who aren’t so fine. What I mean by this, is to be put in the place of people whose labor and hard work is a lot more taxing than any of yours, not that yours isn’t, but I would like to point out all the back-breaking hard work these people have put into this nation. I doubt that you all don’t know what people I am talking about. I am talking about immigrants. To be frank, our nation would not be what it is today without the continuous effort these people have put into it day in and day out.

I am longing for you all to realize that your decisions not only affect your family and your next door neighbors, but the whole nation. I find that this whole movement against the immigrants is quite unfair, for the majority is undocumented, and therefore finds no other work than in fields harvesting YOUR fruits and vegetables.

I would like for you to be put in these peoples’ places. I would just like to make this clear, I’m not justifying them for their actions, for I know they have done wrong “trespassing” as you all call it into “your” country. I would like you all to understand all the hardship and labor these people go through everyday. The people affected by this movement are not only the undocumented immigrants, but they’re citizen children.

I say this out of pure experience for I am a first generation American, daughter of two Mexican immigrants who had spent their days working and helping this nation flourish as it has.

Many of these first generation Americans coming from households much like mine are taught that everybody deserves a chance to make something of themselves. That is what the educational system is giving them to understand, that everybody has been made equal and deserves equal rights, yet coming home they find their parents hesitating to take a step or make a move for fear of the “migra” taking them away. Tell me, how is this not going to confuse a child if every word said to them is only contradicting the next, and the purpose of anything and everything is lost within the political system?

I hope you find comfort in me saying that your government has completely destroyed any hope of me being able to fulfill my dream as an aspiring dancer. Because of my parents’ fear of this happening to them, my two younger siblings and I were forced to leave our comfortable life in Los Angeles and move to Mexico. It was very depressing for me, for my siblings not as much because they are still very young and cannot understand our circumstances just yet. I cried day and night and still do sometimes. All I wished for was to be able to have my life back. To be completely honest with all of you, the government and the political system just makes one of color feel less and unworthy of earning a living and being able to sit in the lap of luxury.

Because of this move, I have been forced to lessen my education in dance and therefore have been a depressed little soul. It hurts even more because according to all my dance educators back in the states, I am “a very strong individual whose talent should not go to waste”.

I am not writing this text for me, it is obviously too late for me, but for the oncoming generations and for people of my generation who still have something to look forward to. Although I do owe much of my excellent education to the American nation, I think you all should consider an amnesty, or at least watch the acclaimed film “A Day Without a Mexican”, for it might bring to you all some reason.

Sandy Vázquez
14 years old
México, Yucatán, Motul
March 28th, 2008