There is so little over which we as children had control: in many cases our parents determined our religion, our schooling, our neighborhood, our friends, our activities, our gender, our dreams, our aspirations, and so on.
Children whose parents brought them to this country are no different except that their parents' decision created a status of illegal immigrant for many of them.
Recently I was having dinner with some acquaintances. Over the hours we chatted about this and that. Toward the end of the evening someone remarked about the various negative changes in California, and that they were looking to relocate.
Another person commented about the browning of California. And yet another supported Arizona's efforts to profile the people in its state. Talk got a little snarkier: how "they" were taking over our Land of Milk and Honey, depleting the limited resources, not paying taxes, and sending what money they earned back home to families.
I asked if anyone had read about the multitudes of young men and women who crowded Chicago's Navy Pier with sheaves of documents in their arms, ready to prove to anyone who asked that they had the credentials necessary to apply for the new two-year deferral so they could go to school earn a living, contribute to the economy, be a real part of their adopted country. No, they had not; but one person suggested that with so many of them assembled in one place someone should have rounded them up and sent them back to where they came from.
Everyone at that table had grandparents who came from somewhere else. Our families tell stories about the losses and the gains when you leave home for another home. I am reminded of my grandmother leaving her village in Poland at the age of 16, arriving in Chicopee, MA speaking only Polish but willing to work at whatever job she could find.
Some days I cannot imagine moving to another state in these United States - never mind to another country with its language, geography, social structure, customs, rules, requirements, and so one. It takes a certain courage.
Click here to watch the slide show and read the stories of some of the first 1,500 people who were able to have their applications reviewed by volunteers. Ask yourself, "Which story isn't like mine?"
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