Immigration gets such a bad name. Almost as if everyone in the world didn’t come to be where they are through immigration. Obviously, only people of color can be immigrants, white people could never do something so desperate. And even if they did, it must be different right? No. “Immigration” is the most natural thing in the world. However, when certain people do it -read people of color- the act of migration is automatically criminalized. And what happens after migration is criminalized? Short answer: people die. That’s the case with thousands of people and that’s the case with my family.
            About three years ago my brother in law, Andres, decided to leave his family (my sister and her three children) to make his way to the United States. He had such high hopes. He wanted to come here, work and save up some money to send back to his family so that my eldest niece, Melissa, could have a beautiful quinceañera. El Salvador, our home country, is full of violence and gangs usually rob anyone making any type of money. These conditions make it difficult enough for anyone to save up to pay for their water and electricity, much less a quinceañera. So with the help of his brother, who was already in the United States, and my mother, they helped him come up with the $2,500 the coyote was asking for. $2,500 for a month of “illegally migrating” to the United States. The Land Of the Free.  
            Every night the coyote would allow the people he was guiding make one call to their family members to let them know they were all right. Every night for 23 days he made a call and talked to my niece and told her that one day they would be together again. That he would pay for her beautiful quinceañera dress and her cake and all the food she would need for the guests. The last night that Melissa ever heard from her dad, he sent her a video of a quinceañera party. The quinceañera had a beautiful blue dress on and the song playing was a tear-inducing song about a father seeing his daughter grow up.
            We didn’t hear from him again for three days. On the third night, his cousin- whom he had been traveling with- called. They had just arrived to McAllen, Texas on foot from Mexico. They were in the desert and Andres couldn’t keep up with the rest of the group. He was too dehydrated. He collapsed and the group left him in the desert, they thought maybe ICE would patrol around there and find him. They didn’t.
            I was in my dorm room when I got the call from my mom. She was frantic and I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say. My dad took the phone from her and said, “Mija, Andresito esta perdido en el desierto. Ahí algo que tú puedes hacer? Le puedes llamar a migración para que lo vayan a buscar? La ultima vez que lo vieron era en McAllen en Texas.” My dad said they had left him in the desert 2 days prior. When he told me that I knew he had to be dead. As dehydrated as he supposedly was, his body would not have lasted long under the blazing heat of the sun. But I called anyway. They sent out a search party the next day. It took ICE 4 days to find his body. By the time they did, he had already been partially eaten by wild animals. When they found him, one of his hands was at his heart the other was stretched out to his side. My mom took that to mean he was thinking of the heartache his death would bring to the family. She said he must have been reaching out to them. His brother drove to McAllen, Tx from North Carolina to identify the body. After that, we had to pay $3,000 to have his body sent back to El Salvador so he could be buried.
            See that is how criminalization of migration works. It kills people. It forces people to take life-endangering risks for a chance at a better life. And if the folks migrating are not killed on route to their destination, if they get to their destination, they still risk dying because most of the jobs they can get hired for, without papers, are also dangerous. Meat-factory work, fieldwork, prostitution, etc. All jobs that can end in death. And if the people migrating are caught by ICE? They will be detained indefinitely, most likely sent back to the country the fled from. I don’t know much about other countries and how deportees are treated there, but I do know that in El Salvador if you are sent back or you willingly go back, gangs see no difference. They will assume you have money. And if you don’t have what they want, you are dead. Families have been brutally slaughtered. Women and children have been raped and tortured. Whole families have been decapitated. All because of the meanings we have placed behind the word “immigration.”
            Everyday there are more and more articles talking about how white people from other countries come to the United States to work and they are treated like high class citizens. They are called expats and treated like professionals: with respect and dignity. But if people of color are trying to make their way to the United States to work, they are met with resistance, with hatred, with racism, etc. Expats are provided with an easy path to dual citizenship while people of color spend decades trying to do the same.
             

I have never immigrated.  My skin is so white I could glow in the dark.  So white that as a child family friends called me the “little princess Snow White.”  Nobody thought it unusual how easily I tanned because it never lasted.  And the few times that it did, nobody cared because I still looked white.  I will never not look white.  I was still the little princess.
 My family is upper middle class.  I speak English.  I went to private school.  I had a pony.  Now my father pays for me to go to college. He can afford any school I want.  I could go to school on the moon, if I wanted.  He pays for my credit card.  I work, but not because I have to.  My minimum-wage job is a hobby. 
The whole world is mine for the taking.  I have everything, while others have nothing.  Because I am “native.”
My mother has never immigrated.  She is white, but tans easily and keeps the pigment for a long time.  She is middle class.  Privileged, et cetera.  She went to private school, and her childhood home, built by her father, had a big back yard with no fences.  Her father paid for her to go to her choice of two Christian colleges.  After that, she worked.  She paid her way through grad school.  She earned a career in business.  She was never challenged for being “native”.
My Grandmother never immigrated.  She was…white?  Yes, she was white, we say, and never thought further about the way her nose arches, the way her skin was shades and shades darker than ours. We never thought further about how my mother’s nose, my nose, is the same nose.  Her hair was black, and her mother used to caller her “my little gypsy child,” because she looked so different. She spoke Polish before English. She cooked pierogi and guwumpki for holidays, but she was American.  Of course she was American– a little piece of paper says so.  Because of that paper she got married, had a family, could buy insurance.  Could survive.
Her name was Alice.  No, her name was Alitzia; she changed it to sound more native.  We find an old birthday card, addressed to Ellis.  She dies, and we find her birth certificate.  It is in Polish, and with what little of the language my mother speaks, she can see its yet another name.  We realize we don’t know which one is real. 
My Great-Grandmother emigrated from Poland.  She spoke English only when she had to.  She went to school up to the second grade.  She was white.  Because if she was not, then we are not.
Maybe my great-great grandmother also came from Poland.  Maybe she made pierogi like my grandmother.  Maybe she kept a tan.  Maybe she had a pony.  Maybe she was white.  Maybe she wasn’t.  The fact of the matter is, we don’t know what came before Poland.  And there is always a before.
We’ve forgotten our past because it made life easier.  Now all we know is my mother is darker than me, and my grandmother was darker yet.  Our roots stop at Poland- we are Polish, and that is all.  We don’t care about our Middle-eastern noses, or our middle-eastern coloring that has gradually faded to little princess Snow White. 
I am white.  But that is leaving out part of my history.  I gain acceptance, I gain opportunity because of this omission. 
What am I losing? 
Is it worth it?

​As a small child, I never understood why parents could leave everything behind, their families, their native soil, and their hometown to live in foreign country with no ones support.
 
Back in Mexico my dad and mom were living the life. My dad had a little tianguis where he would sell fruits and vegetables, while my mom was caring for her new born child, me. They were financially stable, my dad enjoyed his job and they always had family to support them, everything was going well for them. It wasn’t until Mexico’s economic crisis in 1994 that my parents even thought about crossing the border to the US. My dad, for about half a year, stayed in Mexico, in hopes of finding financial stability but things don’t always work out in your favor. He finally decided to leave to the US but it was one of the hardest and most frightening decisions he had to make.
 
The hardest part about leaving his native land was not crossing the border but rather assimilating to a new culture. Everything was completely new to him, he had no family, and had no support from others. At the age of 22 he had to manage finding a job, a place to sleep, and cooking for himself. He started feeling lonely so he began to use alcohol as a way to fill in that emptiness. One beer became Two, then Three and so on until he would buy 24 packs and finish it within that day. He had his wake up call when, unfortunately, my grandma passed away from cancer. It was a very heart breaking moment for him because all he wanted was to make his mother proud and remove her from poverty. They have always struggled growing up and he didn’t want to see her struggle anymore. My dad decided it was time for my mom to join him in the US. He couldn't do it alone anymore. He needed support. Unfortunately, my dad had enough money for one of us and they decided to leave me behind with my grandma.
 
I was about two years old when they left me behind, in Mexico. My dad always told me stories about how I would always cry to my grandma because I wanted to be with them. When ever they would call home I would always be excited to hear them talk to me and I would try to have a conversation with them, even though my vocabulary wasn’t that great. After the call ended, I would be filled with sadness and cry again. It was a hard times for both my parents and I , but after a year my mom came back home to give birth to my brother. My dad was finally financially stable and after a year and a half be brought us over to the US. Our family was finally reunited and everything was going well for him again. He had a decent job, his wife by his side, his two blessings my brother and I, and another one was on his way.  All his struggles and sacrifices paid off.
 
At this point of my life I understand why my dad left his hometown. I am very grateful that my dad made these sacrifices because without him I wouldn't be here today.

​     The hardest part of assimilating to American culture was finding myself in a world that often wanted to define me as a one-sided story and not a bicultural, bilingual, fluid individual who was able to work and function in two worlds, two languages, and two cultures all at once.
     I grew up being stereotyped and held in a place that often made me feel limited and less then what I felt I could be. While growing up undocumented I felt my educational and work opportunities were limited to my status as a citizen in the United States, and therefore it was a reflection of my value as a person and my level of intelligence. While undocumented my father worked his way up in his organization by taking night classes to improve his English and his skills as a mechanic until eventually finding ourselves in a position where we were more financially stable and even able to afford more “luxury items”. We then faced an opposite issue, we were now “not Mexican enough” often labeled as white-washed and fake. It cuts to a deeper issue in both an American and Mexican culture and that is our inability to not only recognize multiple cultures in people but, also not using all the advantages that come with it. Instead, it forces us to limit ourselves, play dumb and fear what is actually one of the most powerful tools any person can hold: the ability to move between borders that have so often separated people. We can be bridges that help to connect people and build greater opportunities. We see the world through different lenses and offer new and innovative perspectives and solutions that at one point could have seemed impossible to solve. I look back at the impacts I have been able to make in my community and can see that it was biculturalism that allowed me to work with and impact the lives of so many people, it was not my vise, my status in this country, but my ability to fearlessly take from both of my cultures and use it as a way to connect and work with others.
     The biggest mistake that could possibly be made in this day and age is ignoring what will be a new segment in markets, a cultural revolution that we already see changing music, dance, fashion, and finance. We must begin to use one another as opportunities to connect and focus on our similarities instead of the handful of differences.

I didn’t migrate from another country but my mom did/
It was a hard journey for her but I never understood this as a kid/
It wasn’t until I was in my adolescences that I did/
My mom place her roots in LA/
It wasn’t the greatest place/
But I never once placed blamed her for raising us in such a concrete jungle/
I would ride the train and notice different people pack into the subway like a crayon bundle/
Different shades/
1.75 was the price to pay/
Luckily, I didn’t have to ride everyday with drug dealers, stick up kids and gangsters/
 But most minorities don’t have the privilege to take other means of transportation/
I saw ICE/
The law enforcing guys/
Raid houses/
And trap my people/
Treating them with lethal force/
After I completed my final course/
In high school/
I had to find another school/
To go to college/
To pursuit knowledge and my destiny/
So I made a migration of my own/
And left my home/
To come to SBCC/
It was hard for me/
Cause I was out of place/
I felt people giving me looks when I would walk into a place/
I felt unwelcomed in any remote rich place/
Which is everywhere/
Constantly getting hit with stares/
But to be fair/
I was rocking hoodies 2 times my size/
And dickies as shorts with high socks/
Dressing like how my people would on my block/
It’s my nature to dress this way and I’m not going to stop/
I left the block to take the trip to college/
And I tend to write more than any person in a Starbucks with a laptop/
I can’t stop/
People’s perception of me/
But it does bug me/
when I can’t even go to a museum without getting followed by security/
But clearly, they’re doing their job/
I’m not an immigrant but I don’t have to be/
To feel what they feel on the daily/
I hope any newborn baby doesn’t feel the way I do/
I hope they just get accepted and feel welcomed/
As most mayors do/
To tell the truth I don’t know if my current community accepts me/
like my old city/
Maybe if people look deep within me/
They’ll see what my friends and family see/ Yours truly – ELOHIM 
  

     My father left Amman Jordan in 1971 to pursue a better life. While in Amman, he lived in a small two bedroom home with his mother, father, and ten brothers and sisters. His father owned a small store that barely paid the monthly bills. My father was the second oldest of his brothers and began working at 13, making only sixty dollars a month between the two of them. When he turned sixteen, he couldn’t bare the lifestyle anymore, so he left. When he arrived to Germany, he didn’t speak the language and spent ten days living in the street, until he met a doctor who was also from Amman who took him in. He provided him a job, and a home until he got onto his feet.
     My father eventually got his own apartment, but spent six days a week working sixteen hours a day, and sent most of his money back home to his family. Eight years later, my uncle immigrated to America and did everything he could to bring my father with him. When he arrived to America, he significantly struggled. He had a hard time grasping a third language, and finding a job, but eventually got a job as a janitor in a hospital.
     Years later, he met my mom and brought her to America as well. My mother described it as the worst experience of her life. She had a hard time leaving her family, and didn’t know one word of English, but her and my father agreed that living in America would be better and have more opportunities for their children . My mother would be scared to answer the door or even the phone because she did not know how to communicate with anybody in the new, foreign country she was in.
     I spent my childhood is a small two bedroom apartment in New York with my parents and two brothers. It consisted of translating for my parents(mostly my mom), my father being gone constantly, working, and providing for us any way he could. But as the years went by my mom learned the language, and my uncle was able to provide us a home in Santa Barbara, which is where we are currently living and my dad was able to retire.
     My father often brings up his migration from home, and I can’t even imagine how difficult it was for him to leave on his own and leave everything behind. He never complains, but if it was hard for my mother to leave with her husband, I wonder how hard it must have been for him to leave all on his own. But he and my mother always thank god that they were so lucky to come over here to find more opportunities, when many others could only dream of doing so. ​