"Truth of a Modern Immigrant" by Anonymous

The way I see immigration in the United States is very complicated, which makes me feel all kinds of emotions. When I first came to the U.S, I was about 13 years old. I didn't know the meaning of the word “immigrant”, so I developed my own meaning based on people’s opinions on the issue. Their opinions were all nothing but cruel insults in regards to not only illegal immigrants, but immigrants in general. Back then I used to be very naive, believing in what everyone was saying without even questioning anything. I was so lost and blinded by all the negative comments about immigrants around my school, that I didn’t even realize I was being treated unfairly and seen as a totally different human being. It took me quite a while to realize it, but when I eventually did I developed this sense of compassion. I felt not only pity for myself, but for any immigrant living in this country, a country in which I felted unwelcomed and unwanted. I became extremely shy because of this fear of being neglected because of my nationality.

I was born in Spain and raised in Colombia. We faced some difficulties in terms of education and family issues while living in Colombia, so we moved to New York to live with my grandmother. Things were very stressful. My mom was working multiple jobs trying to support us and I had a hard time adjusting to a new country and learning a brand new language. The language issue was very problematic for me, as it is for nearly every immigrant that arrives in a foreign country. Because of my language barrier, it was extremely complex for me to have an appropriate conversation with anybody.

Thanks to my English professor, I learned not to be ashamed of being an immigrant. He told me all of these amazing stories of his family members coming to the United States to give him a future which he can hold onto. He taught me that immigrants leave everything behind in search for a better quality of life, not only for themselves, but for their children, working many times harder to at least be able to pay for a home to live in. In today’s society, there has been a lot of controversies in regards to illegal immigration, and the President of the United States, Donald Trump. It makes my heart break whenever I see families being separated, as well as having tough feelings I’d rather not discuss. I only hope that all these people’s dreams are not being crushed because of it.