An Immigrant, Not By Choice

First, I would like put any assumptions to rest about my home town. It is not the starving, drug-riddled war zone that comes to mind when people hear "Mexico". Our little town lies on the coast of Baja California, only a two-hour drive from San Diego,California through the US border. It was a poor, little town 30 years ago, which was why my father came to the US in the typical search for wealth. It has changed a lot since then; it is now home to various restaurants, craft breweries, AirB&Bs (one which belongs to my mother), wineries, spring breakers, cruise ship stops, and as always-the world's best fish tacos. My family has been blessed with successful careers. There is not much to complain about when you live next to the beach.

So when I think about living my life in simplicity, and peace, I think about moving to my little hometown on the coast, where I can help run my mother's Air B&B, start a business of my own, and raise my children on the beach. Doesn't that sound ideal? You may be wondering why that life isn't available to me here, in the Land of the Free. The land that promises the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Truth is, it's really hard to do that. If you don't think it sounds hard at all, then congratulations on your privilege, whether it be racial or class. Any minority who has fallen victim to systematic oppression and racism can attest to the lack of equal opportunity. For my Latinx family, and many others, it is our legality in this country that suppresses our opportunities for success. Buying land and starting a business is virtually impossible for me, as an immigrant, without legality in this country. Living on the beach seems feasible, until you think about how high rent is in beach front homes. For someone not able to legitimately live and work in this country, not even a house by the beach seems possible. Not to mention that credit card debt, car insurance, and loan payments are the main cause of my anxiety and depression. Many may argue that if life is so easy back in Mexico, why not just go? "Go back to where you came from!" as they say. The thing that stops me from moving to Mexico (other than the 10 year punishment the US gives for over staying a Visa), is one fact: I was raised HERE. I went to school HERE, made friends HERE, graduated HERE, work HERE, have lived all my life HERE and planned to live the rest of my life HERE, so why is it easier for me to make a good life in a different country, than it is for me to start it HERE, in the country that I have LIVED in for most of my life? Why doesn't it offer the same opportunities for me as it does to the rest of the kids I grew up with? Why do they not have to fill out a DACA application and pay $495 every two years to be able to stay in this country? Why is it easier for me to live in a place I don't know, than in the place I have made my life for the past 20 years?

This isn't a story of how the system failed me, or how I failed to work the system. Though there are facts, and numbers and figures to show the accuracy of the hardship it takes to build a life here, this story is on a pure emotional level. It is a story of irony. My parents fell into a false narrative that America was the land of the free, with equal opportunity for all. So how ironic it is to see the systematic racism that seems to lead this nation. In their attempt to give me all the opportunities, they took me away from the only place that would happily give them to me. My parents did not know, that this same country was going to lock our people and children in cages in detention centers, they did not know that Blacks had been lynched and murdered by police and whites for the past 400 years, they did not know that after living here since the age of seven, this country and it's people would not consider me one of their own. They did not know that the people elected to run this country also ran sex trafficking rings. They did not know that the capitalism meant to allow me to earn money, would prioritize business over the workers, and pay me a barely livable wage. They did not know that the dream of a college degree would have put me in debt for years(which is why I did not go to college). They did not know I would live in fear of ICE. They did not know that when they took me away from a country full of gangs,they would bring me to the one with the most militarized and funded gang of all. They did not know know this country would deny its citizens health care, or that it's war on drugs would lead to unjust incarcerations, or that it had the largest amounts of mass shootings. They did not know that the Constitution did not apply to us.

They did not know, that the only thing I would need to make me happy, was white sand and the sound ocean waves.