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I Matter. We Matter.

Latinas VS the USA

By Shelby QuintanillaPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
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My name is Shelby Quintanilla I was born and raised in Houston. My mother is from Guatemala and my father is from Honduras. Growing up with a mother who is Latina and also an immigrant shaped who I am today and formed why I identify as Guatemalan more often than I do Houstonian. Living in the United states as a Latina is hard, being an immigrant and a Latina living in the United States can be hell to some.

I grew up with both parents in a two bedroom apartment. My two sisters, my brother, my parents, and I all lived there. I say being an immigrant and being a Latina can be hell to some because I lived through a very rough time because my mother was “that.” She was an immigrant living in a place where she couldn’t stay because she was an illegal immigrant. I remember being around 12 years old, maybe younger, living a very happy life. Everything was ordinary, my day felt like the other regular days. The day went by and night crept in. We all had gone to sleep when we were awaken by a loud knock on our door. I was laying down when a bunch of ICE agents barged in and quickly told my mother to get up. I was so confused on why they were taking MY mother. My mom never did anything wrong to have agents take her in. I was a child confused and scared. I wanted to know why. I looked at my mother and tears were rolling down her face. I saw fear in her eyes. I saw the fear in my siblings' eyes and in my father's. I could feel her fear. I could feel her hurt. Her hurt because she knew she might not see us again, that she was getting pulled away from her own children. She was being taken in like a criminal. They handcuffed her and put her into the patrol car and left with her. I cried every night trying to understand what was so wrong that my mother did. I never understood why and to this day I still don’t understand why. I had to go visit my own mother in jail for many months just because she came into a place that belonged to our people, the ones who died first for our country. I struggled so much living in fear that I myself would face what my mother went through. I never wanted to go out because I was afraid that I was going to be threatened by officers.

They had finally sent my mother back to Guatemala after months of being locked in. I remember only being able to communicate with her through the phone. Never was able to see her face. All we were able to do was hear each other's voices and wish we were back together. Things started falling apart at home. I prayed that my mother came back. One year went by and I quickly started putting blame on myself. Why couldn’t I do anything to get her back? Why is she hurting and why can’t I do anything about it? I was only 12. I missed my mother so much. Days went by so slowly, until that one day my mother called. She explained to us that she was going to try and make her way back in. I was afraid because I knew the difficulties of crossing the border and the amount of danger she would face on her way here. She was willing to risk her life to come back into the place that didn’t want her here. She was willing to fight for her stay. Days went by and we didn’t hear from her. We got a call from a random number and it was my mother. She gave us an address to go pick her up from. I went with my older sister and father. I saw her from afar and began to cry. She was back. The whole car ride back to our apartment she spoke to me about her experience. The amount of walking she had to do. The amount of things she saw and how much she would carve the taste of fresh water. As she would tell me all this I felt angry that she had to suffer and that she had to go through that.

Having my mother being deported and having gone through so much pain because of that made me want to fight for us Latinos. It gave me a sense of hope. It made me proud that I am Latina, because within my mom I saw the amount of courage and struggle she went through. I saw her pain but I also saw her devotion to fight for what she wanted. I'm proud to say that I am Latina and that I am Guatemalan, because being Latina to me means sacrifice and within that Latina to me means having many struggles, but having the courage to overcome and shine through them. There are so many struggles that us as Latinos and Latinas go through. We hold so much pride in where we are from because we know our struggle. I interpreted Calle 13’s verse, “Soy un pedaso de tierra que vale la pena” in my piece mainly because of this whole experience. To me that verse means that mi tierra is worth so much. We are important and will forever be heard and as Calle 13 said, "yo soy la que sostiene mi bandera." As long as I stand I will show off my country and will hold so much pride for it. I guess I can say that this event was what made me identify as being Guatemalan and is definitely what made me proud because I know that as we are still being forced out I have a huge privilege to show that us Latinos are needed and are a great benefit. We won’t be stopped.

humanity
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