My Trip To Washington D.C.

There was recently a nationwide march to Washington D.C. in an effort to push the Obama administration to act on immigration reform. I was lucky to attend this once in a lifetime experience. An estimated 200 buses departed from Illinois, along with allies from other states to rally on the National Mall lawn. On this 14-hour journey I had so many thoughts cross my mind. I thought of how similar our march for immigration reform is to the March on Washington in 1963. Considering experiences between undocumented immigrants and African Americans were not exactly the same, we still see a pattern in poor education, housing, limited opportunities and dangerous rough labor conditions.

With this immigration reform, some of the modifications I would like to see are as follows;

*Equal and fair education for all. Many children grow up in the United States and are brought here because of their parents hopes for a better future for their children. Approximately 65 thousand undocumented children graduate high school each year. Almost none are able to attend college because of the financial burden, even though they invested their lives and education in our system.

*A halt in the seperation of families. As I said before, many families are being torn apart. Everyday thousands of families are broken because of our unfair and complicated laws and many children born here have to live and work for their family back home in another country. What we are doing is not American. We are limiting resources and opportunities for these children of our future with already limited resources and opporunities. It is impossible to live without fear of being seperated from your family without a trace.

*Refugee support. Now I am not as aware on the laws and trials of refugees and rights. But I understand that our process to get refugees to succed on their own consists of one-months rent, a couch, and some utnecils. Many of these refugees come here from horrid living conditions or war. Many of them have never set foot in a culture such as this of the United States and many do not speak English. We need to establish a system that can better support these refugees and families to help them adapt and learn a way of life in the United States.

*And a more comprehendible practical citizenship process. It is unfair how, for some people the citizenship process takes longer than 10 years and for others, it takes less than 2 years. Not to mention, how paper work gets 'lost' and the expenses are so high.

I know that it is impractical to dream of a utopia and citizenship for all, but as of now i can say that reform is needed in these areas and changes need to be made.

My 1st Still Essay

The Reason Is My Culture

I don't think I have been motivated or as touched emotionally about social injustices until recently. It almost hurts me to say that, but I feel I should be honest. I feel I didn't really know much outside my neighborhood for the first 13 years of my life. Music, movies, television and even the clothes I wore, I feel were monitored very closely. My father's side of the family were conservative Jehova's Witness's, while I was, well, not. When I entered high school, I found myself in an odd position. I always felt I took on the role as mom at home and the naive teenager that knew nothing of music, movies, television, fashion and even the slang that others my age used. I always found myself asking silly questions to understand what others were talking about. It was not until I came to Columbia that I found an admiration for justice and policy. A motivation for my curiosity in this field of social injustice, is more recently with the argument of Mexican immigrants in the United States, when the HR4437 bill was in act. I found myself, many family and friends taking action to hold on to there rights and many dreams they came to the United States to find. Although I am American, born and raised, it was not until this obstacle that I realized the severity of the issue. I spoke to many people before discovering the issues they face in Mexico and not only Mexico, but many other nations as well. I have a close relationship to this issue because my father is a first generation immigrant from Mexico. Getting to and across the border is something no one forgets but would like to. I have heard stories of women getting raped and kidnapped, walking by dead bodies in the desert and sleeping in the cold night with nothing but the clothes on your back and one eye open. And then when you get to the 'land of the free', you work minimum wage labor jobs. It seems that they are invisible. Think about it, how often do you acknowledge the janitor, or the garbage man, or the cooks in the back? It is for this reason I am eager to get an education, so that I can be one to make a change in the glass ceiling and prove to many that 'we' are able and will be prosperous.