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.