A Nation Built By Immigrants

A Nation Built By Immigrants

          When you first walk outside, you see diversity. There are no two people who look exactly alike. This is what the United States is, a diverse group a people co-existing with each other. This is what we as a nation have prided ourselves on, that there is no other country in the world like us. Looking back on our history, the US was literally a nation built by immigrants. Whether they were French, English, or Spanish, they were immigrants. This is something that unfortunately many US citizens today seem to forget.

            Being the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, I see immigration in a very unique way. My mother was born and raised in Chicago. My father, however, was born and raised in México City. He came to the states when he was only a few years older than me with his best friend to this day. My dad came here with a scholarship to attend the prestigious University of Chicago. Although that scholarship fell through, my dad never left and eventually met my mother and they got married and had my older brother and me. While my father’s story has a happy ending, for many people, this is not the case.

            Right now, families are being separated due to either one or multiple family members’ legal status. For the children who were born here in the US see this and wonder what happened? Where is our loved one going? They don’t understand what is going on. All they see is that the family is being separated and broken down. From 2010-2012, approximately 200,000 people were deported back to México and Central America, leaving their US born children who were then forced into the broken system, which is known as foster care. However, it was just last year the President Barack Obama made an executive order that temporarily legalized millions of undocumented people who living are currently living in the US.

            I do say undocumented people because it is not just people of Hispanic descent, but also people of Asian decent are here undocumented, Europeans, and even Canadians. What get’s the most media coverage is stories of undocumented people who are Hispanic. Many US citizens immediately jump the gun and say Hispanics, and the majority of these people live in the southern part of the US. Bringing back to what I originally said, this nation was built by immigrants.

            Many people need a history lesson in how the United States of America came to be (i.e. the Revolutionary War). This country is one of the, if not the most diverse country in the world. We all come from immigrant backgrounds. No one planted a little seed and then with water and sunshine, that seed grew and turned into your family. So, when people argue about the number of migrants in the US, they need to look back into their own family histories and see that their ancestry comes from other parts of the world. What do I know though? I’m just the daughter of a Mexican immigrant and a white woman.

SOURCES 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/19/your-complete-guide-to-obamas-immigration-order/

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/15/opinion/the-heartache-of-an-immigrant-family.html

http://www.prb.org/Source/54.3AmerRacialEthnicMinor.pdf?q=543-minorities