I am truly sorry for the hardships you endured as a young person. I am also sorry for the many American-born citizens who have endured or are enduring equally difficult hardships. However, I cannot agree with a parent who teaches her children through the example of “stealing” into a country. Laws exist to protect societies from chaos. I cannot and do not support the current status of millions of people who have ignored American law, enter the country, create families and then, because they chose to plant themselves here, cry foul on America when we do not enable their bad choices and the consequences of those choices. What is fascinating to me is the thought of millions of Americans gathering in Mexico, Korea or in any other nation and demanding that that nation accept illegal Americans as citizens. I suspect the militia would be called out and we would risk being hurt. The world is full of wonderful, hard-working people. The world is full of people with stories that break one’s heart. But none of those stories should result in citizenship for individuals who choose to ignore our nation’s laws, slip in to the country under the veil of night, and then stamp their feet and throw temper tantrums because we are a nation of laws. Leave. Apply properly. Wait patiently. Work on your nation’s problems, concurrently. And then, if citizenship is approved, be proud of the work you have done to become a citizen the proper way and reach out with a smile to your new family of citizens.

I won’t be at the march. I don’t support the march. It’s wrong on so many levels. You and the group who plan to march have made a big impression on me. It’s a very bad impression.

I totally applaud you. You are the kind of immigrant this country needs. You obviously have high standards for youself and are accomplishing a great deal. I hope you can continue your education. Unfortunately, it is the illegal immigrant population, largely Mexican, which is causing legalization to lose favor with so much of the American people. In purely practical terms, they are poorly educated and semi-skilled or unskilled. They have been less likely than other groups to invest in the U.S preferring to send remittances totalling 43 billion dollars in 2008 to Mexico, becoming that country’s de facto welfare program. As you well know, we are a 21st century economy and are competing globally with highly-educated, technologically proficient countries. We are no longer agrarian or industrial, yet a disturbing percentage of illegal immigrants come here for those disappearing jobs. I, and everyone I know, admire Asians who come here and make progress so quickly in this country, becoming net contributors to this society. The face of the “Reform Immigration” movement is clearly Latino. If I were a strategist for immigration reform, I would maintain a polite distance from that crowd. Good luck and welcome to America! As Winston Churchill said, “Democracy is the worst form of government in the world–with the exception of all the others.”

I would simple say: “A house divided against itself cannot stand”, so stand with the people for what is right but don’t do it for your own benefit, don’t forget an individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I wish you the best of lucks and feel confident that your story will move Americans to understand that their country would never have achieved its present stage of development without the drive and the resilience of persons like your Mom, your sister, and yourself. As Tara Murphy says, your story is exactly the type that can be showcased as that of the “right”, desirable, type of immigrant.
But I find it ironic that someone with an Irish name should feel such contempt towards Latinos and Mexicans in particular. Benjamin Franklin thought that the German immigrants of his day and age would corrupt the English language. When the ancestors of Ms. Murphy came to America, they were not even considered as white, contrary to the Mexican-Americans living between Texas and California before the Southwest was conquered from Mexico. Nor were the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe–many American eugenists even advocated sterilizing Jewish immigrant women for the good of America and their own. Have not German Americans, Irish Americans, and Jewish Americans devised their own forms of success and been “net contributors” to the wealth and spirit of the country?
Looking down on people who are just trying to make a living, under the pretext that they are not as “educated”, or Christian as we are, or as “compatible” (i.e. likely to pass for White) is the best way to keep Americans from uniting for justice and working for a fairer deal with nations their country has formerly colonized or is currently exploiting. The Latino you despise today may become the next genius America will give the world–or her father.

i think that this is a good way for the people to see that Hispanics can over come what they are doing to them I’m from Chicago ill from little village i work at universidad popular I’m a youth my self and i think that this march is for every one to see that we can be something we are something we work to help our kids we work to pay what they have some of them pay taxes and they till live with the nightmares of ice coming to their door steps and taking them back to Mexico some don’t even have the freedom to talk about what was happening to them when they were in the prison so is not only you but most other out there like you they say that Hispanics are taking the good jobs they are not even letting them work they work on the jobs no one wants

i think its crazy how people be traumatize about ice to come to there house.
I’ve seen cases that people say that ice kept coming to deport them but they wouldn’t open so they kept coming back.

I am really proud of you,your are the kind of people that this country needs,never stop dreaming,keep going.You will reach your goals.

Ju, thank for your courage in sharing your story. As a fourth generation American from a family of east European immigrants, I see in your struggle the faces of my grandparents and great grandparents. You are not alone in this fight. Many of us, or our families, came here for much the same reasons you and your family did. There are those who have short memories and would like to forget a time not so long ago when their families were in the same position as you are now, but I believe there are even more like me who will fight for the immigrants of today, the way our grandparents fought for the lives we have now.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to march with you in Washington this Sunday, as I am out of the country for the weekend, but know that I will be with you in spirit, as should the majority of Americans who came to our shores as humble immigrants themselves. And know that this march is only the beginning, and the fight shall continue well beyond, until the DREAM Act and Comprehensive Immigration Reform are the realities that our elected leaders promised.

You sound like a thoughtful, involved person who makes your community and your chosen country a better place. My hope for you is that you can thrive here and develop your talents, not have a future filled with fear of being deported to a country that’s no longer your own.

Cecile, I really appreciated your comments. I’m the child and grandchild of immigrants who paid a high price to come to this country for all those reasons of perceived whiteness and rightness you talked about. I wouldn’t wish the destruction my family suffered because of racist immigration policy on anyone. Yes, we are a nation of laws, as one poster said, but we get to determine whether those laws are just or not.

It’s time to act now!!!
Help the millions of people step out of the shadows and gain their freedom.
You have my absolute support.

It’s hard to be humble with ancestors like mine!

Today me and hundreds of other people have the blessing to be in Washington DC to speak up for our rights. This is important to me because I am aware of the effects that immigrant policies have on children, teens, and adults that are undocumented. I herby speak behalf of all of them, who do not have the gift that I have today. If they were here they would share with you the following;
A child would say after being asked how it feels to be undocumented he would ask, “What’s undocumented?” Then the parents explain to him, and then fear borns out of that child. He is told about the stories of his parents crossing the border. You can hear the echo of those stories, and you can feel that salty cold river of tears that dark suffering, when they say, “hot deserts, cold nights, deaths, thirst, hunger, loneliness, worries, rapes that leave them traumatized up to this day, snakes, jumping over borders and then having those wires cut over their flesh dropping drops of blood and creating a path of suffering, and the running away from the migra. All of this just for a better future for me says the child.
Then the child grows to be a teen, he cannot express the right granted by the first amendment to say that he or she is undocumented, because that fear keeps on hunting them. The fear to be caught by the migra they say and separated from their parents and siblings. Then they scream “Mami, papi no me dejen” Mommy, daddy do not leave me” Then where is that role model, that guidance of a parent, that love of a family. Trauma, hate, and depression are the result for these teens. Some teens grow hopeless. Stories are still told and rumors that UNOCUMENTED STUDENST CANNOT GO TO COLLEGE, AND LA MIGRA IS GOING TO GET YOU Ignorance, lack of information. Then the teen decides to give up school, failure to classes and then drop-outs. Then we ask, where do these students go to? They try to find jobs to support their families because poverty has wrapped around them. However, they cannot find jobs due to their legal status, so they become criminals. This country has made them criminals by closing those doors to higher education and opportunity for jobs. However, there are some undocumented teens that do not let themselves be broken down by words. They remain hopeful and strive for success. These teens are not ignorant; they search for information and discover that they indeed can go to college. So they work hard in high school ,they get into higher classes and earn straight A’s in hopes of having a good career and making the suffering of their parents worth the drops of blood and fright. But can we really say that it is fair that these students have earned the best grades in all their classes, studied twelve years to be a doctor, lawyers, dentist, whatever career, but only be able to receive the certificate and cannot put into practice the career they had been working for years? Why? Just because they do not have a social security number. Then why not give them the opportunity and make their hard work worth more than a certificate and give them that number. That is disappointing and really a stab in the back.
Those that are adults and are immigrant have a hard time finding jobs to support their families, and that wish and dream of giving their children better futures becomes hopeless. There are mother working in factories each week only to earn $250. Fathers that are home consuming alcohol because they cannot find jobs so they escape their problems by drinking.
However, these adults have not given up and that’s why the child I was talking about, the teen, and the adult are here united because they believe that there would be change in America and that change is legislation to that adult, teen that has worked hard at school, and innocent child who would soon be a ten and then an adult. That child, parent, and teen are here and I have spoken for them.

I’m an American citizen.
Am i proud?
Somewhat.
In every aspect I’m proud of the rights I have,
and not slightly proud of how everything America stands for,
is contradicted. I’m currently in high school. Every morning we say the pledge of allegiance, and i hesitate to say “with liberty and justice for all”.
Tomorrow I have the opportunity to march with hundreds of thousands, of people in Washington DC. Tomorrow i march for my people, I march for the bill, and I march so that I don’t have any doubt in saying “with liberty and justice for all.”

SI SE PUEDE!

can’t help but say pooh pooh to the comment above.

rooting for ju and for all immigrants; there are no “good” and “bad” immigrants. stop trying to put the model minority on asians in americans. people are people.

laws are imperfect — current immigration laws are not only imperfect, but impractical and unjust. clinging uncritically to laws for “law’s sake” is inane. i hope more people in this camp can realize that.

I can also understand the frustration that a lot of undocumented students go through. I am too through the same thing that Ju is going through. Two years a go i graduated top of my class, as hopeful as i was i applied to many schools hoping that there would be away of attending college and fulfilling my dreams of become a doctor. But unfortunately i was not able to afford college, and had to go to a community college and take minimum credits, to at least have some college credit. I know that getting a college degree might take a while but my future is still unclear. Some day i might graduate from college but from that point what else can i do. What i mean is that even though i would have a college degree, i would not be able to pursuit medical school or even get a job. There are many students with these same stories, and i know that many of them just want to get an education and thats all. They want to be productive members of society, they want to live the american dream.

@ cynthia: I dont think you know how hard it is to sit an wait for someone to say hey your able to have a visa now, when your family does not have any money to feed their family or there is no future for your kids. Plus, the requirements to be even illegible for a visa is to have at the minimum thousands of dollars in your bank account, do you think that a family who does not have any food to eat is able to afford thousands of dollars. Also if i were to some day become a resident of this beautiful country I would be proud, because my family does everything that an American person does as well , we pay taxes, we stay out of trouble, we go to school, we know english, and most importantly we love this country. There are American citizens that do not appreciate what they have, they rather sell drugs and not get an education where as people that do not have american privileges would love to have them to better their lives and our country. (its is very ironic). I respect your opinion, but think about it wont u fight for your dreams.