Struggles of Living DACAmented

Struggles of Living DACAmented

Undocumented students do not know any other home than the United States. Young undocumented immigrants are confronted with the dilemma of not having a sense of belonging in the United States nor in their home countries; they are neither from here nor from the other side.

Isael is a 19-year-old Mexican-American man who came to the United States at the age of nine with his family. After going through many economic hardships in the farming community where he was born, his family decided to immigrate to the United States without a visa. By age 12, Isael started working as a gardener.

Isael’s parents wanted a better life for their son. A life that consists of higher education and an opportunity to achieve financial stability. Due to his and his parents’ hard work, patience, and grit, Isael got his “better” life. He is a student at Pasadena City College majoring in business management and working as an electrician to put himself through school.

You interact with people like Isael all day long—they are working in your homes and at the restaurants you frequent. They care for your children and your grandchildren. They wash your cars. And in another generation, like the wave of Mexican immigrants who came before them, they will be your lawyers, doctors, social workers and investment bankers. For now, however, Isael struggles. He is undocumented and is one of the more than 750,000 young immigrants who are protected under DACA—Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

It is estimated that since the implementation of DACA, in 2012, 50,000-75,000 individuals have entered the workforce and about 25,000 have obtained their GED. Undocumented students are fully integrated to the American culture. They are productive members of society. They pay taxes.

Approximately 61% of DACA recipients have obtained a new job have opened bank accounts, 38% have credit cards and 61% have obtained driver licenses, which broaden their job and economic opportunities. DACAmented students are making every effort to contribute to the economy; they are not here to take jobs or opportunities.

Data shows that about three-quarters or 77% of unauthorized immigrants have received protection through DACA with 60% being Mexicans. In 2014, California was the leading state with more than 216,000 approved DACA applications, followed by Texas and Illinois. Undocumented students face difficult circumstances every day when it comes to funding their education or when searching for a well-paying job.

Undocumented students face bureaucratic challenges in terms of accessing financial aid because institutions require them to provide a social security number even when they don’t have one or if they have it specifically states “only valid with employment card”. It is often the case that undocumented students take more time to complete their degrees and certificates because they lack the resources to integrate into the school system that would offer them guidance and counseling.

Fortunately, in 2011, the California legislature passed two bills that would make college more accessible and affordable to undocumented students. Assembly Bill 130 allows undocumented students to apply for private scholarships eliminating the requirement of a social security number. Assembly Bill 131, on other hand, allows undocumented students to apply for state financial aid in California’s public colleges and universities.

Assembly Bills 130 and 131 provide undocumented students the economic and educational resources they need to continue with their education. The passage of these two bills has provided students with the opportunities to advance in their future careers and create pathways for others who like them have struggled.

Even though California offers financial aid for undocumented students, since the election of President Trump, the number of applicants has declined. It was reported that between January and March, the California Dream Act applications were down 60% compared to the same period last year. For Instance, from January through March only about 17,819 applications were filed compared to 2016 when 46,731 applications were submitted.

If at one point DACA offered relief from deportation, today the future of thousand hard working individuals remain uncertain. The election of Donald Trump has sparked the fear of being deported because with the new administration DACA can be terminated at any point. Living in California has made it easier for Isael to continue with his education, especially after the passage of AB 130 and 131. Isael considers himself an American just like his U.S. born siblings and he should be deserving of every opportunity.

While Isael is protected by DACA, his parents are not and fear being deported. We, the people, should make everything possible for individuals like Isael and his family to achieve the American Dream.

Dear Hate

Dear hate:

I am the antidote to your bigotry and racist rhetoric

I am the one who will fight against the odds

I am resistance and resilience,

I will be your worst nightmare.

 

I will empower future generations;

The ones who will tear down walls of separation

Those walls that divide us between them and us

I will help build bridges that connect us to equal opportunities.

 

In my veins runs the blood of great warriors,

Montezuma, Cuauhtémoc and Nezahualcóyotl will guide me to victory

I am the past, present and future;

I am the conscience of my people.

REMEMBER

Remember me as the one who wanted to change the world;

the who wanted to inspire generations.

Remember me not as the coward who didn’t fight,

but as the warrior who never stopped fighting.

 

As the sun starts setting, so will I.

Don’t let anything deter you from achieving your dreams,

not even you. Remember that you are as powerful

as the sun’s rays are.

 

Even the stronger and most beautiful tree

has lost its leaves and has flourished every season and so will you.

Learn to weave your own web of opportunities.

You are powerful in every sense.

Fashion Today

Fashion is a symbol of class, but also of expressing one’s uniqueness.  Individuals use fashion to impose themselves and as a way of exerting their power over others. Though fashion can be considered as a cycle, it can also be considered a never-ending trend; which evolves and leaves some in and some out … most are out.

While fashion trends represent an individual’s personality, they can also make an individual part of a social group which he or she might or might not belong to. It is unusual for those at the bottom to set fashion trends … they do not have the means to do so. When those at the bottom have obtained the new fall/winter outfit, fashion designers have already come out with the spring outfit. Those at the top–usually celebrities–are the fashion ‘setters,’ those who have the means to constantly change their clothing styles.

Moreover, while the bottom classes can get away with keeping their fashion style those at the top can’t. They have to separate themselves from the lower classes; they have an image to take care of; and fashion is something that must be change on a daily basis because “one day you are in and one day you are out.”

***Previously Published on my first blog

Feels Like Home: Reminiscence of my Childhood

It’s Friday January 22, 10:38 am, and I am heading to Olvera Street, to the Historic Pueblo of Los Ángeles. I have decided to go eat a churro relleno (a filled churro) and spend some time just by myself. I have always loved coming here because it reminds me of my hometown: Sombrerete, Zacatecas.

Placita Olvera has the power to transport me to my childhood when everything was tranquil and where I lived the day-by-day without any worries. Where everything was just running around nonstop, while playing at the jardín and going up and down the kiosk. Of course, at Placita Olvera I cannot run around and go up and down the kiosk, I mean if I wanted to be deviant I would, but I would not… Haha.

Placita Olvera reminds me of when my grandparents would take me and my sisters to the town and we would wait for the camion (bus) after a long day of shopping at el Mercado (the local market) or having walked for so long and el jardín was the resting point for everyone who would go to el pueblo. It was, still is, the meeting point of everyone; where everyone from other Rancherias would catch up and talk about their cattle and or crops, and to some extend share stories and worries about the temporadas para la siembra. But more than anything it reminds me when I though everything would be the same. When I thought my grandparents would never get old or die.

La Placita Olvera reminds me of those times I would see my grandpa laugh while talking to men from other Rancherias and he would just wipe his laughter tears with his hand. It reminds me of the strong man he was and of how brave he was; of how he would forget about his worries and his sickness for just one day. It reminds me when he would get dressed up because my grandma would make me and it was a constant arguing because he hated wearing closed shoes and he preferred wearing his huaraches, but of course, my grandma wouldn’t let him, “porque iba ir de fachoso.”

Going to Sombrerete was those days when he wasn’t be comfortable because his attire didn’t reflected who he was. He wasn’t a conformist but a rebel, he was just himself, un hombre de campo, aferreado a sus ideales y bien terco (a country men, with strict ideals, and really stubborn). But we all loved him, aún que nos regañara. He was like my second dad; someone from whom I learned so many things like: not giving a damn whether people like me or not. It is no wonder why Placita Olvera is very dear to me, it takes me back home: it brings me memorable moments of when I was a child, it makes me not worry, and it is peaceful like el jardín in Sombrerete.

The Cry of a Mother

Your mother cries for your absence

Your departure left a profound emptiness.

In her heart she has an immense sadness,

That cannot be replaced by anyone’s presence.

 

She talks of you as if she’s waiting for your arrival,

Even though you will never open the door to your house.

In her heart and mind your departure was not final;

The memories will always keep you alive.

 

She waits anxiously for you to call her “ama.”

The await prolongs and her eyes fill with tears and not joy

She cries because a piece of her flesh has been taken apart

Resignation will not come home because you were her little boy.

Mother and Son

Me gustaría ser ave

Me gustaría ser ave para volar alto y olvidarme de todo;

Cruzar fronteras y no tener miedo a vivir en las sombras.

No tener miedo al día a día, pero vivir los momentos;

De no sufrir solo volar sin ser detenido por el viento.

 

La vida es cruel pero nadie dijo que no lo seria,

A veces hay barreras que se interponen en nuestros caminos;

Pero hay que saber enfrentarlos como lo hacen las aves;

Esas aves viajeras que vuelan sin detenerse y sin mirar atrás.

 

Que fortuna tienen las aves de no tener que vivir en la oscuridad.

Ellas vuelan alto y libres porque es su bella naturaleza;

Que suerte tienen ellas de poder expandir sus alas y volar.

Envidio su valentía y su garra de enfrentarse al mundo sin pesar alguno.

 

Que si bien vuelan sin saber donde morirán;

Porque su naturaleza dicta que ellas no lo sepan;

Tienen la fortuna de no preocuparse de la vida ni de la muerte,

Porque al fin libres son.

Letter To A Brother That Never Left

I never knew I would have this feeling of pain and sorrow. But I am. It is a feeling I don’t want to feel; it is a feeling that I wouldn’t want anyone to feel. Especially, not those I love very dearly. I wish you hadn’t parted away from us but you did, and it is something that I wasn’t able to avoid. Only you know why you did it, and I will never judge or condemn you for that. There are many questions but not one single answer. They say the ones who leave, leave with only their last sigh and the ones who stay with a broken heart and a million tears to cry. And I only wonder if you left with us in mind? I wonder if you thought of your lovely mother, my mother; of your dear father, my father; of your sisters, my sisters; of your nieces and nephews, my nieces and nephews; of your grandmothers my grandmothers; of your only brother— me.

Only you have the answers to the questions I have. Answers that might not be answered any time soon. You lived a life without boundaries, a life without fear. You weren’t afraid to take risks, you just weren’t afraid of anything. You were the opposite of me. You were fearless and always with an attitude towards life. Truth is, that you are the bravest person I have ever known.

You left this world of suffering for one where no one will judge you for what you do or for who you are. No one looks down at you because you are all the same.You would say that we were like animals: we die and we don’t even know were we really go. It’s like getting a nonstop flight ticket around the world. Only you know what it’s like where you are, and I hope you are living a life of fulfillment. A life that is good for you. They say that the one above only takes those individuals who are greater than the ones down here. And believe it or not, you are greater than all of us.

I am jealous. You have left us in this world of misery. And it is true that…Poor of us who stay because those who leave, go with an immense happiness and fulfillment. Perhaps not because they lived a life of enjoyment: but because they are not suffering in this world of negativity and pessimism.

I know I will never be able to fully express myself because there are not enough words that can describe the way I feel. It is a feeling of emptiness. I cannot describe it because the words cannot come out. I know I will always remember you as the brother I would play with. The one I built houses with, tell stories, eat marshmallows, and just be the brothers that we are and always will be. It is hard to let go when the memories invade my mind and everyday I remember of everything we did together. It is not easy, no one said it would be. It is hard to say that we must move on when we all know that we are missing a wheel to our family. And you are a wheel without replacement. We grew up together like two brothers, two friends because we knew that we only had each other. However, in the way we took different paths and distanced ourselves. But those two paths are not parallel and they will cross once again and we will be together: to be the brothers that we should have always been. As an older brother I always looked after you; now I ask for you to be my little big brother and look after all of us.

When I was on my way home, I looked down and everything looked so small, and I asked myself, “ I wonder if Brayan sees us all like that.” But then I said, “No he doesn’t because he’s with us. He can only see the ones who insulted and humiliated him small and down; he would never look at us down because we are family and family always stays together.” Then as the plane crossed the Mar de Cortez, I saw the immense sea and I said to myself: “that’s how our love for Brayan is: infinite and immense as the blue water that runs through the rivers into the sea.” And those rivers that flow to the sea are the open veins of our mother and father who were left with a broken heart.

I can write forever and I will never find the words to describe how I feel. It is hard, but I have to take some of the courage you had to confront the world and be strong for our parents. No body is eternal in this world and we will see each other sooner or later.

Mar de Cortez

Two Brothers

Between Sor Juana’s Feminism and Religiosity

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz writes the letter “Autodefensa Espiritual” to Reverendo Padre Maestro Antonio Núñez de Miranda de la Compañía de Jesús. The letter to Padre Miranda was written in present day México, in the convent de San Jerónimo, in approximately 1681. Father Antonio Núñez de Miranda was someone of importance in Sor Juana’s live because he was her confessor.

Sor Juana was born in the year 1651 in San Miguel Neplantla, México, Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramíres. She was the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish Captain and a creole woman. She was a devoted child who was raised in her maternal grandfather’s hacienda, where she would hide in the chapel to read the books from her grandfather’s library. Sor Juana learned how to read at the age of three, by the time she was an adolescent, she had mastered Greek logic and at 13 she was teaching Latin to children. Besides her knowledge in Greek and Latin, she also learned Nahuatl. After her grandfather’s death she was sent to México City where she attempted to disguised herself as a male to attend university; however, she fail at her attempt and instead studied privately (Poets.org).

In the letter Sor Juana defends her rights as a religious, devoted, and passionate sister of the order of San Jerónimo de la Ciudad de México. However, she also questions the rules imposed to those women that wish to have an education. Sor Juana argues with her confessor that why should men be the only ones deserving of an education and why women should be excluded from one. Sor Juana states, “…pero los privados y particulares estudios, ¿quién los ha prohibido a las mujeres? ¿No tienen alma racional como los hombres? Pues, ¿por qué no gozará el privilegio de la ilustración de las letras con ellos? —¿Qué revelación divina, qué determinación de la Iglesia, qué dictamen de la razón hizo para nosotras tan severa ley? ¿Las letras estorban, sino que antes ayudan a la salvación?” (Sor Juana 1681). Sor Juana argues that the right to knowledge should be accessible to both men and women. More interestingly, she argues that who are the ones deciding for women and if whether it has been determined through a divine revelation that states that women are not deserving of knowledge.

Moreover, Sor Juana questions the church’s patriarchal system, but she also challenges the powerful members of the Catholic Church in México to respond to her questioning. She cannot be only identified as the first woman to be part of philosophical era dominated by men, but she also is the first known woman to challenge the power of the ecclesiastical system; she is also the first one to defend women’s rights to have an education.

In “Autodefensa Espiritual,” Sor Juana not only defends her right to be an educated woman, she also advoacates for her religious vocation. Sor Juana states that “Si he leído los poetas y oradores profanos (descuido en que incurrió el mismo Santo) también leo los Doctores Sagrados y Santas Escrituras…”(Sor Juana 1681). Sor Juana defends her religiosity by stating that she not only reads those texts that are deemed inappropriate for a nun, but that she also reads the Holly Testament. In a sense, it can be argued, that Sor Juana is defending herself as a religious being but she is also arguing that she should not be judged for reading and studying other great writers because she is a dedicated and devoted sister.

Sor Juana, in her latter to Father Antonio Núñez de Miranda, states that her vast knowledge is not only a threat to men but also to women. Sor Juana states, “Las mujeres sienten que las exceda; los hombres, que parezca que los igualo; unos no quisieran que supiera tanto; otros dicen que había de saber más, para tanto aplauso. Las viejas no quisieran que otras supieran más; las mozas que otras parezcan bien, y unos y otros que viese conforme a las reglas de su dictamen…” (Sor Juana 1681). Although she is a person that has vast knowledge and someone who can make anyone uncomfortable, she is also the target of different ideologies of her time. The gender systems are different and a woman who is educated will contradict the system and be considered a threat to it because she is defying the odds.

Furthermore, Sor Juana states that “Pues, ¿por qué para salvarse ha de ir por el camino de la ignorancia, si es repugnante a su natural?” (Sor Juana 1681). Sor Juana questions why should one be oblivious when one should be aware of everything around. That one should not be ignorant in order to reach salvation because it is a contradiction to that of nature, but rather, that in order to reach salvation one should be knowledgeable.

In her defense, Sor Juana writes to Núñez de Miranda, “Si estas reprensiones cayeran sobre alguna comunicación escandalosa mía, soy tan dócil que (no obstante que ni en lo espiritual ni temporal he corrido nunca por cuenta de Vuestra Reverencia) me apartara de ella y procurara enmendarme y satisfacerle, aunque fuera contra mi gusto” (Sor Juana 1681). If all the scandalous rumors about her were to be true, she is so vulnerable, to the authority of her superiors, that not even with his intersection she would be free of charge rather she would be reprimanded even against her will. Even when she accumulates knowledge that knowledge would be insignificant to her defense, because she is seen as a rebellious sister that does not adhere to the rules that are imposed by the church. Her knowledge would be of second nature because she will be chastised because her writings are of an offense to the spirituality of a nun and to the Catholic Church.

While Sor Juana lived a life of knowledge, she also lived a life of oppression for wanting to pursue an education with the same rights that a man had during the colonial period in México. One cannot denied that Sor Juana made major contributions to the literature of women but also was a major advocate for women’s rights; someone who rebelled against the gender system imposed by the Spanish in order to have an autonomy away from the church. She was a woman who defied what was to be a woman in the colonial period, but most importantly a woman in the church; she challenge the male-centered perception of women, overall.

Essay written for my Chicana/o Studies Course (History of the Chicana/Mexicana) 

Work Cited

De la Cruz, Sor Juana Inés. “Autodefensa Espirtual de Sor Juana.” 1681. Carta de Sor Juna Inés de la Cruz a su Confesor Autodefensa Espiritual. Tapia Méndez, Aureliano. Monterrey, N.L. Mêxico. Print. 51-55.

Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

Photo Sor Juana 1

Photo Sor Juana 2

The OverConsumption of Over Consuming

What is it about fashion trends that drive us to shop with out even considering how much we spend? We are all guilty of over shopping. I am not just talking about clothing trends but also about technological trends. We all have the latest jacket, shirt, jeans or pants hanging in our closets. Jogger pants are so popular almost every one has one—at least I do. But we also have the latest technological gadgets–iPhone 6 or 6 plus, Samsung Galaxy S5, MacBook Pro, Microsoft Surface, and or the 50 inch plasma.

Over consumption comes from our consumption of media. As we drive down the street it is inevitable not to come across an American Eagle, H&M, or Forever21, Best Buy, Apple, Samsung or any other billboards that promote or persuade us to buy any of the items that this brands promote.

Fashion is a cycle! What was in 10 years ago might be the trend this spring season. And what is it that we deem essential to our survival in a society were we are constantly judged by how we look, talk, wear, walk, sit, or eat?

However, as sociologist Thorstein Veblen social theory of conspicuous consumption suggests, [we] shop to show our social status and place us on the map. We certainly want to have the latest iPhone, iPad, Mac, Galaxy S5, and the upcoming iWatch to demonstrate that we are not so far behind from the “upper class.” We must show our status everywhere we go, just like the leisure class Veblen talks about would in the Victorian era, by “overdressing” and having exuberant hairstyles. However, in this day and age, we show our status by having the phone with the largest screen, but not just any phone, it has to be either apple or Samsung.

And even though we say that how we look or dress does not matter. We are lying to ourselves. How we look and what we wear does matter; it matters to everyone.

Bibliography:

“IPhone 6.” Apple. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.

Google Images

“Microsoft Surface Tablets.” Microsoft Surface. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

“My Life Powered by Galaxy S5.” Samsung GALAXY S5. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1998. Print.