This Saturday, October 5, immigrant activist groups in over 130 cities across the United States will observe the National Day for Dignity and Respect in attempt to push comprehensive immigration reform and shed light on mistreatment of U.S. immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants. Many of the day’s events have been coordinated by the Service Employees International Union, who explained the purpose of their protests in greater detail on their website:
“We are marching for commonsense immigration reform with a path to citizenship, immigration rules that promote family unity and protect worker rights, an end to the destruction of our families through deportations, and a halt to unneeded border militarization and for profit immigrant detention prisons.”
In honor of 2013’s National Day for Dignity and Respect, we are sharing the story of Melody, a DREAMer, successful college student, and friend of Christian Villalobos, VISANOW intern and also a DREAMer currently completing her college degree. Here is Melody’s immigrant story as told by Christian:
As a freshman in college, I met a very bright woman who I will call Melody. It was the first time I met a person that was open about being undocumented to the public. Over the last two years, she has become my mentor and I look at her with admiration. With her guidance, my life as a DREAMer has become more manageable.
Melody’s father was an engineer in Mexico. People told him that in the U.S he could complete his master’s degree and provide a better life for his family. He believed them. At the age of six years old Melody moved to the U.S. Soon after arriving, her father realized they had lied to him. By this time it was too late and the family had no choice but to stay.
Melody grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood. Growing up was difficult for her. She wanted to fit in, to be part of this high middle class that surrounded her. How could she embrace her culture and still be part of her surroundings. Her father always feared immigration enforcement. She was told at a very young age to never disclose her status or bad things could happen. She got lost in a pretend world where no one knew the truth about her status.
Reality hit her for first time when she was a sophomore in high school. For the first time ever, her high school counselor encountered an undocumented student. All the students in her class were taking driver’s ed. They did not know what to do with her since she could not drive. They allowed her to take the class but she could not get behind the wheel. After sophomore year, Melody decided to pretend nothing happened.
Reality hit her once more when she came to college. In her first year, she could not be like every other freshman and live in the dorms. She had to live with strangers in a house outside campus. Her parents had to work really hard to pay her tuition out of pocket. She felt guilty seeing her parents working so hard for her. She felt guilty because she had to focus in school and could not work. Around this time, her brother in law got put into deportation procedures. The process took three years. To this day the pain of seeing her little niece crying every day for her father still linger in her ears. So much pressure is added to our lives as DREAMers. We have to get a perfect GPA so our parents do not have to suffer paying our education. We have to be involved to be able to apply for scholarships. At the same time we want to be like the other college kids. For us it’s a necessity, not a pleasure, to do well in everything.
Even with all the obstacles she faces, today she is a very successful DREAMER. She works for the school doing lab work which relates to her major. She pays all her tuition fees with scholarships, she is very involved in school activities, and her GPA is over a 3.7. During the summer she traveled to two different states to conduct research. Other DREAMers like me admire her dedication and the strength to never give up. She said to me, “I fight for 11 million undocumented immigrants to not go through what my family had to go through. I fight for no one to hear a little girl crying at night asking for her father. I fight for myself to never get lost pretending to be someone else.”
