I came to this country when I was fourteen-years-old from Oaxaca, Mexico. It was the late nineties and Mexico was, and is still, facing one of the worst socio-economic and political periods in recent history. For my parents – a taxi driver and a stay-at-home-mom that were struggling to make ends meet- it was clear that they would have to choose between seeing their children starve and get sick, or risk it all, leave everything behind and relocate the family to Southern California with hopes of a better future. In 1998 we moved to Los Angeles and have lived here, since.
Their choice and sacrifice paid-off. I didn’t only become the first one in my family to graduate from high school, but a couple of years ago I became the first one in my family to graduate from college. I graduated from California State University, Northridge and I am currently in the process of applying to law school. My dream is to become an attorney and defend the most vulnerable in the courts of law.
Life as an undocumented student has not been easy, it’s been filled with tough choices and a lot of uncertainty. At one point I felt like the only way to fulfill my dream of higher education was to leave my family behind and go back to Mexico. But California had become my home and so I chose to stay despite the uncertain future ahead. Against all odds I enrolled in college, and it was there that I first learned about the DREAM Act. From the moment I heard about this piece of legislation I decided to work hard and advocate for its passage. It’s now been seven years since that day and the DREAM Act has yet to become a reality.
Despite overwhelming support, Congress has been unwilling to pass the DREAM Act. It is because of that inaction that earlier this year I had to decide whether committing civil disobedience would be worth the risk of being forcibly separated from my family, and deported to a place I no longer consider home. I made a choice, forced in part by the lack of courage from our leaders in Congress and inspired by your call to change, the “change [that] will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.” Just as I had chosen to work on your campaign inspired by what you said, that “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek,” I also chose to face my fears, to risk it all, to seek that change, and sit-in so that the DREAM Act could stand alone.
Some say that destiny is not a matter of chances but one of choices. My life and that of my fellow Dreamers has been filled with tough choices, some made by us and some made by others on our behalf. Two months after five of us chose to risk it all for our futures, because we knew that without the DREAM Act we had no future, twenty-one others chose to risk it all for a dream that belongs to us as much as it belongs to our families, our communities, and our home – the United States of America.
I firmly believe that we have made the right choice – to stand up for what we believe in and to try to fulfill the promise of the great American Dream that brought us here in the first place. I firmly believe that we, the undocumented youth, are standing on the right side of history. Now I ask that you stand with us by making the right choice. Help us pass the DREAM Act immediately. Help us free our DREAMs, which have for too long been held hostage to political rhetoric and insensitive choices by a few that have yet to recognize the potential that we have as young, educated people.
Mr. President, staying strong and facing my challenges with courage and dignity while I wait patiently is no longer an option, it’s no longer a choice I can make because I played the last card I had, and my time is running out. I put my life on the line in order to have a chance at a future out of the shadows. Now the DREAM Act is the only chance I have to stay home. Please help us pass the DREAM Act so that no more youth have to risk it all by putting their lives on the line.
Sincerely,
Lizbeth Mateo
The “DREAM Now” letter series is inspired by a similar campaign started by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The letters are produced by Kyle de Beausset at Citizen Orange with the assistance of America’s Voice. Every Monday and Wednesday DREAM-eligible youth will publish letters to the President, and each Friday there will be a DREAM Now recap.
Approximately 65,000 undocumented youth graduate from U.S. high schools every year, who could benefit from passage of the DREAM Act. Many undocumented youth are brought to the United States before they can even remember much else, and some don’t even realize their undocumented status until they have to get a driver’s license, want to join the military, or apply to college. DREAM Act youth are American in every sense of the word — except on paper. It’s been nearly a decade since the DREAM Act was first introduced. If Congress does not act now, another generation of promising young graduates will be relegated to the shadows and blocked from giving back fully to our great nation.
This is what you can do right now to pass the DREAM Act:
- Sign the DREAM Act Petition
- Join the DREAM Act Facebook Cause
- Send a fax in support of the DREAM Act
- Call your Senator and ask them to pass the DREAM Act now.
- Email kyle at citizenorange dot com to get more involved
Below is a list of previous entries in the DREAM Now Series:
Mohammad Abdollahi (19 July 2010)
Yahaira Carrillo (21 July 2010)
Weekly Recap – Tell Harry Reid You Want the DREAM Act Now (23 July 2010)
Wendy (26 July 2010)
Matias Ramos (28 July 2010)
Weekly Recap – The CHC Has To Stand With Migrant Youth Not Against Us (30 July 2010)
Tania Unzueta (2 August 2010)
Marlen Moreno (4 August 2010)
Weekly Recap – The Ghost of Virgil Goode Possesses the Republican Party (9 August 2010)
David Cho (9 August 2010)
Ivan Nikolov (11 August 2010)
Yves Gomes (16 August 2010)
Selvin Arevalo (18 August 2010)
Weekly Recap – Latino, LGBT, Migrant Youth, and Progressive Bloggers Lead For the DREAM Act (20 August 2010)
Carlos A. Roa, Jr. (23 August 2010)
Myrna Orozco (25 August 2010)
Came to the USA in simpler times, at least in terms of immigration law. Folks where they lived were being shot and burned out because they were the wrong “race” as far as the government and neighboring villagers were concerned. Of course, when they left, those same neighbors took over their houses and farms.
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p>My grandfather actually did have a passport – and sent it back to the old country between 1912 and 1917 for 11 other villagers to use to come here.
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p>He had children, who fought here in World War II, and built businesses and lives.
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p>It is the intelligent, strong, and hard working who risk so much to come here and build a new life, then and now.
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p>But in times of high unemployment, you are viewed with fear, and as competition. I wish you well, but in these hard times, your story of emigration and hope is unfortunately, a hard sell.
So she can travel to Mexico without being banned from the U.S. the only home she’s ever known. That’s what folks often fail to understand, that immigration law keeps more migrants in than it keeps people out.
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p>Read Douglass Massey’s research in Princeton on this (http://mmp.opr.princeton.edu/). The reason the undocumented population in the U.S. has ballooned isn’t because more migrants are coming in, but because less are leaving for fear of never being able to come back.
And I meant what I said – she seems like an intelligent and principled person. Mexico is in dire straits BECAUSE people like her and her parents are fleeing its violence.
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p>I’ve often wondered why asylum isn’t sought – nobody can deny the pathological killings and danger – instead of insistence on the ‘right’ to enter illegally.
I would read her letter. She did consider going back to Mexico, but the U.S. has become her home. The years after 14 are highly formative year and I think you can see from the excellent letter she wrote and from how she speaks in the video that she’s assimilated well.
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p>Asylum for Mexicans is very difficult. Unfortunately, asylum law and the courts are notorious for not considering things like gangs and drugs, generally you’ve got to be someone persecuted by a government.
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p>Take it from dual Guatemalan/U.S. Citizen, Peter. The best way to help the country I was born and raised in is to give people like this legal status. That gives them the freedom to go back and forth between places like Guatemala in the U.S. instead of being forced to stay here as today’s immigration laws do for the vast majority of unauthorized migrants. Again, our immigration laws are keeping migrants in, not out.
It’s folks like Lizbeth that we need to help get our economy back on track.
“Justice” is, unfortunately, or fortunately (depending on one’s viewpooint) a creature of statute and words; at least that is how courts and we lawyers see it. Something can be legal – but immoral (like Hitler’s ‘Final Solution1 or the 1850s ‘Fugitive Slave Act’ in this country.). People forget that folks did federal hard time for helping slaves escape once upon a time, here. The internment of Japanese citizens is another example of court actions, so-called “justice” which was not moral, not equitqable, not compassionate.
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p>Similarly, actions can be illegal despite being “just” in a moral sense, like helping slaves escape, hiding Jews from Hitler, etc.
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p>I would rather say that the wording of laws which render Lizbeth’s existence hear insecure, and subject to deportation and other legal harms is inequitable, short sighted, and wrong in a moral sense, just as surely as the Fugitive Slave Act was in its time.
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p>The passage of time has led to a social and moral consensus that the Fugitive Slave Act, and the Dred Scott Decision were immoral – and therefore, what is “legal” and protected by the justice system, has changed.
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p>I note, though, that the change in the justice system in terms of slavery required the passage of the 14th amendment, and those who would exclude Lizbeth also wish to either vacate or significantly amend and water down that same 14th Amendment. That tells ME something.
For continuing to be supportive of the DREAM Act. Scott Brown is still a maybe on the DREAM Act and we need all the help we can get pushing him.