Buenos Aires, Argentina: a place thousands of miles away, my native country, and my second home. My mom and I moved to the United States when I was 6 years old. My dad had been in the U.S. a year before us trying to find work and building a better life in Arizona. I didn’t know much of what was going on, but I was excited to be moving to what everyone called the “glory land”. Little did I know the battles ahead of me. When I was young and began going to school I never felt like an outsider, I felt like I belonged. Nobody asked you for a Social Security number or questioned your legal status even though I always knew I was undocumented.
When I began high school I didn’t know the challenges I was about to face, I was just an enthusiastic 14 year old who was so excited to start the next chapter in her life. In 2010, I turned 16 and remember asking my parents naively when I could go get my driver’s license, with sad looks in their eyes they let me know I couldn’t get my driver’s license because of my legal status. That exact same year S.B. 1070 was signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer, the infamous law that allowed police to question your legal status when they stopped you for any reason. I remember watching the news with my mom and seeing the tears in her eyes, she was scared, we were all scared. That is when it dawned on me, at any moment I could be deported or one of my parents could leave for work and I would never see them again, my family could be completely torn apart by the only country I’ve truly ever known.
I was ashamed of being undocumented. I never told anyone in fear of what they would think and of putting my family in danger. During my last two years of high school I lived a double life. Every time my friends would ask me why I hadn’t gone to get my driver’s license yet or why I didn’t go get a part-time job like they all did, I would lie. I felt like a fraud. In high school I was the varsity cheerleader, the homecoming queen, no one would have ever guessed I was the undocumented student who didn’t know if she would be able to continue her education after graduation. This country and many states have put blocks up for undocumented students, we are known as DREAMers, for education and much needed scholarships. In Arizona undocumented students were not eligible to pay in-state tuition because of Proposition 300 which passed in 2006, higher education was close to impossible due to lack of a SSN even if we had gone to school in Arizona our whole life. The state considered us “foreign students”. In high school my senior year I hit a dead end. I remember going to my guidance counselor and coming out to him as undocumented and asking him for help to see how I could continue my education. He sat there shocked and said there was nothing he could do. He was not prepared for this, most counselors aren’t. These laws like Prop 300 have held back brilliant and capable students from their dreams of earning a higher education, including me. I remember when graduation day came, I stood there with my cap and gown thinking, “this is supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life, but I feel like my life is over.” I had done everything right, I got good grades, I was in sports, and I volunteered as much as I could, I didn’t understand why this was happening to me. It wasn’t fair.
After graduation in June of 2012, President Obama announced that with his executive power he would grant DREAMers Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). This program would protect DREAMers who were brought to the U.S. before the age of 15 and provide them with a temporary work permit that would need to be renewed every 2 years. I remember watching the announcement and jumping up and down with tears in my eyes. I applied as soon as I could and three months later I received my work permit in the mail. Although this was a very happy moment many blocks by the state still stood. DREAMers with DACA could not receive driver’s licenses still due to an executive order by the Governor of Arizona and we still could not pay in-state tuition at public universities. Worse of all, even though we were temporarily protected, our families were still in danger of being taken away from us every day and 1,100 people in our community keep being deported and having their human rights violated in private detention centers everyday. These are our fathers, sisters, brothers, mothers, aunts, and uncles.
3 years after DACA has been announced undocumented youth have continued to fight for our rights in Arizona and after long legal battles we have won our basic rights to pay in-state tuition at public universities and have a driver's license.
With good there was still bad and the fight against racist discrimination still continues to this day. I have come a long way from the girl who found out she was undocumented in high school. After DACA came out I gained the confidence to tell everyone that I was undocumented publically. I received many different reactions of shock, support for my cause, and many lost and gained friendships along the way because of my status, but I have come to embrace it and be proud. I can say that I have participated and fought along side the brave people I look up to. I have become an advocate and activist for immigrant rights because of it. I will fight until the end for what is right. This is who I am, UNDOCUMENTED and UNAFRAID.
