Mayra, 29

I am a proud daughter of an immigrant father. My father has worked his whole life starting from the young age of 9, when he saw the necessity for money and food in his home. At the age of 15 he lost his eyesight on one of his eyes & from there on he went against my grandparents will & decided to immigrate to the United States once he noticed that the money he worked for back home wasn’t enough to help out. The way he tells me his story, immigrating from one country to another for the better life promised not only for himself, but for his parents & siblings back home, was brutal. He told me he received multiple beatings not only from the agents from his homeland but also after coming over. He would go days without eating & seeing his friends be separated from the group & left behind. It was either you helped them & stayed behind to whatever destiny was yours or keep walking and have a chance at a better life. Those days walking were living hell, but he knew it was worth it. Here he worked in landscaping, taking multiple trains and buses just to get to his worksite. He mentioned he would leave his home at 4am & be back home by 8pm, just to do it all again six days of the week. Sending over the majority of his paychecks to his parents back home for many years & still helps them up to this day. There was weeks when rent was due & he was only left with $20, enough to last him until next paycheck. Thank God he was here during the amnesty & through that he received legal status. Every boss he had worked for spoke in favor for him, the people of his church community did the same. After some years he married my mom, & I was born, he decided to bring us with him to live in the United States. I remember arriving here on the Fourth of July, exactly that day. I was so happy to finally be with my family all together. My first year in school was the most traumatic. I didn’t know how to read or write in Spanish, let alone English. I had an amazing teacher to would help me after school, without pay. Throughout the years I graduated high school, college. All thanks to my father. The risk he took to obtain a better future for himself & his loved ones. He is a man of God, he helps out at our local church, he is involved in religious groups here & back at our hometown. Not only him, but my mom as well, both as a couple, volunteer in their church any time their help is needed. My father is a prime example that not every person who is at one point “illegal” is bad. We are all God’s children & should treat each other with humility and with the love a father has for his family. I am blessed my father overcame so many difficulties even if he was scared and alone. In these times we are all scared, my father fits the description according to federal agents for being able to detain or question him. Even if he’s here legally, my heart still worries that he will be detained, we are not criminals. We just want a better future for our loved ones. Under God’s eyes we are all the same, even my father has taught me to treat whoever despises me, with love. God said to love our neighbor as ourselves, and we should always do just that.