Too Young to Understand How Things Work in This Country

By Anonymous / Spring 2022

In the summer of 2013, I had just finished my last exam of Selectividad, the mandatory test that all students in Spain must take at the end of High School in order to get into University. My summer break was about to begin, with many trips, parties, and escapes planned for what I was expecting to be the best summer of my life. However, life had different plans for me. My mother was diagnosed with cancer on the 1st of August and died only 22 days after. My world changed forever. In just a matter of days, I went from the euphoria of being accepted at one of the best universities in the country to the sadness of losing the most important person in my life. After some horrible days in which I couldn't think straight, I made one of the most important decisions of my life: I moved to the United States.

Coming to America wasn’t just a random decision. My mom was an American citizen, even though she wasn’t born in this country. Back in the 80s, my mom’s side of the family moved to New York, where they lived all these years, and most of them have become American citizens. My family convinced me to move to New York with them, where I could quickly obtain a Green Card and work. In Spain, as a 17-year-old with no labor experience and in a country with one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe, finding a job was almost an impossible task, so I accepted their proposition. I arrived in NYC on September 15th, 2013. Growing up, there were innumerable times that I heard the term “American Dream’, but I never completely understood what it was referring to. It wasn’t until I first arrived in the US that my aunt told me: “Now you can see what the American Dream is about.” Naturally, I was expectant to discover what was that amazing thing called the American Dream. However, I soon found that the American Dream was far from a dream.

My first job was at Taco Bell in a tiny town called Kingston. There, I quickly became friends with the crew that was already working at the restaurant because they all spoke Spanish. I was amazed. Being from a little town in Spain, I rarely came across people from other countries, especially Latin America. In just one evening working at a Taco Bell, I met friends from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. I was curious to learn about them, so I asked them where they were from, what they were doing there, the best things about their countries, etc. They answered all my questions and even shared a bit about their cultures, traditions, cuisine, etc. I was fascinated to hear about the beautiful places and cultures they described, so I asked: “How often do you go back to visit your family?”. I will never forget how they looked at me and the sadness in their voices when they answered: “We can’t go back to visit; we are undocumented.” It was my first interaction with the cruelty of the American immigration system.

My aunt picked me up from work that day, the same aunt who told me about the American Dream. I told her about my conversation with my friends and how sad I felt about not being able to go back to their countries. She replied by saying that all of our family were undocumented at some point, including my mom. Her response left me wordless. I had no idea that my mom was an illegal immigrant in this country. “I thought my mom was an American citizen,” I told my aunt. “Yes, because she married, obtained the documents, and eventually naturalized, like all of us,” she replied. Once again, I was perplexed; I couldn’t believe it. My mom never told me that she had been married before meeting my dad. “Your mom never told you because you were too young to understand how things work in this country,” my aunt told me.

I went to bed that night, trying to process all the information I had received that day. My mom had to marry a person she didn’t love just for the right to live in this country. I also thought of my friends in Taco Bell, who had almost no rights in this country and couldn’t even go back to visit their families. “Is this the American Dream that I have always heard about?” I asked myself. At that moment, I realized that society had built a lie around the concept of the American Dream, making millions and millions of people believe that going to America would give them a better future. And even if in the long term this better future was achieved, is it even worth it to go through this type of life? That night, I felt two things. In the first place, I felt lucky. I didn’t have to go through what my mom and many other people had to do to live in this country. But I also felt ashamed for coming here and participating in a system that treats others so unfairly. My first instinct was to pack my suitcase and go back to Spain, but I felt that I would have made all my mom’s sacrifices worthless by doing that. I decided to stay here and begin a new life in this country.