We Are All Dreamers Analysis

In Our Fear of Immigrants, Smith begins with the story of a fourth grade class in Berkeley, California that is devastated by the loss of their friend, Rodrigo Guzman, whom authorities sent back to Mexico because of an expired visitor’s visa. With the help of their parents, these fourth graders in Berkeley, California sent their friend a comforting video and wrote a letter to their Congressmen in protest against the deportation of Rodrigo. Smith then tells of the protestors in Murrieta, California who blocked buses transporting undocumented immigrants to a holding facility (751).

In the United States, many families are currently being affected by the Dream Act’s failure to pass. The Dream Act would have given many undocumented children the ability to have a pathway to citizenship. The Dream Act believed in the importance of social support within the family by supporting family unification. However, due to its failure to pass, millions of undocumented children are now at risk of being deported and having their families divided. Although the U.S. government created a new policy known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), it is not providing immigrants with the same opportunity. DACA instead give undocumented people the opportunity to not be deported for a maximum of three years, but will never become a pathway to permanent citizenship. The Dream Act and DACA ultimately affects the physiological, emotional, and mental health of the immigrants who reside within the U.S.

Discuss how your understanding of change has been developed by your prescribed and related texts.

Throughout life, every individual must face obstacles; some more difficult than others. In the story “The Trip” by Laila Lalami, poem “Exile” by Julia Alvarez, and article “Outlaw: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant” by Jose Antonio Vargas, there is a main character who has to face many challenges because of the fact that they’re immigrants. In all three texts, it is evident that being an immigrant has many affects on their lives. However, this label and the obstacles that come with it didn’t stop each character from pushing forward.

Our country was founded on immigration, but in recent decades the term ‘immigrant’ has been linked with turmoil. There has been great uncertainty within the American population of what to do about immigration reform, or if immigration is even a problem in our country. Arizona’s Scarred Generation by Fernanda Santos describes the chaotic changes taking place within most densely populated latin american states, mainly Arizona. Policies such as DACA have relieved some of this uncertainty within younger immigrant populations, especially latin americans growing up here who had no choice in being “undocumented” immigrants, but some laws such as SB 1070 ( a law allowing police to search latin american citizens based on their appearance), Proposition

After hearing the news, I felt as if my worries were crawling right back up to my shoulders. As if I was at the top of the mountain and then had someone push back down. Finding out that the Senate has plans to take down the DACA was as if they were closing the doors to my success. As the Congress debates over immigration reform, August the 15th marks the second anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. On the 15th of August 2012, President Obama began a policy calling for deferred action towards certain young individuals who came to the United States as children and are known as Dreamers(LOGOS). This policy allows this group of people to have similar rights that are initially reserved for the citizens of the United States, like applying for employment or having a social security. The Daca program also secures the young dreamers from deportation.

Nearly 800,000 students fear their protection after the proposed recall of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). New York Times author Ricardo Aca is one of those students protected under the 2012 act (Source). He discusses his position with use of the rhetorical triangle.

Undocumented Americans are like any other Americans, but with limited freedoms and opportunities as their other American peers. In the United States, undocumented Americans number about 2.1 million, and almost half of them are now adults (Friedman, November 10th, 2016). Many of these undocumented Americans were born in Mexico, moved to the United States and began their lives as American since they were young. This particular group of immigrant youths face uncertain futures clouded by fear and frustration due to the lack of rights, opportunities, and supports from both the general publics and the government. Many undocumented Americans do not fully realize the constraints of their status until they become young adults. Undocumented Americans’

In June 2012, President Obama announced a new immigration policy that grants certain undocumented immigrants deportation exceptions. The policy, formally known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), also gives young undocumented immigrants work authorization. DACA’s requirements are relatively stringent: beneficiaries not only need a high school education, but also must have immigrated to the U.S. at a young age. Despite DACA’s restrictions, the policy has proven controversial. Although Democrats have cheered DACA as a step towards comprehensive immigration reform, Republicans have denounced DACA as an example of executive overreach. The conservative organization Heritage Action for America, for instance, has accused DACA of leading “residents of foreign lands [to] illegally enter the U.S.” Indeed, according to Heritage Action, Obama’s so-called “amnesty” policy gives undocumented immigrants the belief that “they will not be returned home.”

For undocumented individuals fear is embedded at every level, they are forced to comply with the rules, yet are not allowed to complain. Nonetheless, in “Dreams Deported” Blanca Alcántara provides us with the story of Erika Andiola, and how she was able to stop her mother’s deportation, by refusing to stay shadows.

“As many as 80,000 Dreamers in the greater Houston area alone could be deported to countries where they have no relationships, where they do not even speak the language” (Johnson). In her article, Johnson argues that it’s not a few people, but a large amount of them that are going to be affected by the decision. “Alonso Guillen, a radio host and D.J. who lived in Lufkin, Tex., two hours from Houston, brought a boat and a group of friends here to join in those efforts” (Johnson). The author lets the reader know about Guillen’s background prior to Hurricane Harvey and arriving to help Houston from a different

But now under a new presidency and a new administration, wherein undocumented very much feel threatened and fear of the tomorrow for valid reasons, such as the first DREAMer, Manuel Montes, having already been deported back to Mexico. There is no longer this big celebration of “coming out” campaign, but rather going back to the “shadows” and conceal. Although, the protests keep occurring, they have morphed into other forms to secure safety, such as the national ‘Day Without Immigrants’ that took place everywhere in the country on February 16th, 2017, in which people who identified as immigrants would not go to work or would stop doing any other activity that is part of their daily routine. The intersection between the immigrant and LGBTQ+ movement helped DREAMers to have an official voice, despite they remaining unofficial in a nation that was build by immigrants. And while the LGBTQ+ movement still embraces “coming out” very dearly every 11th of October as ‘National Coming Out Day,’ the DREAM Act has moved on from that phase in their movement tactics and has adopted others, mostly due to the contingencies of todays’

Many immigrants come to the United States in search of the opportunity to have a better life. They have the willingness to work, seek out educational opportunities and to be productive members and contributors to society. Rarely do you find those instances where immigrants come here to take, destroy all that our nation has built and established. When you hear the current administration in the media use fear, as part of cultural destructiveness to destroy how our society view other cultures and diminish the worth of individuals within their own Netting, Kettner, McMurtry, Thomas, (pg. 64, 2012). By doing that the narrative around immigrants’ changes, people start to believe that immigrants are here committing crimes and a higher rate in comparison to Americans that are born here; For instance, during one of Donald’s Trump 2016 campaign speeches he said “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re

I don’t like what my life has become in this country. I don’t know how long I can continue living like this, Neni. The suffering in Limbe was bad, but this one here, right now…it’s more than I can take.” Neni”. Behold the Dreamers is a great representation of some of the struggles held in the everyday lives of Americans. Neni and Jende were immigrants who came to seek their dreams, but were held to it due the lack of money they had. The Edwards had been living the American Dream, yet they had their own problems of wanting more.

The second nightmare “highlights the injustice, extreme hardships, discrimination and racism that migrants experience.” (Orgad, 2012) The migrants create this script and its purpose is to show what life will “actually” be like. However, this second nightmare has a hard time finding the light of media representations as it often gets misconstrued. Orgad demonstrates this by saying, “in today’s environment of media representations, the lines between the factual and the fictional increasingly blur.” (Orgad, 2012) When looking beyond dreams and nightmares, Orgad finds that immigrants are ambivalent and their imagination is incomplete. “This imagination is governed by uncertainty and confusion, a mix of hope and anxiety, desire for a better, but unknown, future, and grief of over the loss of soon-to-become former lives.” (Orgad, 2012) Essentially, the fear of migration is real, as it is impossible to know where you will fall. Through a growing amount of globalization, we again see representation grow. As they grow more people are able to imagine. In this case, the more representations of a