By:
PattiAnn McCaffrey, Wagner College ’15
Allie Lopiccolo, Wagner College ’16
The journey for immigrant rights has been a long one, and has had some bumps along the way. The path to Immigrant rights is still a long and windy one however, with the continued support of fellow immigrants no matter how long ago they or their family has emigrated here the destination of comprehensive immigrant rights and reform will be here soon. In the meantime one just has to remember the wise words Matthew Titone stated at Wagner College’s press conference. “We are on the right side of history.” With that said let us all do our part in rewriting the history books that generations to come will refer to. How does one do his or her part, one may ask. This is quite simple. First he or she must get involved and share their opinion. From there one can get involved in marches like Patricia and Natalie Suarez, or organize a press conference like Kevin Ferreira and Julia Zenker. It doesn’t matter what one does, just that he or she had the strength and courage to start it and share their opinion with others. A persons voice will never be heard if the mouth is too scared to speak it.
“It is very, very hard to be an immigrant without papers. That’s not an excuse for not succeeding but it’s definitely a barrier.”
It’s extremely ironic how immigration works in the United States. Many Americans are ignorant to the present day issues with immigration and amnesty. Stereotypes have been formed and attached to certain cultural groups, some of which may not even be “illegal” as the common American would say. Ignorance is a huge factor in this stereotyping of the immigrant and it’s very sad to see innocent hard working people be put into a group they may not be a part of.
“We pride ourselves in being a ‘nation of immigrants’ and yet many tend to view recent waves of immigrants with skepticism if not outright hostility.”
From Unauthorized Immigration to the United States By Thomas J. Espenshade.
The United States is a country that was founded on the basis of immigration, yet so many Americans refuse to learn about the immigrants that are necessary to this country. Venezuelan immigrant Natalie states in our interview that she believes America would not be the highly functioning country it is without immigrants. I completely agree with this statement. The average American looks down upon the immigrants that do the manual labor in this country, for reasons unknown. Let’s face the fact that the average person doesn’t want to do the work the immigrant is doing because they don’t have to. Americans can get a better, higher waging job.
According to Patricia and Natalie being American is not just documentation, its an attitude and a lifestyle that can only be taught through experience.
Overall immigrants in the United States are completely necessary to our functioning society, some people fail to see this. Documented or not these immirants want to be here, and they deserve just as much as “natural born” citizens to live a life of freedom.
This interview was very eye opening. Any immigrant can be undocumented, they are not here just to receive what they can from this country and then just leave. Immigrants such as Patricia and Natalie want to be here and be citizens. They support immigration reform and encourage that other immigrants obtain their documentation and pay taxes. While Natalie does not identify as American it can be said that this is only because of the difficult procedures in “getting her papers.” Natalie and Patricia are wonderful examples of what is means to be an immigrant in America.
Not only was this interview eye opening it was also inspiring. It created a spark of interest in immigration reform, so much so that we decided to attend the march on Washington for immigration reform that was held on April 10th 2013. This twenty hour journey reinforced a mutual respect between the recent immigrant and the “natural born” or those emigrated generations ago.