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Lizzett Barraza
Mr. Perez
English 1301
13 September 2011
The “American” Dream
People from all over the world, travel thousands of miles to live the life they have always
wanted. They expect all their problems to disappear and to start over, after all America is called
the land of “opportunity”. A possibility of success for every individual and a chance to change
their life; whether it is to find fame and fortune or freedom and equality; it is a goal many are
after. We all want this simple plan: get a good education, a good job, get married, have kids,
make sure those kids have a better life than they did, life insurance, buy a house, have a few cars,
a good retirement plan, then live quietly and forever happy. Sadly, now it is almost impossible to
reach. The American Dream is a dead concept due to political choices by the government, one
example, the new immigration laws that are being made in parts of the country.
Marcela Aguilar is a twenty-year-old college student. She was born in Mexico but was
brought to the United States by her parents illegally, and has lived here ever since she was three.
She is one of the brave hundreds who stood in front of the federal courthouse in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, and risked telling the court she is an illegal immigrant or in other words
undocumented. Aguilar is one of thousands of students who revealed their status as an
undocumented student, with the hope of the campaign known as the Dream Act will help them.
The Dream Act was supposed to let illegal immigrants, who were brought to the U.S. as little
kids, a chance too obtain citizenship if they either served unfairly in the military or graduated
from an American high school and went to college. The bill was passed by the House, but did not
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pass through the Senate; leaving 1.2 million students all over the nation with a low chance of
getting a job after struggling to get a degree. But this law also has its limits to begin with, they
would have to go through 4 years of military service, a fight for their citizenship, and the second
part will only account of those who were brought before they finished high school, what if they
were thirty or nineteen.
Another student from Irving, Texas was brought over from Mexico by her parents at age
five. Fifteen years later, twenty-year old Olga Zanella is studying to be a dentist at North Lake
College. In 2009, Zanella was asked to pull over because of a traffic violation and was handed
over to immigration authorities when she did not have her license. The police did give her a
chance and chose to look the other way and made her promise not to get another “violation”. In
places like Arizona and Georgia, police have been given the right to arrest any one who they
suspect to be an illegal immigrant. These states have even banned these students from their
public colleges. How can they tell whether or not to stop them? That is as simple as the way they
look. Even though the Federal law says that the immigration agents should only arrest the
immigrants who are convicted of crimes and not students. But still Zanella says, “if your name is
out there immediately attached with ‘undocumented,’ then there is always this fear of being
deported.”
In a similar case, nineteen year old Jose Varible was brought here at age nine, just like
Aguilar, he is also part of the thousands of students who chose to reveal his position due to the
Dream Act, and now he is ineligible for receiving a license; because in the state of Wisconsin, it
is illegal to give a license without any proof of residency or citizenship. Without a social security
number his chances of getting a new job after getting his degree are low. If he stays here in the
United States, his only hope might be getting the same job as his parents did, even with having a
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degree his parents did not have. Varible was attending Gateway Technical College in Kenosha,
Wisconsin. But without being able to work or even drive, he struggles to pay tuition, and plans to
leave the U.S. and move to Australia. “You know, the thing is I don’t feel welcome here, you
cannot live as an undocumented immigrant.” - Jose Varible
In these three cases of young students, who wanted to live a better life, might not happen.
Student who are trying to get a better chance at life and going to college are being rejected
because of where they came from. Instead of turning these people away we should keep helping
them. If these students stay in college and become something great they will give back to the
country and even help us rise again. But if we keep pushing people away we will stay just the
way we are, maybe even get worse. This is why the American Dream is a dead, and if we do not
react soon, I do not want to see what his country will become.