Introducing The Next Generation Of Leaders And Thinkers

Living a Life in Hiding

I am the child of undocumented Mexican immigrants. Ever since I was younger I always knew something was wrong, something I couldn’t put my finger on because I was too young to understand what was going on around me. As the oldest of three children I was the first to realize that my parents were different from other parents. They were living in hiding.

They lived a life of isolation. My situation came with a lot of struggles and obstacles I had to overcome. It meant that I had to grow up a lot quicker than the other kids my age. In reality, I didn’t have a normal childhood, one that the “average” person can relate to. For as long as I can remember my parents had to start relying on me to translate for them because their broken English made communicating with others difficult. By the age of 10, I became the third adult in the house. Filing paperwork, doing housework, and taking care of myself and my sister was more of self-growth than it was work at the time. For me, it was all I’d ever known. It didn’t seem like a burden, it was just something I had to do.

Let’s take a step back. On January 2nd, 1998 in Oaxaca, Mexico, Lazaro Cruz Ramirez and Lourdes Noyola Lugos were married, and 6 weeks later, they began their journey to New Jersey.

By March 10th, they had started to live the American dream. They lived with two other families in a small townhouse in Princeton up until my sister was born in 2001. My parents applied for citizenship in January of 2001. September 11th, 2001. The whole world changed.

A travesty had happened, and with that, it meant it would become harder to gain citizen status. Fast track to September of 2015, 14 years after 9/11 and 17 years after my mother and father moved to the states. When I see my father comes home from work every day, exhausted with dirt and grass all over his hands and clothes, and I look down at his work boots, I know that those boots were wet the whole day and his feet were cold the entire time.

Then, every day, I look over to my mother whose hair is messed up from the exhaustion of cooking, cleaning and looking after my brother, even after she has cleaned someone else’s house, working with chemicals and dust that destroy her once smooth hands. When I look at each of my parents, I smile because I know they work hard for my sister, my brother, and I. Both my parents have gone through so much in their short but fulfilling lifetimes.

My father’s mother died when he was only two and my uncle only an infant. Their father died when he was thirteen, only feet away from my father’s eyes. My father moved from relative to relative, never exactly having a home. I have learned to work hard from them because they worked hard to get me here.

 My parents have given me everything possible, but the two most important things they’ve given me are the opportunity to go to this school and a perspective on life.

Throughout all the struggles, they’ve come a long way in the United States of America. They are the reason I am here and ready to fight my way to a better world. From them is where I learned my biggest strengths as a human being and for them is why I am doing this. What has changed? Nothing.

My parents are still undocumented immigrants living in New Jersey. Why? Because of the corruption in the United States government, because Republicans don’t know what a compromise is, and because of people like Donald Trump who paint false pictures of who we are.

My father 45 and my mother 34. I do not know one single person that, at those young ages, in my eyes; have done so much more than anyone could in their life time, because with their strength, confidence and hope they have put me in an environment with amazing people and the journey they began I will continue.

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