Antonio Alvarez

The federal DREAM Act (acronym for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) was originally proposed in 2001 to offer a pathway to citizenship for any undocumented immigrant who enters the United States as a minor, graduates from high school in this country, and completes a minimum of two years of college or university studies or serves for at least two years in the military. Kent Wong, director of UCLA’s Center for Labor Studies and Education, compiled narratives written by students about their experiences as undocumented immigrants. The following is one of those stories, which was published in Underground Undergrads: UCLA Undocumented Immigrant Students Speak Out (2008).

As I ran downstairs from the third floor, I looked forward to playing with the other children living in our apartment building. Some of my friends were playing with trompos (a top spun with yarn, like a dreidel), others with marbles, and some of the girls were jumping rope. I noticed that one of the children had a water gun very similar to mine. I approached the boy, took a closer look at the toy, and realized that it actually was mine. I asked the boy why he had taken my water gun and told him that he needed to return it. He said, “No, your mother sold it to me because you guys are leaving. You guys are moving away, somewhere else.” This was when I first knew that I was going to the United States. I was four years old.

My father, Antonio, said that he decided to go to the United States “to be able to have a better life, a better future, in being able to realize our dreams, the American dream.” Similarly my mother, Alida, “did not see a future for us in Mexico” and viewed the United States as the answer to our problems. During the 1980s, Mexico underwent a major economic crisis, leaving my father without a stable job to support our family. The instinct to survive led both of my parents to view immigration as their only option. My father left in mid-1988, and the rest of the family—me, my mother, two-year-old brother Isai, and eight-month-old sister Alida—left in late December 1989.

The plan was for my father to work in the United States and send money back home to support us and hopefully to accumulate enough to start up our own business. My mother grew impatient in Mexico when my father did not return however. She believed he needed to see his children. She decided to migrate with the entire family to the United States without giving prior notice to my father….

My parents’ plan was not to permanently settle in the United States; however, as time passed, they decided to stay. One of our goals became, and continues to be, to adjust our residential status from undocumented to documented permanent residents. My father filled out numerous applications to adjust his residential status, and the process was long and arduous. He began in 1992, but due to a mistake of addresses when we changed residences, and a long waiting list, it took my father about fourteen years to adjust his status. He obtained a work permit in 2003 and finally his permanent residency in 2006. Now he has petitioned for permanent residency for me, my siblings, and my mother, but the waiting list is so long—a lifetime for us.

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Along with our residential status, anti-immigrant laws have shaped our lives in the United States. My parents said that the laws that have affected us most severely include California’s Proposition 187,¹ which was approved by voters in 1994. My mother believed it was not fair to keep children out of public schools and to keep them from receiving medical treatment. We were surprised at how much support the proposition gained and that an overwhelming majority of Californians voted for it. My mother told me that I would probably not be able to attend school any more if my undocumented status was reported by anyone on the school staff. Though the proposition passed, it was struck down as unconstitutional by the courts, and I continued to attend school.

I remember the 1996 driver’s license legislation’s passing and going into effect, because my dad was worried to death by it. He was mortified because at that time and up until 2006, he had been working two jobs—one of them as a pizza delivery worker for different pizza chains, which required a valid driver’s license. It was hard watching how much stress he had because he knew renewing his driver’s license would be impossible, since the new law prohibited undocumented immigrants from receiving licenses or renewing them. By the time my father had to renew his license, however, he had received his work permit. It allowed him to renew his driver’s license without any legal trouble.

Though I remember these laws as severe obstacles for our family’s livelihood, legislation affecting higher education opportunities for undocumented students stand out in my memory most prominently. I realized that I was an immigrant and that something was not right during the Proposition 187 campaign but until I reached high school, I did not understand that my future would be seriously limited. During my freshman year, I discovered that I could not obtain a license because I was undocumented, and during my junior year, I realized the hardships I would face upon entering college. I had achieved almost a 4.0 grade point average up until my sophomore year, but when I learned that I could not receive any federal or state financing to attend a four-year university, I became demoralized, and my grades suffered from it. I thought there was no point to continuing to work so hard in high school if attending a community college—where my high school grades would be irrelevant—was my only option.

My outlook changed a few months before high school graduation. I talked to one of my teachers who was once an undocumented immigrant student but is now a permanent resident. He told me about AB 540 and explained that it would allow me to pay in-state tuition at UC, CSU, and community college. Though I was accepted to CSU Los Angeles and CSU Fullerton, he recommended I first attend a community college for its affordability, complete my first two years there, save money, and then transfer to a four-year university.

I took his advice and enrolled at East Los Angeles College (ELAC) in the summer of 2003 and quickly followed this by searching for a job. As a result of my undocumented status, I could not work anywhere I wanted and was limited to low-wage jobs that did not require identification or background checks. I was hired at a market, where I worked over thirty hours a week. I now had a goal. My plan at ELAC was to work and go to school and then to transfer to a CSU because the UCs and private schools were too expensive and required longer commutes. Though it was a good plan, it saddened me because my ideal dream from years before—ever since I had visited the UCLA campus during an elementary school field trip—had been to attend a top university.

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I enjoyed the schooling I received at ELAC, and I flourished. I took sociology classes and fell in love with the subject. It was then that I realized that I wanted a career in helping others, specifically individuals whose voices were muted in society. Impressed by my work, both my sociology and English professors told me I needed to include a UC in my future. When I finally did apply to transfer, I was accepted to every university I applied to: USC, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, and UCLA. I decided to attend UCLA, where I struggle for the thousands of dollars to finance my education. I will graduate with a degree in sociology and Chicana/o studies.

Being undocumented has been a way of life for me, my family, and millions of others. When I apply for jobs that I know I am overqualified for but that do not include background checks, I experience strong feelings of detachment and frustration, followed by hints of helplessness. I work these jobs to pay for a college experience that does not include semesters abroad and living in a dorm and other experiences that “normal” students have. I hope that by sharing some of my family’s history and experiences—as undocumented immigrants, undocumented workers, undocumented students, undocumented people, and second-class human beings—I can help produce an emphatic and humanistic approach to immigration that vigorously rejects the notion that a human can be illegal.

(2008)

This source is a personal narrative by a college student who immigrated to the United States from Mexico. After describing the obstacles his family encountered trying to realize their dreams of becoming U.S. citizens, he tells the story of his own experiences as he navigated the policies and laws governing his eligibility for financial support for a university education and constraining his employment opportunities. Writing as a student, at the University of California at Los Angeles, he states that he “will graduate” with a BA degree, though he has struggled to finance his education. Do you think that Antonio Alvarez’s story confirms the power of education to uplift and transform, as Mann hoped, or is it evidence that Mann’s belief in education as a “balance wheel” has not proved to be true?