Personal Narrative: Immigrants

On the first day of Kindergarten, I remember how my mother held my hand. I remember how, before she kissed me goodbye, she whispered into my ear, “tienes que ser la mejor,” you have to be the best.
I was born into a family of hardworking immigrants in a city only an hour away from the Mexican-American border. My parents, worried about the quality of education in the low-income neighborhood that we lived in, had toured schools until they found one that satisfied their expectations. As immigrants, they dreamt of a life full of opportunity for me and my younger brother. In the face of adversity, in neighborhoods where people rarely made it out, they made our education a priority. I knew from my father’s dust covered hands and my mother’s warm and tired smile, that nothing would make them happier than to see us succeed. While it is unlikely that my mother remembers whispering those words into my ear, they gave me the courage to learn how to take on the world without her by my side. When I was fifteen, I lost my parents to the resolute power of immigration laws. Soon, the tightly knit web they had created to catch me at my weakest points, dissolved like the morning dew of the …show more content…
It is important that we persevere in the face of adversity or prejudice or the unprecedented bigotry on behalf of presidential candidates claiming that we are everything but the best. It is important to remember that statistics are imperfect and impermanent fixtures that only define individuals if we give them the power to. We must whisper into the ears of every child as they run into their first day of school and encourage them to be the best in a country that flourishes when different voices come together. The system is broken, but we must find every opportunity to make sure that we let America know that we belong here, that we are here to stay, and that we will succeed