Sunday, May 27, 2007

about growing up as an illegal immigrant, and go on to higher education:

"The thing that I hated the most was seeing people... the way that they looked at us, and made us feel less than them. For some time as a child I grew to hate myself. I was embarrassed of my culture, embarrassed of who I was, embarrassed because of other peoples' comments. I did not want to speak Spanish. I hated to translate for those that I loved the most, my family. Because it wasn't cool, it wasn't accepted.

I wanted sandwiches on white bread, with cheese and ham in them. I didn't want burritos filled with chile verde, and frijoles and nachos. It wasn't until someone actually told me to my face that I shouldn't bother studying or taking hard classes because people like me - brown, Mexican, black, whatever - we would simply grow up to work with our hands. Manual labor is all that we know and all that we were fit for. At that point I finally changed. I was so upset that this became my motivation."

- from a panel on immigration, Santa Clara University, May 23, 2007

3 comments:

Fia said...

Vad härligt att se att denna unga individ använde sin ilska på rätt sätt! För arg hade denna människa rätt att vara.

Lotta K said...

Jag tror det är dags för oss alla att bli arga... "What you do onto my littlest brother you do onto me." Bibelcitat är inte min starkaste sida men där är en favorit.

Lotta K said...

Och mitt försök där är inte korrekt det heller, förstås, men andemeningen är den rätta.