Fear of No Future - A DREAMer Shares Her Story

Free2be Bell's guest post today is the second here from a DREAMer--an undocumented student whose hopes could be realized by passage of the DREAM Act.  Prerna posted here last week.  Don't forget to vote to make the DREAM Act one of the top ten change.org Ideas presented to President-Elect Obama.  Find out other ways to get involved here.

This battle is not simply over just a piece of paper, but the things that piece of paper represents. You see, without that piece of paper, living life is simply hard to do. You are suddenly not 100% human, as if humanity is something that can be rationed. Suddenly, your voice is harder to hear, as if expression is something to be looked down on. Your face is ripped of its defining features, as if your identity is something to be erased and forgotten. Slowly but surely, faced with rejection day by day, pieces of your being are torn away, until nothing is left but your body, now an empty shell.

Tell me how do you love when love has been denied to you? How do you live when your fate rests in someone else's hands? How do you laugh when your voice has been silenced? How do you hope when your future seems bleak at best? How do you jump, shout, play, or dance? How do you be when your very being is on trial?

This is about more than just a piece of paper. This is about the sanctity of life. This is about human beings - young, eager, promising human beings asking for nothing more than control of their lives back. This battle knows no color, no race, no nationality. It is life we ask for, and that is all.

All for an insignificant piece of paper. What a shame.

I believe these words still ring true almost a year after I wrote them. I am an undocumented college student. I came legally on a visa to the U.S. when I was six years old from the Republic of Nigeria. But wait, I know what you're thinking: She's not Hispanic! No, I'm not, I was born in Nigeria, and contrary to popular belief, the face of the undocumented is more United Nations than Latin American.

I don't say "my home country" or "my native country," as those are titles I would give to the U.S. Nigeria is the place that I happened to be born in; other than that, I don't feel a part of the history or culture of that country. I consider myself to be 100% American, in every way except birth.

On the same note, there are people who, even though they were born in the United States, do not consider themselves American. We do not choose where we are born, so why be punished for such a mundane matter as location?

As for my educational background, I speak English perfectly well.  I started in the U.S. in a "gifted & talented" program in the second grade. I graduated in the top 1 percent of my high school class 2 years ago, 9th out of a class of 1,000. I'm currently a sophomore in college, and am majoring in math and economics, with a minor in political science. My GPA is currently 3.7.

I had been fed the message that with my good grades and hard work, I'd be able to get into the best schools with enough scholarship money to pay for everything. I believed in those promises, but when it came time for me to reap my reward, I found there was none. I see kids around me who could care less about school that are receiving grants and scholarships left and right. They drive new cars and wear nice clothes because they don't have to worry about how to pay for school. They get internships to gain work experience that I can't apply for. They have the option of working on campus, or working part-time for a little extra beer money, but I don't have that flexibility. My life is consumed with school, work, and commuting, so I don't have time to enjoy the college experience. I can't join a sorority or play sports or join organizations and gain leadership experience because my life is filled with much greater responsibilities. I'm so young, yet I feel much older; I feel I've been robbed of an adolescence I'll never be able to get back. It's one thing to take away my right to call the U.S. home, but it's entirely different to rob me of an education that I've worked so hard for, not to mention contributed my own taxes to, therefore disabling me from succeeding anywhere else in the world I go without a college degree.

As of now, the passage of the Dream Act is my only realistic hope. My story differs from a lot of other DREAMies in a few ways. The biggest dividing factor, and the most unfortunate one, is that my family, myself included, is currently in removal proceedings. My life these days is consumed with thoughts of being deported, as it is now a very sickening reality. I feel stuck in neutral: there's no means to look forward and no use looking back. My goal is to persuade you that, whatever your views are on immigration, the DREAM Act is VITAL. Look past the big, controversial issue that is immigration and see the true issue at hand: human beings punished on a daily basis for a decision they did not make for themselves. How is that even morally sound, or constitutional? If a man robbed a bank, got caught, and happened to be so great a role model that he brought his young son along, would the kid be sent to jail also? That is exactly the case here - What did I, as my own person, do wrong? Exactly what crime, on the record books, did I commit? I'd love to know.

There really is no way for me to deal with being treated as a lesser being. It makes it so much harder to get up and face the world everyday, but you do it simply because you have no choice, and because maybe one day, things will be better. I definitely self-identify as a DREAMer, even though I might not be able to take advantage of it once, not if, it passes. I identify as American, not African-American, or Nigerian-American, but simply American. I consider myself agnostic at the moment because it's been hard to believe in the greater good and have faith when I'm being treated as if I'm less than human. I identify as a female, and aspire to be a strong, driven, independent female one day. I identify as a student, but not completely sometimes. I identify as a caretaker for my sister. Most importantly, I identify as a voice that has been silenced, as a forgotten victim of a very flawed system.

My greatest fear, the one that consumes my thoughts incessantly, is that I'll be deported. I fear for my future, or rather my lack of a future. I fear that I'll always be the story of unrealized potential. I fear I'll be another lost statistic. My dreams don't involve cars or money, only the freedom to live.