My Name is Sayuri and I am Undocumented

Please welcome guest poster Sayuri.

Like vines on a Baobab tree, my story and that of the United States have always been intertwined. Young children brought here by hopeful parents who want nothing more but to give their children what they never had growing up, but always dreamt of: Freedom, Opportunities and a chance at a great life through determination and hard work.

My story, that of brilliant young minds who, after high school, find the gates of higher education, the workforce and the basic American dream shut in their faces because they either crossed a border or overstayed a visa, has already been lived and told by thousands before me. There isn't a day when my undocumented status doesn't interfere with my daily life. And, although I can't take my 3 year old daughter to her ballet classes or my one year old son to his doctors appointments, without my husband in the driver's seat, I still choose to see the cup as half empty.

There are many out there who don't know a thing about us.

In fact, they couldn't pick out any of us in a line-up. But, out of fear or other untold, sinister motives, they see me and other undocumented students as pests bent on taking over and impoverishing "their" country. There are people who dare question my children's citizenship, people who misconstrue my parents motives (and their ancestors in the process) in bringing me here. To be honest, I only think of these people on days when, for a short while at least, I let myself wallow in self pity. Because in no way should I ever let what these oblivious people (I like to give them the benefit of the doubt:) think of me and of my presence in this country affect who I am. In the past year, I've come to realize that those who accuse us of hiding behind our children while we plot to take over this country by impoverishment and taking from their kids' plates are in fact the ones who hide behind slogans like "illegal aliens" and use messages of hate to spread vicious lies and debunked myths against us and the Dream Act. Their days are spent crying wolf on forums, carefully crafting fear mongering campaigns, leaving messages of hate under articles that portray us in a positive light, and their favorite, rigging online votes and polls to back it all up. We dreamers aren't asking for your money, government handouts or freebies we haven't earned. We want you to see the human in us and our parents. We are people with universal rights that don't depend on which side of the world we were born in; people whose judgments should based on characters and not residency. We are asking for the RIGHT to be accepted as America's children, because at the end of the day, she already is our home.

My parents have been in the USA for 20 years. Since then, they have gone from selling shirts on the streets, working in factories to starting businesses both here and abroad, giving Americans and others jobs, bettering their communities, homeownership, raising four proud Americans and passing down their love, their dedication and undying support of this country to us.

What more do you want from us? What more should we do, how much more of ourselves do we have to give to be accepted as Americans in your eyes.

Ah! yes, "the" pay fines, pay back taxes -we don't owe, then go back home to that non-existing line and wait for our turn, yeah? Well you'd be surprised that we did, my father has been waiting for his green card for over 10 years, yes, for him, that line has only produced one temporary residency letter after another. My mother, whose petitioning sister, my aunt Serafina is a U.S. Citizen, well she has been waiting for an approval letter that never came. My husband's uncles, aunts, grandparents and cousins are all U.S. Citizens, but because of loopholes in a system that keeps on failing millions each year, he can't become legal until his father (a doctor) and mother (a stylist) leave everything behind and move to the U.S. or if he leaves me and marries for convenience.

Unafraid, unabashed and still the firmest of believers in the possibilities America promised, I wait...