Since Donald Trump declared his campaign to run for president in 2016, immigration has been a widely talked-about subject in the United States. However, not all Trump has had to say about immigrants is positive: referring to Mexican immigrants as criminals, rapists, and drug dealers. Jorge Ramos, a reporter from Univision, even called Trump “the loudest voice of intolerance, hatred, and division in the United States.”
Although I don’t consider myself a person who easily gets offended, as an individual who comes from a Latin American family, I found what Trump had to say about immigrants insulting. Families like mine have worked so hard in this country to chase the American Dream to get to where they are today.
My grandmother on my mother’s side was born in the Dominican Republic, thus making her a Dominican citizen. Growing up in the Dominican Republic was difficult back then, because there were very few job opportunities available that could sufficiently support a family. However, my grandmother was aware of greater job opportunities the United States had to offer.
Fortunately for my grandmother, her father was born in Puerto Rico; thus giving him and his children U.S. citizenship. My grandmother and her two brothers were the first in my family to move to the U.S. in the 1960s. Being a skilled seamstress, my grandmother moved to the “garment district” in New York City where she spent many years working to support her family.
Being a single mother, it would have been extremely difficult to raise children and work full time as a seamstress in New York City. Fortunately, her brother and her father offered to help raise her kids in Boston, Massachusetts. Even though she was away from her family, she was able to continue to work hard in order to provide enough income to support them.
Eventually my family regrouped in Worcester, Massachusetts in order to live together. Worcester, otherwise known as “the heart of the commonwealth,” was a mecca for many factory jobs in Massachusetts because it was in the center of the state. Even my mother, during her high school years, worked in a plastics factory in order to help support her family.
My grandmother worked hard to establish a better future for herself, her children, and her grandchildren. She has truly been a beacon of hope for our family, because she is the perfect example of a person who has worked so hard her whole life to achieve the American Dream.
My family did immigrate to the United States from another country, but they are not criminals, rapists, or drug dealers. My family has worked hard to be where they are today, and for someone like Trump to label immigrants with these nasty labels is not only ignorant but insulting towards a group of good people who just want to chase the American Dream like everybody else.
The United States is a country made up of immigrants from around the world, and to forget that simple fact is purely a bigoted way of thinking. We come from different countries, cultures, and religions, but we are all created equally. We must never become an America that forgets that.
