Last Wednesday, I attended the talk by Esmeralda on the experience of undocumented immigrants in America. She started by talking about the Dream Act, which allowed undocumented students to pursue an education. The reasoning for the act being that it was not the fault of the children who were brought to America at a young age by their parents and that they did not come by their own will. The act has been criticized for demonizing the parents of those students as well as those who could not get a GED or finish high school but instead entered the labor force. One has to consider the conditions that exist in many Latin American countries that would force someone to immigrate and the role that the U.S. has in creating those conditions. One would also have to consider how much of the labor force is made up of undocumented immigrants who are treated poorly and taken advantage of.

Esmeralda drew comparisons between the immigrant movement and the Civil Rights movement and argued that all minorities have experienced the status of undocumentation to some degree especially through the restriction of citizenship rights. Esmeralda talked about the black man who mailed himself in a box to the North in order to escape racism in the South and how that feeling of being trapped in a box is used frequently in the rhetoric of the undocumented students she spoke with. However, as the daughter of African immigrants, I feel that this is not something I identify with because that legacy is not a part of my history and the discrimination that I may experience could not compare to the hardship undocumented immigrants experience daily in this country.