The author of this story is one of over 100 students from Hempstead High School who are working with Herstory this year to write about their journeys and dreams. Each week, as the students read the stories in Brave Journeys, practicing their new language, they work with their teachers to create new lenses through which others will be able to see them. Whether they are studying language arts or history, or using our book to prepare for their Regents exams, they learn about a new way of listening and reading in which their experiences and dreams will guide the way.
Fighting for a Dream
We all have a dream. Not a dream that happens when we sleep, but rather that of a goal we hope to achieve in the future. Many people aspire to have different professions and become doctors, police, teachers, psychologists, among others. In my case, I also have a goal that I want to fulfill, one that I’d like many people to be able to reach.
When I decided to emigrate from my country I wanted to eat pasta shell soup, but time was very short. I packed a suitcase of clothes, but also a suitcase of dreams that, at my young age, I want to fulfill. I consider that many people maybe have my same dream.
Currently, I live in the United States, a country that offers me many academic opportunities. Nonetheless, I’m in a country that I know is not mine; it is not my country of birth.
Do you want to know what my dream is?
Well, maybe you’re thinking that I don’t want to be a doctor, a police officer, or something like that. Well, yes, you’re right. I aspire something more that I want to share with you at this time. My dream is: Enough! Stop! END RACISM IN THIS COUNTRY. Not only against those of Hispanic descent, but with the black race, too.
It’s an injustice to me, very unjust that they treat us like dogs, because let me tell you something, if we come to this country, it’s not because we want to take away the dreams of other people. I know that many Americans say that we, Hispanics, leave our countries to fulfill our dream, and not to snatch the dreams of others. I feel angry, very angry when I take a minute and stop to think about the reality I find myself in. It pisses me off when I see and read many Americans say, “Hey, speak English! This is America!” “Go to your country, this is not your country.”
It bothers me that they treat us like animals. You know something? When the day comes for to us leave for the next world, for all of us to die, all of us, white, black, green, pink, we will all end up underground… all of us! I don’t understand why they treat us like this. Why, I keep wondering, why are they like that if we all have two eyes, two arms, two feet, bones and senses, and, before the eyes of God, we are all the same.
My dream is that they treat us with the same rights that all people deserve, even if we are documented, undocumented, poor, millionaires. We all have the same rights in this world. I hope that God can help me to respond to this anguish I feel, that we can all be equals.
Translated by Silvia Heredia
