On Immigration:

Immigration is complicated and sometimes unfair. Immigrants come to the U.S. not to do bad things, but because we have needs that in Mexico or in other places we can’t take care of. The laws are changing to bad; immigrants are now treated as criminals I think. Most of the people that come to the U.S. leave their country and family and take the risk of coming not knowing what will happen with their lives. Immigrants don’t come to do damage, they come to work so they can take care of their families; most of them come because they have family with very serious diseases and they need money. Immigrants don’t come here because they want to; they come because they need to. Many people don’t like immigrants, and they think that we are stealing their work and money. We just come to make our lives better and to try to progress. We don’t want to make bad things; we just want to work. We deserve respect and better opportunities, but our situation is getting worse.

Autobiographical Writing:

My Past Life

My past life was full of happiness. I think it was the best part of my life. I was a very happy girl that was always laughing and playing with all her friends. I wasn’t afraid or worried about anything. My friends always wanted to go to my house because I had a lot of different toys to play with, and we all had fun.

I remember Christmas; it was fantastic. All of my family used to get together at my grandma’s house to eat and have fun. On December-25^th, all of my friends used to get together at my house to play with what Santa had just brought us. I feel my friends are my family. I sometimes used to fight with them, and now I know that I just wasted time. Now I wish those days to come again to relive them, but it is impossible. I miss them and I wish I could be together with all of them again.

My family was together most of the time. We used to wait until the end of the weekend for my dad and aunts to come. When we were all together, we used to go to my grandpa’s ranch and make a carne asada or something similar.

My dad was not with us all the time. He used to work here in Tucson, as he is right now. He used to come home to Mexico on Friday nights and come back to Tucson on Sunday mornings. Friday night, my mom, my brother, my little sister and I were always waiting for him outside. We cried when he was leaving because we didn’t want him to leave.

I left my town when I got out of 6^th grade. I was confused; I wanted to come to Tucson to live with my dad and to breathe new air, but I didn’t want to leave my friends and my grandparents alone. But, my mother and father made the decision. My big brother wanted to start high school in the U.S. for a better future. My mom felt very badly because she didn’t want to leave my grandma alone.

In the past, we had come to the U.S. before. We spent about one year here, but after the first two months here, my grandpa died. My mother wanted to come back, but my dad told her that we must finish at least one year so that we could learn a little English. My mother was very sad because she was the one that used to take care of my grandpa. He was a respected cowboy; he was always at home with my mother. My mother remembers that, and worries about my grandma, but now she feels good because my aunts-in-law take care of her. She has cerebral embolism.

When I look back at my past life, I wish I could relive it or be living it; but at the same time I don’t want to leave my present. I have things and thoughts that I don’t want to leave; I want to prepare for my future.

Who I am Now

I am a girl that wants to succeed in the future. My name is Andrea. I’m 15 years old and I’m from Magdalena De Kino, Sonora, Mexico. I was born here in Tucson, Arizona but I consider myself Mexican because of where I came from and because of my parents and friends. I love where I came from and where I am now. I feel proud because I’m learning a new language and I know that will help me in my future. I am a freshman, and I want to finish high school.

I am a happy girl because I feel a have what I need. I am very thankful for what I have and what I get. I know my parents are fighting to find a better future. They want my brother, my sister and I to become important people. They want us to be better than them. My family and I think we have better opportunities here because we are learning something new and here we can find more people that can help us to get a career and finish college. I feel that people here in Tucson care more about our future because in Magdalena there are no universities or colleges. There, if you want to get a career, you have to go somewhere else. Here in Tucson, I have met new friends from other cultures. To me it is something very new because where I came from we are used to seeing just the people from our same culture.

Being here in the U.S. makes me want to fight more for what I want in the future. I feel proud because I know I have opportunities that my past classmates in Mexico don’t have and a want to make use of them for good. I now have new dreams, dreams that I had never thought about. I want to help poor kids, to be a dentist, and to make my mother proud of me. I want to be an example for my little sister. I want my dreams to come true and I know I will fight for them. I think I’m starting now because one of my dreams is to learn English and I am working on it.

My Future

“Your future is coming soon;” that’s what my mother always tells me. “Be ready, prepare yourself, be a good person, and be someone important.” My mother is always telling me that I have to be someone important in my future; she says she doesn’t want me to be like her. She states that I have to study, go to college and finish a career; that I have to insure my future. She says she didn’t finish a career because she didn’t have somebody to advise her or tell her what was good or wrong. Now she says that I have her and that one of her big dreams is to see me develop into an important woman, a woman of good.

I want to make my mother proud of me; that is my biggest goal for my future. My mom means everything to me, I can say that she is the reason I’m living. I want to make her proud of me. I feel she deserves the best. One of my big goals too is to learn English perfectly. I know that being bilingual will give me opportunities.

I have a lot of things in mind that are interesting to me, that I want to be: a model, a nurse, a kindergarten teacher, a police officer. A lot of things, but I know it is not possible to be all these things. I want to be a dentist; it is something that I am very interested in. That is something I want to learn about.

I love money, (everybody loves money) and I know that working I will earn it. I want to travel a lot too. I want to visit every continent. I want to go to Italy, Colombia, India, Puerto Rico, and a lot more places in the world.

I want to be an example for my little sister. I want her, too, to be an important woman. She is a very intelligent girl and I want to hear one day that she wants to be like me.

Something I consider very important in my future also, is to help poor kids. I want to help them because they have no fault in what is happening in their countries or homes. Some of them don’t even have opportunities. I think they are our future and they deserve something better.

One of my dreams is to go to Mexico being a woman of good, and see all the people that were mean to me and that think they were better than me, to make them see that I am better than them. If you have the courage to do or be something, you can do it.

My future is coming soon; it is something I can’t escape from. My future is insured to come. While I’m waiting, I am preparing myself by going to school and learning as many things as I can. I want to be I good person; a woman that people would want to be like; a woman that people would respect and treat good.