Alex found this cool website for an organization called Annunciation House. They're an organization comprised of volunteers who aid thousands of people who immigrant to this country from all over Mexico and Latin America. Check out the video to get a better understanding of the hardships that people go through when immigrating to this country:
http://annunciationhouse.org/about/video/
This video really hit close to home because my parents went through enormous amounts of hardship when they brought my sister and I to the U.S. They left their families, their language, their culture, and everything else behind in order to provide a better life for all of us. My mom went 5 years without seeing her mom and 10 years without seeing some of her siblings because she couldn't cross back into Mexico while her paperwork was being processed. My father went from being a Mining Engineer to a farm hand and later a garbage collector for the city of El Paso. They've faced a lot of racism and discrimination not just because of what they look like or where they come from, but also because they speak with an accent. I too remeber being 5 years old and being made fun of for not knowing how to speak English very well. Also, my great grandfather used to tell me horror stories of when he worked on fields in McAllen, Texas and California during the 1950's and 1960's. He said he and his friends would do back breaking labor, in very harsh conditions, and at the end of the day they would see multiple truckes filled with limes leaving the place where they worked, and thinking, "Look at all those limes, the owners are making a lot of money, and here they are paying us 12 cents a day." One of the things that stood out the most however was that he paid into Social Security and never saw a dime out of that money. A lot of people don't realize that there have been millions of workers who are exploited and pay into things like Social Security and taxes, and never see any of that money. Instead, others reap the benefits of their hard work. Anyhow, that's my two cents for the day.
As Elizabeth said this hits close to home for me as well. While my grandparents were young, there use with take there children with them to work in the fields as migrant works in Wisconsin, Texas, and California; by picking oranges, cotton, corn, jalapeno, grapes and tomatoes. They use to mention how trucks use to come to pick everyone up, to go work in the fields. The one thing I recall my uncles and aunts mentioning distinctly is how they worked beside African Americans in the fields, and watching Caucasian kids riding in a school bus. They mention that my grandparents would tell them that "they are going to work in a different field, somewhere far away as the bus passed by." I believe in reality, that my grandparents knew what was going on but didn't what to say anything because what parent wants' to tell their child the truth about segregation at that time 1940-mid 60's.
Both of my parents dropped out of school while attending elementary school and they did struggle to raise three children, despite obstacles such as infidelity, domestic violence, living on the street/battered women shelters, one parent abiding there children, children getting into gangs due to lack of parental guidance.
During my freshmen year of high school I thought about dropping out of school, to help my father support the family. But I choose not, because the way we struggled as a family. At the age for fourteen I started working with a hardship permit, with that in mind working there for 14 years, graduated high school, and being the first in my family to and received and associates degree in psychology, and now here at UNI trying to obtain a Bachelors degree, and thinking about obtaining a PhD in the future.