Every Great Dream Begins with A Dreamer
“For children, the hardest part of migrating is generally adapting to a new school system, in a new language, with a different academic structure and curriculum” (Life is No Disneyland, 104). I too, went through this experience that Yunuen talks about. It is easy to say but living it is a lot tougher than it seems. I remember being so paranoid when I had just gotten to California, finally reunited with my family, and being scared of even going out and being separated from my parents by ICE. It is something I never wish upon anybody to go through. From volunteering at Canal Alliance with the UP! Program, I am noticing that other children have had their experience worse than mine and it breaks my heart.
I agree with Yunuen’s statement when she says that the way she is able to “give back” is through the way that she can tell and shape stories: “I have the right perspective to tell this story like no one else, through my eyes” (Life is No Disneyland, 112). I feel that the way words and ways a story is told, has power over how the reader will react to it. A big impact in it also has to be about who is telling the story and who the story is about. Showing the reader what or who the main message is about can either make or break the reader from having a reaction to it. In this situation, I bear witness with Yunuen’s story because I have a similar background to hers. I find it so powerful and heartwarming to read stories like hers because it reminds me of how far us Dreamers have come and the potential we hold within ourselves and all together.
Many of the issues discussed/illustrated in Yunuen’s story intersect with issues that people at my community partner site are impacted by. One of them is actually following your passion in the face of so many different pressures. As described by Yunuen, “Who told you that you can do what you want in life” (Life is No Disneyland, 108) she would constantly be told this which most of the time interfered with her decision making in school because it had affected her mentally. A student at Canal Alliance told me a few weeks back that her older brother always tells her that school is not important at all because she does not get anything from it. She is constantly being told that as soon as she turns 16 years old, she will have to start working to help her family out paying some bills. This will eventually hinder with the ability of her striving in school and want to work extra hours to get paid more. Yunuen mentions, “ Starting over from nothing in a new place where they may not know anyone, may not speak the language, and do not understand the local ways represents a tremendous challenge. And if people are undocumented, their vulnerability to workplace exploitation, discrimination, and human rights violations is heightened considerably” (Life is No Disneyland, 103). This also leads to vulnerability to exploitation and human rights violations when it comes to having low income workers work for more than 8 hours a day to get paid a low amount. When offered even more work, it is obvious these hard workers will take it, as long as bills are being paid for and food is being afforded, it is all good to work more than what is considered normal.
The structural issue that I will research is the impact of parental deportation on mental health for children. From the article below, I learned that in the study conducted, they used individuals in the state of Texas attending free legal consultations focused on immigration issues offered by a nonprofit organization. As part of the result of the study, the first analysis examined the impact of parental deportation status on internalizing problems. The first step of the analysis found that sex, age, and trauma history accounted for 19% of the variance. The addition of parental deportation status in the second step accounted for an additional 5% of variance, a statistically significant improvement over the first model. Children in the “parent deported” group displayed significantly higher levels of internalizing symptoms than children in the control group.
Allen, Brian, et al. “The Children Left Behind: The Impact of Parental Deportation on Mental Health.” SpringerLink, Springer US, 16 Oct. 2013, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10826-013-9848-5.
