My American Dream
For most of my life I was known as the rich kid or the kid that just had everything. However, prior to living in upper-middle class suburbia (Foxhall neighborhood of Washington, D.C. and Bethesda, Maryland) I was born in the Philippines and lived in a housing project in Quezon City. While I stayed behind, my family immigrated from the Philippines to Hot Springs, Virginia to work at the Homestead Hotel.
The Homestead was the hotel where Eugene Allen worked for many years prior to working at the White House—the inspiration for Lee Daniel’s film, The Butler. See, just like Eugene Allen my parents were the servants for the rich and powerful, and when the time was right they moved from The Homestead to Washington, D.C. to search for greener pastures.
The reality was my father was initially denied a working visa to work for The Homestead resort because my dad was only a high school graduate and he came from a rough neighborhood in Manila, Philippines. It took the owner of The Homestead flying over to the Philippines to convince US Immigration officials that they needed foreign workers because they couldn’t find enough American locals for the job.
See, the Raise ACT that was written up by Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue and endorsed by President Donald Trump would cut legal immigration in half and would impliment a merit system on all new immigrants. Legal immigrants like my parents would not have made it to this country, and consequently I wouldn’t be here either.
It’s easy to paint with a broad brush and say people like my parents who came from a third world country would come here and abuse the welfare system and never become productive members of society. But that was far from the case. My parents worked hard, they saved, they invested, just like any hard-working American would do. They didn’t make any excuses and the fruits of their labor resulted in my growing up in one of the most affluent neighborhoods in America, and attending the best schools in the country. They came here legally and they did it the right way, but I can’t help but think that if this law passes, then it will shatter so many dreams of hard-working immigrants who just want the opportunity for a better life — A better life that I had the privilege to live.
At first, illegal immigration was the narrative, however, immigration in general is now under attack. The Raise ACT argues that it puts Americans first. Are my parents not American? Am I not American? Many would argue, if you weren’t born here then you aren’t American, but if we go further back a few generations, we find many more of us are descendants of immigrants. Sometimes people forget the history and the mistreatment to immigrants in this country; especially those of Italian, Irish, Jewish, Chinese, and Japanese descent. We forget the struggle of our ancestors, we forget the objective of coming to America, which was and still is to look for a better life and the opportunity to pursue the American dream. My parents never asked for a handout and they never asked for equal treatment or results. All they did was asked for the opportunity to be here. They did it and as a result, their American dream and mine became a reality.
