I decided that I must not play “the perfect victim”—in my mind, “victim” and “illegal” were one and the same. I convinced myself that someone, somewhere, somehow created “the master narrative” of illegality: human beings identified as “illegals,” as if one’s existence can be deemed unlawful; “illegals” serving Americans, either by babysitting their kids, or trimming their lawns, or constructing their houses, or harvesting their crops—the images and visuals perpetuated by the news media, corroborated in TV shows and movies; human beings being told what they cannot do and where they cannot go.
