The Undocumented Americans (One World Essentials)

by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

I personally subscribe to Dr. King’s definition of an “unjust law” as being “out of harmony with the moral law.” And the higher moral law here is that people have a human right to move, to change location, if they experience hunger, poverty, violence, or lack of opportunity, especially if that climate in their home countries is created by the United States, as is the case with most third world countries from which people migrate. Ain’t that ’bout a bitch?

This country takes their youth, their dreams, their labor, and spits them out with nothing to show for it.

There is research about migrant families, but children do not see it as prophecies foretold. I should have known better. I had spoken to a lot of people telling me the same things. And now here it was happening to my family, my soccer team, the world’s best. Shortly before I asked him to leave, my father had told my brother: “I am tired of living just for you and your sister. It is my turn to be happy now.” And he handled it the wrong way, totaled some people’s lives in his wake, but he was right. It was his turn to be happy. And now my mom is free to figure out what makes her happy, after thirty-one years. Thirty of those years have been spent here in America, being undocumented together. She goes to yoga now. The other day, she had a hot dog.