Biggest Obstacle: Opponents in My Own Community

            The failure of the DREAM Act was a political blow to my community. But it was also a personal matter for my family and me. Not only will my dream and my life have to be re-adjusted now, but the dream that my parents have had for my life from the moment they chose to bring me to San Diego when I was two-years-old is once again a heartbreaking nightmare.

            I learned a lot over the past year as an organizer. Opposition to granting legal status to undocumented students has run into stiff opposition, but what I never expected was such staunch and sometimes vicious opposition to my activism within my own Latino community.

            When I became part of the DREAM movement in college, my whole outlook on life changed. I no longer blamed myself, felt shame, or fear for something I could not completely control.

            We challenged a system that expected us to live in silence and terror. We DREAMers began to take the lead as organizers. But many Latino activists think they know what’s best for us—and speaking out for the DREAM act is not one of them.

            While it is obvious that conservatives who oppose us are uncomfortable with driven young Latino activists, it is opposition within our own community that most bothers me. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t expect every organization to think in a uniform way.

            I believe that if any one or group opposes me, I should not be described in belittling language or with low level insinuations. While some proved their so called superiority with negative facebook comments and disparaging confrontations I focused on DREAM Act organizing.

            The DREAM Act was a bipartisan bill that never would have appeared on the Senate and House floor this December without the military component.

            My exchange with a couple from an organization in San Diego who stand against the DREAM Act due to the military component in the bill was a tug of war.

            As I struggled to describe my personal difficulties living with my undocumented status in an emotional and material way, they accused me of not understanding their day-to-day life as documented people of color or activists for immigrant rights.

            When I mentioned to one young woman the way with which my parents were able to pay for my schooling, her answer was, “Well I applied for but was not granted financial aid.” There appeared to be a strong denial from these people about their privileges as residents and documented citizens. I never expected to encounter that.

            I attempted to assure them that I was aware that many people of color, women, and LGBT, among others, suffer from injustices. And I insisted to them that the DREAM Act would not build or eliminate the military industrial complex.

            Our energy, I said, would be better spent informing youth about the negative side of the military and supporting their decisions should they choose other options.

            With or without the DREAM Act there is a large number of Latinos, for a variety of reasons, who will choose the military. Many people do so to provide for themselves or their families. While no one should have to make a decision based on those circumstances, it is a reality of our time.

            Another truth is that the social justice, human rights, and immigrant rights movements have no means to provide large scale employment, food, clothing, and shelter for all the disadvantaged in our communities.

            The pro-military mentality is one that has been deeply ingrained in all of society and which beyond a stance, will require time and strategy to deconstruct.

            To affirm that a disproportionate number of dreamers would choose the military is to ignore the fact that the majority are already choosing an education even against all the odds.

            Such statements about dreamers also disregard all those I know who have made their home a voluntary prison due to the profound fear of being deported and the hopelessness of having absolutely no options for their life.

            The psychological impact of living undocumented is more than I believe any documented individual could comprehend.

            Even after having presented my arguments to these individuals, they explained their anti-capitalist philosophy to me and told me I was wrong for wanting to survive in this system through the DREAM Act.

            They maintained I should instead be working towards the destruction of capitalism. In the meantime I was to remain in my situation with no pragmatic solution in sight.

            When I expressed we needed dialogues in order to meet in the middle they made it clear that was not possible because it would always be “all or nothing.”

            I left feeling extremely disillusioned to learn that people and organizations in my community were willing to shut off any dialogue.

            They said I was taking their opposition too personally. But everywhere I looked and read they spoke about DREAMers as selfish, privileged, against the community, naïve, malicious, and ignorant. How was I not supposed to be personally affected by words that were directly aimed at me?

            Then an organization based in San Diego and Los Angeles released the following indignant accusatory statement:

            “Many DREAM Act supporters do not realize that by supporting the DREAM Act with the military component they are also supporting the inhumane War in Iraq, the slaughter of thousands of immigrants at the border, and undemocratic military coupes in “Nuestra America.” The deaths and inhumane treatment of our gente will be implicated by your own selfishness.”

            I organize under a popular education philosophy which posits that everyone’s efforts should be acknowledged and respected, not degraded. The rhetoric of some in the Latino community, though from a different angle, is all too familiar.

            There seems to be common ground in these attacks between these people and those who are staunchly anti-immigrant. Meanwhile, the humanity of those fighting for the DREAM Act is lost on both sides.

            We proceeded with the DREAM Act not because we thought it was the ultimate solution, but because it was one aspect of Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) that had a chance right now.

            CIR will always be our main objective. The DREAM Act was flawed, as all public policy is, but it had some tangible benefits for families and individuals who have nothing at all.

            We sit here with no work permit, driver’s license, or passport while Secure Communities, E-Verify, SB1070, checkpoints, national guardsmen on border, and deportations rise to high numbers. Yet, some tell us to wait longer and longer for perfection and until every oppressive system is eradicated.

            No DREAMer I know wants to betray or hurt the rest of the community On the contrary we work to improve the livelihood of everyone. I do not feel more entitled to legalization than the housekeeper, farm worker, or dishwasher in our community or my family.

            Our DREAM movement will succeed in the end because we have already offered our community a sense of lucha, strategy, and courage that will guide us in whatever is to come next.

            We have created a positive new identity in our community that survives the DREAM Act bill. We are not undocumented or illegal aliens, we are dreamers. I honor and recognize the commitment, courage, and love for social justice of DREAMers and their families as admirable.