I attended an Undocumented Open Mic on Wednesday, the first official student event for the Queens College Dream Team. I was so proud and happy to see so many people attend it, given that this event was also sponsored by Student Association, some fraternities, the Center for Ethnic Racial and Religious Understanding, and the Immigration Working Group, it was able to reach out to a bigger audience. I am glad that the student community wanted to hear our stories and experiences. Most of the performances we heard were coming out stories from brave undocumented students, and there were Immigrant allies who sang, recited, spoke their own opinions about the Immigration System in the US. It was an inspiring event.
I decided to not tell my story for the first time ever, one reason being that I now think Immigration is much bigger than the Dream Act, and that there are many Immigrant stories waiting to be told. One of them is what my poem is about. I have been residing in Long Island for the past seven years, the area where we reside is highly populated by Central American Immigrants. In my mother's and my own bus rides we have come across many of these women (and men) who have told us amazing, and sometimes heartbreaking, stories of their process of moving here, their current jobs and issues with American culture. It is a humbling experience to hear these stories and I hope this poem was able to capture it.
It’s no Disneyland
How can I begin to describe to you the plague of immigrant women?
When you’re living it yourself?
Perhaps you’re one of those women I have come across my path,
Waking up at Dawn to spend the day packaging cans,
Cleaning offices and stores,
Looking after Elderly citizens.
Every day for most hours of your waking time,
What you think about isn’t how long until your shift is over,
Or how much money you’ve managed to save this week,
Or when was the last time you went to a movie theatre, or did your nails,
Or went shopping with your girlfriends,
All you can think about is your children.
The ones you had to leave behind under the care of your motherland,
The ones who need you to feed and clothe them, give them the education you were
deprived and the future you never had.
The children you long to hug and kiss again every waking hour of your life one last
time,
And you wonder how much they’ve grown, if they have friends at school, if their
new haircut suits them, if they have all their school supplies ready for the beginning
of their school year,
You pray for them to get better if they’re sick,
You wonder if your mom or your sister will ever love them the way you do,
If they understand how difficult it is to be so far away from them,
How cold and lonely your new life in the States is,
It’s no Disneyland,
It’s work, work, work…land
Some work is better than no work, even if your boss shorts you money, or touches
you indecently, or threatens to call la migra if you protest,
If your landlord increases the rent because he can,
Its work, work, work…land
But for your children, who are far away from all the madness and desolation
It’s Disneyland
Photo by Angy Rivera
