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America as a Land of Opportunity

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 How would you feel if your dreams and opportunities were taken away from you? Well, this is what’s happening here in America today. Every day many immigrants are fighting to get that American Dream, but each day their chances are getting lower and lower. Nowadays Immigrants have to deal with the bad treatment that they experience every day. For example, if you are a Chicano meaning you’re American, but have Mexican descent some people will make you choose if you are American or Mexican you can’t be both Mexican-American. Another problem is that the immigrant’s hate crime rate is increasing so Americans see us in a bad perspective or paying jobs many actresses/actors don't get that opportunity to shine bright in America. The poem that I used to make as a reference is Let America be America Again, (Hughes) that message that he conveyed was that America was the land of freedom and full of opportunities, but he didn't feel that way to him. The message that I want to convey to white America is about the DACA Students getting their opportunities taken away. For instance how America treats the dreamers, the challenges with the melting pot, and the rights to the dreamers.

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From Let America be America Again to my poem both try to convey the same message on how America portrays itself to be this equal country full of hope and opportunities, but then many don’t feel like that. This leads to one of my points about inequality and the connotation of a dream. The reason why I used the word Dream a lot in my poem is that my poem talks about the DACA children and those are young adults that have a big goal to be someone in life. Many immigrant families cross the border to come to the United States to have a better life not only for themselves but for their children. As the Children start to grow up they slowly start to understand how America really is. This particular girl, that is in my poem saw America as her home where she feels comfortable, safe, and feels like no one will judge her, but that is not always the case. I also change the young man to a female to see how it is from a female perspective. Using “O America” I’m referring to America be this country that is beautiful and has so much potential. The phrase “The dream that’s almost dead today”(Hughes)I took out almost and added, “The dream that used to be is now dead.” I did those changes because for that phrase I want to add loneliness and empty feeling to that stanza. A lot of dreamers come to America for that, but the goal that they want to achieve is gone and lost today. Especially when they were debating on keeping the Dream ACT or not that’s something they are losing. I sort of in a way try to relate the word dead with the opportunity of taking the Dream Act losing something or someone very special to them. America promised to be a land of freedom to everyone that has the right to think what they want or say what they want without being judged based on their nationality. Minorities feel like it’s an inch while minorities feel like it’s a mile when it comes down to inequality. The Statue of Liberty represents the welcoming of immigrants, but many immigrants feel like they are not welcome in the United States especially with everything that has been happening in this era about Trump and the Deportation of immigrants. I added fake prophecy because America says they will promise you so many things but at the end of the day, they don’t grant you those promises they said they would.

My second point deals with the challenges of the melting pot. In my very last stanza, I used “ O America, you call yourself a salad bowl and then a melting pot, but how can that be if you don't love me.”America is seen as a salad bowl meaning the vegetables each represent a part of a certain group and culture in America. But then calls itself a melting pot where everything is mix and blend, meaning America is diverse and everyone is equal but that's not always the case. Especially for the young girl coming to America hoping for a better future but coming here knowing that her expectations were wrong. She feels like she is not loved and I used loved instead of using included because I want it to have an affection feeling meaning the reader can see the connection of the loss of the exhilaration. Another example from my poem is “The land of the slave set free, why do you discriminate against me.”Back then slavery was a big issue back then that came to an end and America was accepting of it. If that was the case why isn't this young DACA girl accept as well? The young girl is just an immigrant hoping to seek that opportunity that can change her life around. America should be this place that freedom can ring, where opportunities can be limitless, and letting it be the dream that it was and not dead. I used the word diversity because I want my audience to see that America is very diverse but each racial group has a problem they face each day like racism, brutality with the police, and school shootings we have so many social issues going on today that we had a community need to come together and not look at each differently because of our nationality.

My final claim to my argument is the right that dreamers have here in America. For example, the right to their education is one of the main ideas of my poem because it deals with the Dream Act. The Dream Act is an act that allows undocumented students to continue with their studies and is also about keeping the promise and giving them the hope that the young adults can have that opportunity that America and the act promised them. I added “ A girl that is constantly checking the news to see about the Dream Act” I know a few people that are DACA students and they are constantly checking the media to see about different updates. There’s was a time period where the president was debating on taking the Dream Act, so those types of things terrify this document students. I added this so that white America can put herself in this young girl's shows to see how it feels to be in her position. One of the rights that are being mistaken is the right to freedom. I added to my poem “ When do you call yourself ‘illegal’ violating the law and everything I heard has been a conspiracy” the reason behind this is because Trump normally refers to illegal to violating the law but that not true an immigrant does not come to America to violate anything I mean yes they are violating by coming here illegally but as human beings, they are not violating any laws. Everything I have heard has been a conspiracy meaning we hear about opportunities and the chances people have coming here but then realizing that’s not true.

Overall, I want white America to see that young adults are starting to feel like this dream they had in America is slowly going away and it's terrifying for them. When reading my poem I want my audience to feel like they are in the young girl's shoes and going through her emotions of what is like. The message I'm trying to convey about multiculturalism is how America trying to look all nice and sweet which it is but the inside of America is not. We have young adults hoping to better themselves and have a future for themselves to have a better life than their parents. Many parents come to America with their families so that their children can have a better future than what they had. Just like Let America be America again by Hughes it shows the audience what America is and how he does not belong in America. My poem is sort of the same message about having that opportunity but slowly getting taken about because of the things DACA students face such as inequality how America treats the dreamers, the challenges with the melting pot, and the rights to the dreamers. 

Works cited

  1. Hughes, L. (1936). Let America be America again. In The collected poems of Langston Hughes (pp. 130-132). Knopf.
  2. Golash-Boza, T. (2015). Immigration nation: Raids, detentions, and deportations in post-9/11 America. Routledge.
  3. Chavez, L. R. (2008). The Latino threat: Constructing immigrants, citizens, and the nation. Stanford University Press.
  4. Alba, R. D., & Foner, N. (2015). Strangers no more: Immigration and the challenges of integration in North America and Western Europe. Princeton University Press.
  5. Mora, M. T. (2014). Shamed and silenced: The untold story of how the immigrant rights movement mobilized. ABC-CLIO.
  6. Menjívar, C. (2014). Enduring violence: Ladina women's lives in Guatemala. University of California Press.
  7. De Genova, N. (2002). Migrant "illegality" and deportability in everyday life. Annual Review of Anthropology, 31, 419-447.
  8. Gonzalez-Barrera, A., Krogstad, J. M., & Noe-Bustamante, L. (2020). Facts on US immigrants, 2018. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2018/11/15/facts-on-u-s-immigrants/
  9. Ojeda, A. G. (2020). Mexican immigration to the United States. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.769
  10. Ryo, E. (2017). How the US government created and coddled the cartel problem in Mexico. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(4), 79-104. DOI: 10.1257/jep.31.4.79

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