I saw this statue and quote during my visit to my parents' hometown. Located in the town's entrance, the monument pays tribute to migrants who leave Mexico to pursue the "American Dream." |
“Los migrantes vamos
por un sueño Americano, unos perdemos la vida, otros lo logramos, cuantos
suenos Mexicanos mas hemos de matar por ese sueño Americano?”//// “The migrants pursue an American Dream, some of us lose our
lives, some of us make it, how many more Mexican Dreams should we kill for this
American Dream?”
I imagine what life would be if my
parents had never left their hometown 30 years ago. Who would I have become if
I was born and raised in Jerez, Zacatecas instead of Los Angeles, California?
Would I have received the same education and economic “privileges” that I have
now? Would I have the same body shape, skin color, clothing taste, or music
palette? Growing up in a small, conservative town would be noticeably different
than living in the multicultural LA behemoth.
Perhaps these thoughts and words would
be in Spanish. Perhaps my faith would strictly be in God, my values would align
more to my grandparents,’ and perhaps fear would closet my hand from holding another
man’s love more openly. Nonetheless, in my case, I know that I would have been
raised by countless family—maybe 20 aunts and uncles, 40-50 cousins, and real sets
of grandparents. My relationship to these people would exceed my existing bond of
forced, 30 second phone conversations occurring only during special years.
Accordingly, this lackluster story
between me and an entire culture that could have been my own highlights my
feeling of “missing out on something.” Yet, I’m not exactly sure what that
“something” means, possibly a completely unknown perspective of re-interpreting
the world, or just a group of people who share my same ancestry line.
Whichever it might be, it seems like my parents exchanged my opportunity
to co-exist with other Murillo or Salazar tribe members, and swapped it for a better future. Certainly my feeling of being “robbed” is just
romanticized, and even if I had grown so close to these people would I really have
maintained too close?
During the course of the last
generations, millions of families left Mexico for improved opportunities, but have
the chances really been greater? Do these economic pursuits offset the
sacrifice of my parents abandoning their families and cultural identities? My
parents only planned to live in Los Angeles for a short time, save money, and eventually
return with pockets full of dollar$...but that clearly never happened.
Opposite to my parents, many
families did stay in Jerez or moved to neighboring big cities in order to stay
closer to family. As a result, I have cousins who also received a better future, and even attended college
and have career goals similar to any other American kid. But why did my parents
leave and other parents stay? When I asked one of my uncles why he stayed, he explained
that migration to the USA, for a while seemed more of a trend than a necessity.
One family member would curiously leave and his success story motivated his whole
family to follow. “Era la moda,” he said to me in Spanish, which literally
translates to “Was the fashion.” Interestingly, I never understood immigration as
a trend, conversely, considered it
the only option for some families’ economic survival.
My uncle’s use of the word trend or fashion vocalizes the possibility of immigrants as followers who
follow for the sake of following. My father followed and exchanged his small
town for a dishwasher’s job. With the best intentions, a minimum wage salary in
a place of a foreign language became the best alternative. And 30 years later, I wonder if it was worth
it for him, for his parents, his family back home? Definitely, it was worth it for me because
I’ve been able to cherish the dollars of his work.
My parents belong to a generation
of immigrants whose stories in their language and religion will be lost to an
American Dream. I have families to which I will probably never speak, and it’s hard
to think not only about the distance barrier between us, but a language and
culture that inhibits any interest. What is the benefit of immigration? Are the
families who stayed in Mexico really living any better or worse than my own?
Finally, immigration has surely allowed
many families to re-unite in a new space to fulfill an American Dream. But to
those victorious, what exactly is this dream?
Is this dream about spending dollars in any way? Or can this dream simply be
about vigorously providing for those you love? However, does the American Dream
actually disrupt families, break traditions, and create even more cultural barriers
among households?
Maybe there’s nothing really
fascinating about my parents’ unknown stories, or the unknown of the American Dream itself, yet the idea of not knowing can overly romanticize any
facts. Perhaps that same unknown
convinces people to come and go, to want more, to want the greener grass of the
other side, only to discover it’s really just the same shade of sun-burnt green
on any side of any fence.
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