Validating My Parents' Sacrifice: The Story of a First-Generation Mexican American Law Student LUCIANA PEREZ Estudiantes de primera generación de padres inmigrantes enfrentan desafíos únicos. Muchos de nosotros aprendemos a vivir con el miedo a la deportación. Igualmente, vivimos con la dificultad de dominar la barrera del idioma. Pero al mismo tiempo, estos son los desafíos que nos enseñan a luchar por la justicia para los demás y que nos moldean para ser quienes somos.
Growing up with an undocumented parent always set me apart from everyone else. I was not a normal kid who went to elementary school, did homework, and asked my parents to sign my fieldtrip permission slip. I knew I was different because I had to take extra steps in every single endeavor. I would go to school and work with a Spanish assistant to learn English in kindergarten. While working on my homework at home, if I got stuck on something, there was no one in my house who could help because no one spoke English. And asking for my mom’s signature on a permission slip meant that I had to read the form, translate it for her, and fill it out. These are just a few of the challenges and nuances that most first-generation Latinx students are all too familiar with. For me, these challenges started early in my life and continued to follow me into adulthood and into law school. As a child, I feared that my mom would someday be deported and my family would be separated. My most memorable experience with this fear happened when I was about eight years old. My mom and I would go to the grocery store every Sunday after Mass. This Sunday in particular, my mom handed me a little black purse to carry and put some papers in. She told me it was not safe for her to leave the house that day because there were immigration raids in the area. She could be in danger if she were found to be undocumented. She proceeded to tell me that I was a U.S. citizen and that the papers inside the purse were my birth certificate and the grocery list for me to read to my dad. The level of fear and anxiety I felt when my dad and I returned from the store is something that I will never forget. As we drove up to our house, I looked for signs that everything was okay. I was afraid I would not find my mom or siblings in the house. I imagined what I would do if they were taken: would I still go to school or would I also go to Mexico? Thankfully, nothing happened that day, and my mom was safe. But I can remember thinking about that fear the next day when I was at school. I did not want to play at recess, eat my lunch, or learn any more English words. Everyone else seemed to be so normal, so unlike me. Another challenge first-generation students face is the language barrier. Because Spanish was my first language, learning English was an additional layer in my education and something that to this day I continue to develop. In my first year of law school, I struggled with reading comprehension. It took me longer to read and understand cases compared to others. It has taken me two years to learn how to make good use of the time I have on the weekend to work through my readings, outline, and study. And although I do not have a lot of extra time, I have continued to develop my
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