A love letter to the hijos e hijas de padres inmigrantes

Jazmin Suarez, Undergraduate, Political Science

Artist statement

This project I present to you is a poem made into a short video that resonated within my life. As a child of immigrant parents, life was very hard for me. I grew up in poverty and I experienced racism at a very young age. I was always scared of the cops because I thought they would take my family away from me. I used to think that no one cared about me or my people. Which is why I made this video: to showcase what many of us have to go through growing up. I want to show everyone and my past self that we are not alone, that we can still achieve greatness even if our background and statistics tell us otherwise. I want people like me to not give up and to embrace their culture. While people may hate us, we shouldn’t let that determine our fate or our worth as a person. But most importantly this is a poem to our parents as well, that their sacrifice will not go unnoticed and we will prosper because we have them in our life. They crossed the border and risked their lives to give us a safe life here in the U.S. Which is why we can’t give up, we can’t give up for them, they are our fire and drive. I also wanted to shed light on the racial slurs they call my people. They always used these names to dehumanize my people, to make it easier for them to hate us. It is so easy for them to tell us to leave this country when this was initially our country. But no matter what this won’t hurt or affect me because I love who I am. My culture is beautiful and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I am Mexican and I am so proud of who I am. That is why I made this video.

A love letter to the hijos e hijas de padres inmigrantes

"This is a love letter to the hijos e hijas de padres inmigrantes. To those who carry the weight of being the one to break our ciclo de pobreza. Our parents risked their lives to cross the border para darnos el sueño Americano. But in the midst of this sacrifice, there also came racism and odio. Odio a nuestra gente porque nos dicen que no somos de aquí, to leave this country. Their country, their white country. But this was my country, the land that they took away from us. We hear this everyday, nos dicen aliens y wetbacks. We grow up normalizing the microaggressions towards us. “How did you learn english, were you born here, so are you illegal?” We’re told that we steal jobs but my padres work in a field where they can never retire. We grew up being terrified of cops and wondering if they were going to take nuestros padres away…We grew up resenting the US, for allowing schools and people to hate me, to hate “my kind”. We’re told we won’t make it pero, we can't give up, we can’t give up on our familia. They risked their life for us to be here, now we have to repay them. Damos todo a cambio de una sonrisa, un abrazo, una caricia and most importantly un orgullo, un orgullo para los papás que sacrificaron todo para darnos un mejor futuro. Which is why I try so hard in life and in school, for our family, our family that gave us everything even when they had nothing. They were my American Dream."