DITZA MONTESINOS

The Facts:

I remember where I was the first day my dreams were shattered. I had spent grade school bragging to my classmates with pride that I was from Mexico, that I wasn’t born here, and that I had a smallpox injection scar to prove it. I stopped bragging about that scar when I finally understood its implications. I sat in the back of the family car, on a cold winter night and finally stumbled out of that blissful ignorance with the simple question, “How did we get here?”

I expected a simple answer like “on a plane” or “driving”. What I didn’t expect was to exit the car unable to feel the cold breeze, unable to feel the snow crunch under my feet. The answer my parents gave me wasn’t simple and it wasn't easy to digest, I struggled to accept I had undergone it, I still do.

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When I was born, my father knew the future Mexico had to offer dwarfed in comparison to the opportunities on the other side. He set out leaving his family, culture, way of life, and newborn daughter behind. He crossed the Chihuahuan desert on foot with not much more than a gallon of water, then worked himself to the bone for two years alone in a foreign country. When he finally collected enough to pay smugglers to bring me and my mom into the country, I was packed into a hot crowded van, at the tender age of two. Once we arrived on the other side my pee soaked diapers were used to wipe off the remaining sand holding us to our mother country off, a fresh start.

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I remember the second time my dreams were shattered, ironically in the very institution designed to make achieve them, school. After a vocabulary test in English I glanced at my phone only to find that the last string of hope I held onto was broken. On September 5th 2017, the Trump Administration had repealed DACA. I felt tears swell in my eyes and every step I took pushed me closer to my breaking point. I rushed through my work and ran to the computer lab where I sat alone in the dark, drenched in tears, cloaked in shame, and feeling lost. By the end of the day I ended up in the counselor’s office, with two of my close friends mourning the death of our future. Three Dreamers, with shattered dreams.

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However sad this may all seem, I’m not writing this for sympathy. These experiences have made me into the person I am today. My parents did not sacrifice everything for me to simply accept defeat. An animal with a limb in a trap will chew it off and leave it behind in order to survive, this event is my “limb” and I choose to move forward.. I want to succeed if only to make my parents proud, in order to justify the sacrifices they made, in order to show to the people who doubted me that I am beyond capable of surviving, I want to thrive. I am proud of the disadvantages I have been dealt. I am a Dreamer, and I no longer am I ashamed of the smallpox scar on my shoulder, I face my future head on - with my chin held high.