The Need to be Emotionally Prepared

I'm already crying. It's only the first story, and I don't even know the person, but tears are streaming down my face. Since a large part of this project is stories, I figured I would google search collections of immigrants' stories and struggles in order to get an idea of what is out there. The first link that popped up was a website called "My Immigration Story"; it's a website hosted by the author Raul Ramos Y Sanchez, who was born in Cuba but later lived in Miami and the Midwest. On this website, immigrants can leave their story with as much anonymity as they would like, and scanning through the various stories, you can see that some use their full name and location, and some just use initials or a name like "A Dreamless Child". The stories vary in length as well, ranging from a few sentences to multiple paragraphs.

Since I am mainly focusing on the Capital District, I decided to see if there were any stories from Albany, NY. And soon enough, about halfway down the page, I see one. It's a story of a 16 year old girl who lost her father to deportation and fears losing her mother to the same fate, but still manages to be the president of the debate club and pretend that nothing is wrong. You can see her story below:

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"I’m lucky. I’m 16, live in a small town and I am a daughter of an immigrant. Growing in a small town, when 96 percent of the population is white is tough. You turn white. Sure, the color of my skin will never be the color of a piece of printer paper but inside it feels like I’m all white. I guess the word “anchor baby” defines me…. sort of. I’m the president of debate club, where we talk about bills, current news topics, and political nominees. The hardest topic… Is immigration reform. People are so uninformed.. “Yes I believe we should deport all undocumented immigrants here, and they should get in line with all the other people to get their papers… LEGALLY” I find that easier said than done. I haven’t seen my father since I was 8 and only spoken to him on the telephone. He was deported in 2009. The last day I saw him was in a train station… And I had no idea why I was saying good bye… and why everyone was crying. When my friends came over and asked where my father was I said he was “working”. Every year on my birthday he calls me and I try hard not to cry because I know it’s another year of him not being able to see me grow. My mother is a single mom. Terrified of being deported. Just a couple weeks ago she was caught. She was driving to work when a police officer pulled her over because she wasn’t wearing her seat belt. For anyone else it’s just a ticket. For a single mother that is illegal it’s “I have to go to court, I have to show identification… They will find out I am illegal.. I will be deported… I have to call my lawyer… Who will take care of my daughters? ” I hate seeing my mother in constant fear. I hate hearing family members and friends calling us to be careful because in Hudson ICE was seen deporting families. She’s scared. I’m scared. We’re all scared. Living the American dream shouldn’t consist of being scared every second of the day.

E.G. Albany, New York"

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I don't think I have that courage. This is a girl that is almost the same age as me and is involved with the same club, yet she goes through struggles I'll never know, struggles that I'll never have to experience. I'm going to come back to this story several times this year and read it, just to remind myself of why I want to do this project. No amount of statistics can ever convey the amount of pain and emotion that a firsthand account can, especially one that connects with you personally. However, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to have to become a little more tough in the process. If I break down into tears with all of these stories, nothing is going to get done; I'm going to need to be emotionally prepared for this to succeed.

Website: https://myimmigrationstory.com/