Immigrant Struggles

  My goals from writing this passage was to include as many primary sources because I feel like this topic that I am writing about has the potential to be very descriptive if primary sources are used to support it. I felt like I did a good job on gathering sources and analyzing it to put in my passage. Something I can do better at is, improving my transitions from paragraph to paragraph. Although, I did made an attempt on doing it, but I think it would be better if I let a teacher read over it beforehand.

I was four years old when I first stepped foot in the United States. I remembered that my mother told me that I was crying for the whole plane ride, and I did not stop until a couple of days later. My parents and I settled down in Kensington, in North Philadelphia. Other than going to school, I was not able to go outside because it was a really dangerous neighborhood. I struggled through Kindergarten because of my lack of English. There was no such thing as an ESOL program in that school. I did not learn to read until 4th grade in a different school. My teacher developed my interest in reading and writing and that is when I started improving. I remembered that I was one of those kids that was pulled out of class to take a separate class that was much more basic. I was lucky to be part of a school with an ESOL program because I know that not all immigrant kids are able to get this opportunity.

As of 2013, it is recorded that around 41.3 million immigrants lived in the United States. Immigrants made up a lot of what is America today. For example, back in the 1800s, Chinese immigrants were exploited to the west of the United States to build the transcontinental railroad. Without that innovation, it would be hard to say that we would have functioning transportation. Immigrants were involved in many more creations to America, but as of today, they are not getting the credit they should be getting.

A lot of the immigrants here today are not able to receive full benefits from the states because they are undocumented. In the video (on the second link of the bibliography), Jong Min, a undocumented immigrant said that it was hard for him to fit in with his friends because some of the things they were doing was not applicable to him because of his status in America. In some states, undocumented immigrants are not able to get a driver’s license, get a certain job, go to college, etc. Jong Min said that it is like living in an invisible prison along with your family.

In the same video, Pedro is also an undocumented immigrant in America. He was told that he is undocumented by his brother in second grade; at first, he did not know what that meant, but overtime he understood and slowly became a little more wary about his future everyday. His fear for his future is a feeling that most undocumented immigrants get. No matter how hard you work to get a good education or a job, it is unlikely to happen because you are simply not documented. Luckily, he was able to get an education at Cornell University. He was on the bus to the university, one day, and was stopped by a police officer. Everyone in the bus was asked to come out, and they were all checked to see if they have citizenship. Pedro told the truth saying that he was an undocumented immigrant; he was then handcuffed and sent to prison. He was asked to perform a finger scan and strip his current clothing, so he can put on the jail suit. He said that he was really lonely in the jail cage, he was not able to contact his family or have access to almost anything; he was also not able to receive basic health checkups.