By Iris, Ovando School
I wake up in the morning,
Knowing I will be treated with respect.
Knowing I will be treated equal.
But what if you were mocked,
Treated differently because of the color of your skin,
Because of the people you love?
How would you feel?
Knowing that people would look down on you,
Talk about you behind your back,
Treat you as an alien.
We are all people,
We are all human,
And we have to treat others like they are.
Have I gotten to you yet? No? Ok, imagine this.
You wake up every morning in a crumbling world,
Where even you and your younger siblings have to go to work,
Just to keep food on the table, a roof over your heads.
But one day, your mom has had enough.
“Pack your bags”, she says, “We’re leaving.”
And after a long trip, you’re in a new country.
A country where you don’t have to work; instead you get to go to school,
Be with other children,
Live the life you want to live.
But you start hearing whispers,
Snippets of conversations,
Talking about something stealing America’s jobs,
Having to ban that thing,
Send it away.
You think of the thing as a monster,
Stealing what belongs to you and your neighbors.
Then you find out what the monster is called: Immigrants.
Then you hear the word Mexican attached to it.
And suddenly it hits you,
Buries you under a pile of dread.
You are the monster,
You are the thief,
And you have to hide.
Every day you go to school and hear the words immigrants, Mexican, and a new word; illegal.
You sit still and silent in the back,
Never drawing attention to yourself,
Always fearing someone will figure out your secret,
Send you back to that hell hole where you can’t say what you want,
Believe what you feel.
Send you back to being a puppet on a string.