Briana's AEH Blog

My dad hated that my sister and I mainly spoke Portuguese while growing up, which we spoke especially during the time spent with our grandparents. He feared it would single us out and make us targets to harassment like what happened to him. When my dad immigrated here from Portugal, he was singled out and tortured by his peers and his elders for not speaking English properly. He would be teased and picked on in classes. It brought him a lot of shame and embarrassment when he stood out because of his different mother tongue and his inability to spak without an accent. My dad would always tell us to speak English with him, even though we spoke Portuguese to everyone else at home. Eventually the idea of my sister and I speaking Portuguese became more acceptable to him when he realized that it had no effect on our ability to speak English. Also, being able to communicate with my entire family was important.

One of my best friends in high school’s parents are illegal immigrants. Her older brother was illegal as well.   She was the only one in her family born in the United States. I could tell they lived in fear, even when it came to her. They would only allow her out for certain circumstances, especially at night. In some ways she said she felt obligated to watch out for her family. She felt bad doing regular high school student things like football games or dances. There were so many fears that her parents had surrounding the fact that they did not have the papers to be here. One included that her mother hated driving and would avoid it at every cost, but wouldn’t even allow my friend to get a drivers license. This made it hard to get to school everyday. It really made me appreciate the easy life I have by not only having citizenship of my own, but that my entire family does as well.

This week in class the topic of the extensive process of becoming a US citizen came up. This conversation really hit home for me. Every person in my family except for my generation had to go through that grueling process to be where they are today. The most recent member of my family to receive their citizenship was my grandmother. She legally moved to the US two years before I was born. For seventeen years she tried to obtain citizenship and finally in my sophomore year of high school she passed. I watched her study the same things I was in history class and even questions I didn't even know the answers to. It was strange to me that she needed to know these things as a (not-so-)newcomer, yet I am sure so many natural born citizens wouldn't even know the information on that test.

This article speaks of the negative impact that President Trump’s new immigration reforms can and will have on the American workforce, business owners, and citizens of society as a whole. Specifically, this article focuses on Trump’s decision to have tens of thousands of Haitians, Salvadorians, and Hondurans leave the country by terminating their legality and in consequence, their work permits. Large percentages, as much as twenty to thirty percent, of workers in many fields would be terminated and their labor useless. Business owners would then struggle to keep production going and clients happy. The author of the article even wrote, “ Construction companies already confronting a nationwide labor shortage will have to replace workers from what industry executives said was a minuscule pool, or turn down projects.” When business owners have to turn down projects due to lack of labor workers, their ability to profit and grow is denied. There are available jobs, why not allow those who w