undocumented

I know this might sound like a bit of a soapbox, but it's all right. I'll allow myself this particular one. I know that most people today see interracial marriages as non issue, and don't give it much thought. And at barely 23 years old, I can mostly agree, but I can also disagree. When I was a kid, being a by racial child was an issue for some people. I could tell that certain people just didn't like me, not around their kids, or themselves. The Southern Baptist church I was raised in was noticeably less enthused about our family. We were passed over for years, while others always seemed to know about the church activities going on right across from the street from our house, except us. We were there, every Sunday, so how is it that we never got "the memo"? Now, I will concede that PERHAPS I'm a bit prejudice on this point, but I don't think I'm entirely wrong either. When it came to the outside world, even in places that should have welcomed us, things often got "awkward" for lack of a better word.

Once, at Mexican place called Abuelitos where my dad sometimes came to meet my mom and siblings and I for lunch after work (his drywall business), he was escorted to our table by a manager. "This man says he's your husband ma'am." We all laughed (in shock) and assured them that he belonged to us, but, I remember thinking later did that really happen? About two years ago there was a huge ordeal over the borders and it was weird to my family. It seemed to us that no one in the US had ever given thought to the Border besides us (after all, my dad came as an illegal immigrant when he was 19). Then all of a sudden, it was an all out attack on all Mexicans in the US. Everywhere we went it's all the conversation we heard. When we went to eat, it was being discussed, and on the news channels. No one seemed to have any compassion, and I was so confused, what then, was I? What were my siblings? As products of a born American, and an illegal Mexican immigrant, were we wrong to exist? Would they send my father back to Mexico and revoke his rights as a citizen if they were going to be entirely fair over the issue? We didn't have an ali in the world at that time. Our family "friends" refused to discuss the issue with us, making statements like "Well, you're all different". On an AOL forum I saw one night, was packed with threats of violence against Mexicans in the US and statements like "I say we rope em' up, throw em' into the back of a pickup and take them all back ourselves". Didn't anyone making statements like that ever stop to consider that we were humans? I don't advocate illegal activities, but I also don't protest my own existence. If my father hadn't come across the river like he had, when he had, my family would not exist. I suppose we are all walking talking contradictions of right and wrong.

What do we make of it? I don't know what to say to those who look me in the face and say it would have been better for the country if I had never been born, or my two brothers, and sisters for that matter. Anyway, that's enough I suppose. It's weird to feel like I insult some people by being alive. I'm sorry for offending peoples sense of propriety, but I'm not, and never will I be, sorry for my father illegally entering the country. His family was starving, there weren't any jobs to be had that could sustain them, and then of course, he met my mom.