A Dreamer Within a Dream

Chapter I - A Dreamer within a Dream

Now I can't tell you who I am but I can tell you my story of who I am. This is not something I wished at first but I have decided to finally tell you. I wish I could show you my face, but the society we live in still has me living in fear. I know one thing I can tell you thought... I have been doing the wrong thing my entire life. Trying to fit in the world that will not accept me for what I am.
I remember when I was younger my mom used to tell me to never stand up for myself. Not because she did not care, in fact it was the opposite of that. It was because she cared too much about me. She told me to stay away from attention seekers and to continue to do my chores. I remembered the first time I was ineligible for the inner circle vividly. I knew my life would change forever when I realized I was no longer a legal part of society.
"I have my green card!" yelled Idaly while in the middle of a class debate in my English 7 grade class. "oh yeah, then what color is it?" claimed Sammy a bigger kid with all muscle and zero brains. "It's green! I can't show it to you because my mom won't let me." Interrupted by my teacher, she yelled, "Green cards aren't green, they're a salmon color and you do not have one because if you did, you would know that they are not green." I thought to myself, how embarrassing! She was caught in the most sensitive and embarrassing lie. She was illegal and a very bad liar. That made me curious because I too would have lied just to get the feeling of being accepted into the circle of the accepted ones.
I went home and asked my mom about my green card and where I can see it so I could show my friends that I have one and tell them about the color. My mom looked at me with disbelief and said, "Mijo, you do not have a green card." I exclaimed, "Why not?" I did not understand why I did not have a green card. Maybe because I just have not received it or maybe because my mom never looked into getting one but something deep inside me told me I was wrong. Slowly, my ability to be in the inner circle was slim.
Certainly, it was all a mistake, my mom just did not know what a green card was, she couldn't. I mean she hardly spoke any English so maybe she just thought about something else when I said green card. By that time, my mom was nowhere to be found. I searched for her in the house only to find her looking at the drawer made of wood. It was a wooden drawer with beautiful life in it, almost 60 years old with the words High Hopes engraved on it, a mahogany red wood color with the smell of old dusty library books.  I had given her my last $15.00 dollars to buy a new drawer that morning at the swap meet, I saw how much she liked it but we never had money for even the simplest of necessities. I was saving up for a Gameboy Color advanced SP, the red ones, because all of my friends had one and I was only $125.00 dollars' way but the face of my mother as she looked at the dresser had more color than I had ever seen possible in a tiny little screen.
She pulled out a passport and I was soon relieved. I have seen a passport before! It was a dark green color like a dirty pond where you and your family go to feed the ducks. Her face did not light up like I thought it would back then at the swap meet, then she told me, "Mijo, you do not have a green card because you were not born here, see? You were born in Mexico a very small town in Chihuahua." I was very young to know what that meant, but I immediately knew it was not a good thing telling from the look in my mother's eyes. "We are fortunate to be here Mijo, but you have to know that you are not a legal resident in this country, you are what they call..." She looks away for a very small second and touches an ancient looking statue of angel my mother often had us pray to before bed and said, "illegal." Still, I did not understand what that would mean for me in the future, except that I was not born into the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Little did I know that a piece of paper would define the hardship I have had to life with since that day. I grew embarrassed, ashamed, so much that I often told people I did not speak Spanish. It was not until the next week where I had my history class in third period. Ms. Delgado, I remembered her strongly. She always spoke with her hands and sometimes placed one hand flat like a wooden board and the other like a chopping knife against it. She moved it up and down the air and against her hand like she was chopping the air on one hand and using the other hand like a knife. She was intimidating at the very least and very stern. She said we needed to pay attention at all times because people sometimes do not pass her class. It was History. One of my favorite subjects growing up as I looked for ways and stories that made me feel like I was not the only one.
It was hard to tell if people were illegal like me, it was not as if you could just ask also, it made me look like I was the illegal one and no one wanted to hang out with the least fortunate ones. Aside from constantly being called gay for my unbreakable sense of compassion and goodness onto others (thanks mom), being called poor for the lack of fashion I had compared to the others, I was in no way strong enough to take the words alien on my back until the end of high school knowing that for certain at least half of the students would follow me from seventh grade until graduation day.
Ms. Delgado proceeded as I came back from my dream island, "Angel Island was one of the two large entry paths that the United States allowed immigrants to come into their country and begin to start a new life but that was until the quota act of 1921 where there was no longer any need for immigrants in the country. I remember thinking why would we be here if there is no need for immigrants in the country anymore. That was until I learned what being an immigrant really meant. It meant, a slave of stigma, struggle and ineligibility.
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness.
What did it all mean to me, mean to you?
I would no longer be happy, I would soon struggle and feel the pain of the world
Strife, Integrity and living in Fuzziness.
It was the end of me and the growth of you.
I would no longer be happy, I would soon struggle and feel the pain of the world.