crossed the border through Tecate, Mexico; “I didn’t know what I was getting into ... I only followed my mom. When we arrived here, all we had was a mattress for 4 of us.” Gonzalez attended Spring Valley Elementary School, recalling that, “I had a great teacher in first grade, Ms. Wilson. I only knew how to say ‘water.’ She got tired and said, ‘You have to say, ‘may I have some water?’ She asked to be a teacher in second grade to keep teaching me.” Contrary to them, 20-year-old Luis Lopez Resendiz disagrees with other DREAMers when asked about DACA. “To me, DACA is something they gave us to keep us even more oppressed ... is like telling us, ‘give them this to keep them calmed down.’” Lopez thinks the U.S. government is afraid of DREAMers because they know that giving them this “opportunity” is telling them “go and be free.” However, Lopez said, “We are the ones supporting this country strong.” Lopez used to live in a poor neighborhood, in Tijuana, Colonia Obrera. When dead bodies started to appear, his father told him he didn’t want that for him. He told him he had to go to the United States, attend school and work hard. Luis works in construction like his father. When he sees his pay check, it saddens him to know that he makes more in a day than his mother makes in a week. His mother and 19-year-old sister work in a maquiladora (factory) 12 hours a day. “I admire my 19-year-old sister. We came to the United States together, but she doesn’t
look the American dream like me. She told me, ‘the American dream without my mother is not a dream, I don’t know about you but I’m going back to Tijuana. So many times you said that you wanted to return and you don’t return.’” But Lopez argues that there’s a reason. If he returns, he thinks it wasn’t worth his father’s sacrifice working from dawn to dusk to give him an education. Lopez sends money to his mother and sister every week. Lopez is a full-time student at City College where he started integrating himself into classes and learned more about his roots. He said it was so different than what he learned in school before. “Graffiti and criminal ancestors or at the best only field workers: that’s the history of minorities according to High School teachers,” Lopez said, “it’s not their instructors fault, but how the system works here in K-12, it’s an Anglo perspective.” Lopez is part of the Puente Program, whose mission is to increase the number of educationally underserved students, and where he learned to have a different American dream than the one he had before: work hard and send money to Mexico. He believes Puente made him bring out the spirit that is inside him. Through the program he was invited to be the spoke person at the Latino Board Education Members conference. Lopez’s speech was about the importance of changing school programs provided now, like Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, the importance of reading and having more
ethnic studies classes to learn the story behind their countries. Lopez has two more years at City College before transferring to Columbia School of Law in New York. He wants to be an immigration lawyer and create laws that support his people. “My people are leaving their dreams at the mountains, in the frontier.” He said. Lopez said he would love to return to Mexico and practice a political career there. “I’m going to cross the border and help my family and educate my people about the truth: in the United States you are not going to sweep the dollars: vas a chingarte, a partirte la madre trabajando,” he said. Lopez is hurt to see what is happening in Mexico. He wants to return to the country where he was born and knows it will be very difficult because things are very ugly there. But he wants to do it for the country he loves. “If no one does anything, then the ‘pueblo’ is fighting by itself,” Lopez said. He is part of the Indigenous Front of Binational Organizations, where he is helping people fight for the right to not migrate and stay in their countries of origin. Lopez finalizes saying “The U.S. government knows we are 11 million of dreams that are only looking for 11 million positions in politics. They know we are the base, we are the future, we have lived in the shadows and our dream is to ‘salir adelante’ and have a better life. We are 11 million of dreamers that are looking to change the face of our people, the working class in the United States.”
Luis Lopez reads a poem at Friendship Park near Imperial Beach, San Diego on Aug. 25.
Photo by Nasheili Gonzalez, courtesy of Poesia Fronteriza
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