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The Importance Of My Journey To America

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On my fourth birthday I received America as my present. This 2,000 mile journey, from Costa Rica to New Jersey, was made possible when my parents were granted their much awaited tourist visas. However my parents unwittingly allowed the biggest setback to occur in our lives by letting those visas they desperately wanted slip their minds, and eventually expire. My journey to America has forever changed the course of my life, and with help of my religious and education-focused upbringing, these two things have affected my views on reality, knowledge, and ethics. Since moving to the United States, I have spent almost my entire time living here with the label “undocumented”. With that label has come many different challenges and missed opportunities for my family and I, ranging from access to medical care to work to travel. Acting like the anchor that it is, being undocumented has even had restraints on my dreams. I have always wanted to go to college, anxiously waiting for the day I receive an acceptance letter and move onto campus. As I entered high school however, I learned that, due to my immigration status, my future and story in this country could be determined by my a sole factor: my citizenship status. That realization made me question whether college could be a possibility for me, from acceptance to affording it. Alas, without a college education or the ability to travel internationally, my chance at fulfilling one of my dreams of becoming a Spanish teacher abroad

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