Research Essay

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Estephania Maupome

English 1A

Research Paper

How Most Americans perceive Young Latin Immigrants?

 Imagine yourself as a young kid who was born and raised in Mexico. You had everything going well for you. Your family was together in harmony, you were doing excellent in your elementary school, and you didn’t really have to worry about anything, just wonderful. Now, lets say in some rare occurrence all this was taken away from you because your parents found a better way of living in another country where the rules and language are a bit different from where you originally lived. Now being in a whole new world per say, takes time to cope. But being in a country illegally as a kid make it is much harder to live, even though is not the kids fault. Especially when the country has a strict law against illegal immigrants, but when kids grow they faced so many barriers to succeed in the place they called home. Therefore, most Americans should give a chance to young latino immigrants to succeed in the United States.

Many young illegal immigrants dream of becoming someone productive to America, to give their knowledge to the country who watched them grow, Although most of the Americans block those dreams because they fear that we are going to take their jobs and money. In an article posted by The National Academy Press published that 51 percent of Americans believe that immigrants take jobs away from native-born workers. Although, 86 percent believe that immigrants are hard workers, and 61 percent think immigrants create jobs and set up new businesses. Darrell West is an American author, political scientist, and political commentator. West is the vice president and director of governance studies and director of the center for technology innovation at the Brookings Institution, he states on his article The Cost and Benefit of Immigration “Immigrants bring a "brain gain" of innovation and creativity that outweighs real or imagined costs. Immigrants have enriched our economic, intellectual, social, and cultural life in a number of fundamental respects. We need a new national narrative on immigration that moves from themes of "illegality and abuse" to those of "innovation and enrichment." (6) Young illegal immigrants are Americans by heart, we were not born here, but this is the only country and home that we know. We know how to work and do not disappoint the people who gives us chances to succeed. This is our home and we want to succeed just like an American. I work two part time jobs and I go to college and I am not taking any ones job. I am working to pay my education and bring the best of me to this country. I am studying Multimedia Technologies, if I get the opportunity to be legally part of America, I will create jobs for this country.

Most of the Americans do not accept Illegal immigrants because they fear that their culture is losing its distinctive character due to non-English-speaking who move to the United States and do not integrate into mainstream social and political life. They think that we receive more privileges and benefits more than them, and sometimes they think that the government pays more attention to us rather than them. “[Most Americans] do not like immigrants who look or act differently from themselves”(West, 1). When an illegal immigrant comes to America on their early years of life, we entered to a whole new universe that we do not understand. We learn a whole new different life, our schools, friends, and media are totally different; and that’s why we learn how to speak English to be socially active and be part of America. We do not receive any privileges from the government; the only thing that we receive is fear and depression because we don’t feel accepted. The only thing that we want is to be like an American. When I came to this country seven years ago, with no English, social skills and with a huge hope to be someone in life, I felt like a bean in a white rice cup. After seven years living in this beautiful country I perfected the English language, I have a diverse group of friends that are united from the language and I admire the political parties. In these seven years I graduated from middle school with an Outstanding Academic Excellence, I graduate from High School with Honors and now that I am in college I have the pursuit of graduating with a degree. However, now that I am in college I do not feel accepted like most of the Americans. I do not want my dreams to vanish from being illegal.

The education is very important to succeed in America; otherwise this country would not exist. Thanks to America’s education, many people have been successful by contributing their knowledge to the country. Anoop Lalla posted on the newspaper Mountain View VOICE “It depends on the kind of education they’ve had, the kind of school systems they have gone to, how much have we invested in their education and what they can contribute to the society. I think everybody needs to be given a fair chance” (3). America has the most successful education worldwide; therefore, everyone deserves the right to have education and to succeed in America. I have not finish my college education because I did not receive any support, and I am not the only one who is in this situation, 800,000 young illegal immigrants are waiting for a fair chance to be accepted in America.

America is a smart and optimistic country. In which their people is very reasonable and gives opportunities to people around the world, specially the ones that are in the country. In the newspaper Mountain View VOICE, the article called Deportation, The President of the United States of America Barack Obama said “They are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper” (13) Referring to all the young illegal immigrants in the Nation. He made a law, especially for the young illegal immigrant,

that states we can stay in the country without the fear of being deported by having a two-year visa without limits. The visa will allow us to succeed in life, work and be an American, but is not citizenship. The requirements are: to came to America before the age of 16, to prove that we have being living for 5 consecutive years, High School Diploma and to prove that we keep studying. We are not going to take the jobs from you, we are becoming you, we are going to work together. We are Americans.

Work Cited

DeBolt, Daniel. “Deportation.” Mountain View VOICE 22 JUNE 2012 : 5

Immigration Debate: Studies on the Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1998),

Darrel M. West “The Cost of Benefit of Immigration” (2009)

6. Academy of Political Science