For five years now, the Mexican Consulates in the US and the IME (Instituto de Mexicanos en el Exterior) have organized an annual Dreamers Forum. In 2022 they invited current DACA recipients to apply for a three-day forum in Raleigh, North Carolina. I applied hours before the deadline thanks to a call from a friend who said “If you apply, I’ll apply.”

My chest is sinking and I’m afraid it’s too heavy for me to carry this time

I can feel it, starting to happen

Breaking off my collar bones and shoulder blades

through the sofa I now sleep in because we should no longer share a bed

I recently came out of a bit of a rut. I left my job of almost 4 years. And you may say, “It's just a job” and maybe it was, but for me, it became my life. I worked at a nonprofit where my job was to help immigrant families get on their feet and thrive. In the eyes of every parent looking for a job, every grandparent finally eligible for a green card, every teenager looking for a scholarship or volunteer hours, I saw my family.

My parents came to the United States when I was 4 years old.

I turned 5 without a mother or father to hold.

A few months later, my crossing took place,

at the hands of a strange woman who oddly made me feel safe.

A los cinco años te dije que te amaba y yo en ti me acurrucaba

Nunca imagine que eso cambiara, pero el tiempo pasaba y Ella de ti se apoderaba

Why must kids of color have to choose their actions or words extremely carefully? Why must kids go through the fear of being killed due to the color of their skin? Why must we live in a society where white people get opportunities handed to them while the rest of us have to work twice as hard for them?

It has taken me many years to come to the realization that I cannot control what happens in the world. Letting go of control is something I find very difficult to do, yet it has been the most helpful practice to my current lifestyle. Taoism revolves around letting go and going with the flow.

He goes to a foreign land with dreams in his hands

He set them down to work for the white man

Our education system is designed to make us obey. It does not want us to become critical thinkers. They want to create a leaderless population. Why? So you never question the system in place. So you never find out that it is possible to stand up against it. So you will think that no one like you has ever made a real change in history so chances are you never will. How do they do it?

When I get asked “Where are you from?” I never really know how to answer that question. If you ask me about where my family is from, where I was born, where I was raised, where I stay at. These all have different answers.

Do you remember the times your parents told you not to do something but you did it anyway?

Do you remember having no plans for the day and simply going where your curiosity takes you?

Do you remember being happy and thinking everyone else around you was too?