There were three things that I remember as part of my immigration experience, which started at the age of seven. I met my father for the first time, I learned what chewing gum tasted like and I stopped being afraid the soldiers were going to take my mother away. When I contemplate very hard I can remember all the way back when I was 3 years old. I grew up in a small town of about five hundred people. My mother was a feisty twenty-year-old beautiful woman. My father had left for the United States when I was nearly two years and I had no recollection of him. My mother left alone to care for me and her grandmother did the best she could. She worked at a flower warehouse where she made funeral arrangements. I loved to visit her, the flowers smelled divine. I remember carnations were the flower of choice and it became my favorite flower. My mom’s salary was about $6.00 pesos per week.

With the prompting of my great grand mother and the family that was already in the United States, my mother applied for a visa to migrate to the United States. That was the day that we became guzanos (worms) as they called us. We were known as undesirables.

I was treated different, was not invited to other kids houses. I remember several times the police came to my house and took my mother. She always came back a few hours later, but always crying.

We left carrying thirteen pounds of luggage between the three of us. When we arrived in the United States, we were reunited with my father. We came to this country with basically nothing. We did not run to the government asking for food stamps or any other kind of hand out. My father worked like a dog at a General Motors Parts Plant, my mother got a job as a seamstress. My father refused to take any assistance from the government, even during the long lay offs at the plant; he would not take a hand out. He worked along side my mother doing piecework for one of the local sweatshops. It was not until Hurricane Andrew that my mother and father accepted diapers and baby food for my little brother, but nothing that they did not need.

I went to school, we were poor and complained about things like other people did and we helped each other. I have always been very great full for all the opportunities that we given me by the United States. I served 7 years in the Marine Corps not because there were no other opportunities but because I felt that I owed something to this country. Only after I received my National Defense Service Medal did I feel I had given back. My father and I were never close, but the only time I can remember that he was proud me was February 4, 1984 when he attended my graduation from Paris Island.

Somewhere along the lines the United States became a “come and get it state.” Far too many immigrants come here expecting free handouts, free medical, food stamps, and federal assistance among other things. The one thing that is most unconceivable is these new comers feel that they deserve these things and get frustrated when it is not given to them.

There must be immigration reform. But the bleeding has to be stopped. The security of the border has to be addressed now. Stop the bleeding then treat the symptoms. There has to be some type of amnesty program. We have gotten ourselves in this mess, we have allowed people to come here and set up lived and have children. Children who are American Citizens. I am not going to be the one to pick up some kids mother and throw her into a police car for deportation while her child screams. I do not think that as a nation we can stomach those kinds of scenes playing out on CNN every day.

A solution has to be reached and it has to include some type of amnesty.