In a blistering essay in Vogue, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio — the daughter of undocumented immigrants from Ecuador — rips apart the American Dream that lures migrants to U.S. shores with the promise of opportunity, then forces them to lives under the constant threat of deportation, or having their families ripped apart.
I never identified as a DREAMer. First, I thought the acronym was cheesy. Second, I feel sick at the thought of the American public pitying me for my innocence, my hands clean from my parents’ purported sin in bringing me here. It’s a self-righteous position I want to kick in the balls—pitying the child while accusing the parents of doing something that any other good parent would have done under the same circumstances. And if American citizens’ love of law and order is so pure that they would have let their children rot or starve or be shot or be condemned to a future of no future instead of coming here, then they’re not fit to shine my parents’ shoes.
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