Posted by: Christopher Punongbayan
Dear America:
My name is Michael Tsui, and I’m 21 years old. I’m an undocumented student recently transferred to San Jose State University to study Computer Engineering. I want to talk to you about the DREAM Act, but before I do, I want to tell you about my story, about how I came to the United States.
I was brought here at the age of five, along with my elder brother and sister, by my mom, from Hong Kong. Although she had told me as I grew up that she had brought us here to pursue an education, I found out when I was older that she brought us here because she did not want us to be parented by my father and his mistress; she wanted us to be raised properly, and so sought to have us raised here in the United States.
But, education has been the best thing that I have received from my years living in San Francisco. I’ve been through the public school system from kindergarten through my senior year at Lowell High, and I’ve studied through City College and I’m now at San Jose State. It’s also one of the few things that I’ve been able to experience, one of the few things that I can experience because of my status. And I don’t want to say that I’m not grateful by complaining about how I cannot drive, or get a job to earn money to go to the theaters or hang out and have dinner with friends.
What I want to say is that I’m afraid. I’m afraid that I can lose all of what I’ve experienced here in the United States because I am undocumented. I’m afraid that I’ll be separated from my family, from my sister who has worked hard to legalize my family, from my mom who has raised all of us by herself with her sweat and tears, and from my brother, who has been drowning in this fear for years and has been unable to continue with school because of it. I want to stop being afraid, and move on with my life, to pursue internships and to teach at schools, to give back to the community, and to this state and nation.
Please pass the DREAM Act, and give me that chance.
Please let me thank this nation, which has given me so much, and has given me the opportunity to have reached this far in my education. Thank you.
[...] article, written by an San Jose State University student born in Hong Kong, comes to us courtesy of the Asian Law Caucus. AKPC_IDS += "3639,";Popularity: unranked [...]