Comparing My Mother's Migration To The American Dream

Many who immigrate to the United States in hopes of finding economic prosperity and of achieving some version of the American Dream, have several underlying, internal struggles when establishing their life in the United States. Many hold on to the notion, that they will one day return. However, my mother never sought to return though she has mentioned several times that she would like to return to visit her family and possibly form a relationship with her younger siblings, the ones she never formally met, but she would only like to visit. My mother, immigrated to the United States at fourteen and unlike many, her home did not serve as a place for culture rememberance or as a reminder her to return to her family. Her home did not serve as a

My mother remembers that this distance from her culture and homeland was deeply ingrained into her as her family began to view her as an “economic [means] for them”(Chin) because they would rely on her newfound economic prosperity to support her family back home. She was no longer a daughter or a sister, she was a means of income. In addition, the distance between my mother and her family was intensified by her family’s reluctance to migrate to the U.S., “because [her] brothers say that coming here is coming here to die ... that you never see the family again, that you come and don’t know if you're going to return, you do not know if you're going to die on the way"(Chin). With no family members seeking to migrate other than two of my mother’s siblings and my mother’s inability to return to México after over 30 years, total separation becomes a harsher reality when my mother remembers not being present at the moment her mother past away or even being able to attend her

Sometimes, with immigrants, guilt emerges as a result of the inability, for instance, “to say during Christmas, ‘This year I’m going to buy a ticket and I’m going to go’” (Chin). Another aspect of such guilt emerges from the following: “if they want to come to do it legally. Do not do it like I did 30 years ago, to not risk their life...I didn’t come with a visa, I didn’t come with a passport”(Chin). The guilt that is exemplified here is not necessarily one of offense. Instead, this guilt is characterized by a dissonance, that the act of immigrating contradicted my mother’s values such as family and unity. This is the true trauma of any immigration story: having successfully immigrated from another country only to discover that you have sacrificed everything for a better life, but on the road to reaching it, you have forgotten and distanced yourself from those who mattered most when one originally migrated. Consumed with guilt, having achieved mediocre success and happiness, and are constantly discriminated or treated unfairly because of the color of your skin. The contradictions between economic gain, security, quality of life and guilt intertwined and made a seemingly simple and hopeful dream into a distaterous and nightmarish