The Dos and Don'ts of Learning to be Undocumented

Undocu-Notes: no human being is illegal.

This week’s segment features the work of an anonymous writer, edited by the La Cuenta team.

Undocu-Notes: What are the lessons we learn through growing up and navigating life in the U.S.?

When I came to the U.S., I was only 8 years old. People might assume that I was completely clueless about the change I was about to experience when my family decided to stay. Looking back today, I believe that such innocent ignorance would have been better than the reality. 

At the time that my parents had the “we’re staying” conversation with me and my sister, I struggled with the thought of leaving behind everything I recognized as home. I didn’t even get to say goodbye to my family and friends. A few weeks prior we had crossed the Tijuana-U.S. border where a CBP border patrol agent interrogated 8-year-old me about our reasons for coming to the U.S. and outlined the viability of our temporary visa. I knew then that after our temporary visa expired we would not be able to return. 

Of course, there are many things I know now about what it means to be undocumented that I didn’t know at the time. Through restriction and disappointment, you learn to be undocumented.

The Unforgiving Teacher

When I ask my parents why we immigrated to the U.S. they always respond with the same answer: “para que estudien y tengan mejores oportunidades,” to obtain a better education and have more opportunities. In our attempts to fulfill my parents’ educational aspirations for us, my sister and I have immersed ourselves in our studies. However, the more I learned, the clearer it became that the opportunities my parents envisioned were not meant for us.

No instance was clearer than when my sister was robbed of her opportunity to attend college. Back in 2014, before major legislative efforts in the state of California changed things, undocumented students were considered international students. Paired with ineligibility for federal financial aid, my sister was required to pay upwards of $50,000 out of pocket to attend a local 4-year university. Despite all of her hard work, despite my parents’ sacrifice, she could not afford to attend college.

You learn to be undocumented through aggressive indoctrination by the same system that oppresses you. This indoctrination is so extreme that some of us come to internalize the external borders imposed on us. After witnessing my sister’s disappointment while I was a freshman in high school, I came to believe that I would also not be able to attend college because of my status. At 14 years old, the heaviness of the system crushed my dreams for the first time.

The Dos and Don’ts

Growing up undocumented, I often received contradictory and confusing messages. I was able to attend k-12 public school alongside my citizen peers where we were encouraged to pursue a college education¹. At the same time, I faced the reality that — just like my sister— I might not be able to continue my education after graduating high school. As described by Roberto Gonzales and colleagues, undocumented youth experience “childhood in settings defined by thin boundaries.”

Abstract boundaries materialized in my and my loved ones’ lives, each barrier serving as a lesson for hopelessness. Eventually, I began to conceptualize what being undocumented meant through a list of dos and don’ts:

Undocu-Notes, Dos and Don’ts list. On “Do” column: do hide your legal status at all costs, do work very hard (good immigrants work hard), do drive very cautiously (you could get in trouble with the law), do assimilate, dream. On “Don’t” column: don’t ever forget you are undocumented, don’t ever tell anyone, don’t get your hopes up about going to college (you won’t get financial aid and we can’t afford it), don’t get in trouble with the law (you could get deported), don’t answer the door (it could be ICE), don’t travel, don’t forget where you came from, don’t try to stand out, don’t try to work (you can’t), don’t dream.

Despite knowing I was undocumented, I never considered myself different than my peers. In fact, I am angered at the thought that the system wants people to think that we are different, that me and my sister are less worthy of an education, that my community has to struggle because we lack documents.

To this day, I carry this list with me. Everyday, I strive to challenge the lessons an unforgiving teacher taught me. I fight to unlearn the messages this system has fed me. Today, I dare to dream, without borders, for a world where my life is not defined by a list of dos and don’ts.

Propina

For this week’s propina, we ask that you reflect on the dos and don’ts you were taught growing up, whether these were imposed by challenges regarding your identity or systems governing your existence.

How do you challenge these? What are you doing to unlearn harmful messages of oppression? What type of world do you dream of?

Leave a comment and share!

1. Citizenship status is not a condition for enrollment in California K-12 schools. In 1982 the US Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 in Plyler v. Doe that immigration status cannot serve as a condition for enrollment in American public schools.