If it hadn’t been for the active role she had to play answering questions during immigration vetting interviews, Carmen believes that she might not have chosen to pursue a future studying immigration law. At the age of nine, Carmen had to grow up fast and navigate the confusing and expensive permanent resident process alongside her parents as the three worked to legalize their status, once in the United States. Carmen’s up-close look at how the bureaucracy works helped her realize  “how difficult it is for working class people to just live and exist peacefully in the United States. I saw injustice in a way that my friends who were born here and sheltered from that probably didn't until much later,” she said.

 

Carmen, now a Sociology and Black Studies student at UC Santa Barbara, immigrated from Guadalajara, Mexico a few days before her fourth birthday with her mother to reunite with her father and the rest of their extended family that had already immigrated. When Carmen was two years old, her father had finally crossed the border after 15 failed attempts, several arrests, beatings, and having been swindled by middlemen known as ‘coyotes.’ Her mother had to make the difficult decision to leave a life of higher education and success she had achieved in Mexico for the sake of keeping the family together, a sacrifice that Carmen reflects upon often.  

 

Carmen believes the American Dream is disproportionately failing immigrants and people of color. She hopes to see the nature of the conversation shift from romanticizing immigration to actually addressing structural barriers that lead to disproportionate outcomes. She says U.S. interventions in Central America often cause many to flee from their home countries in the first place. She also reminds immigrants from her background to not turn a blind eye to newer immigrants and to support one another through the difficulties immigration brings.

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Watch Carmen's story below. Click here to read a transcript of Carmen's video interview.