Kimberly, a dedicated college student, faces the complexities of growing up in America with undocumented parents. Her parents settled in the United States more than 20 years ago after emigrating from Mexico. They contribute to our economy through their labor in essential, low-income jobs in cleaning, childcare, and construction. Despite their undocumented status, they contribute significantly to the economy by paying taxes, often assisted by their employers who provide the necessary paperwork for filing.
Kimberly was born on US soil. She is from a family of educated public servants, herself and her two sisters. After all, their parents made the same dangerous and often life-threatening journey across the border to provide a better life for their children. Once settled, Kimberly’s mother took on two jobs as soon as her daughters were old enough to be left alone for short periods after school. Kimberly’s father has been living in his own cramped detention facility—his home in Mexico, away from his family.
The family had learned to look for a Mexican community wherever they moved, creating a deep network of culture, support, and knowledge. Kimberly’s life is filled with the dread that one night, her parents could be deported or picked up by an immigration raid. The trail of terror against undocumented immigrants unleashed by former President Donald Trump has made her fears come true.
“My biggest worry was that my parents would feel like everything they did for us was in vain,” Kimberly said. “When really it wasn’t because my sisters and I got to get a great education.”
Kimberly looks back on her own experiences of being a nervous passenger as a child. She constantly looked in the rearview, searching for cop cars. She understood the very real danger in her community that people faced from being stopped and deported. “My family and I were always on guard to make sure that we were not just driving safely, but making sure that we look as normal as we can be,” she explained.
The emotional toll of living in this type of uncertainty has been severe. Kimberly explains that life has felt “unreal” and “like a nightmare” since the crackdown on immigrants started. She expresses deep concern for her parents, who have worked hard to provide for their family despite their legal status.
What I feel like we’re losing right now is more like the humanity, she stated. Nobody’s imagining you or nobody’s imagining you as a human being. They’re just perceiving you as a thing.
For Kimberly, a chemistry interdisciplinary major, the start of her clinical experience has been something to look forward to. She hopes to one day be able to financially support her parents, as they have supported her all her life. “Now when I see what’s going on with ICE, it’s exactly as I imagined it as a kid,” she reflected.
The emotional toll is acute, especially when Kimberly imagines the threat of her parents getting deported. She feels bad for their well-being, but bad that she might be responsible for tearing their family unit apart. “It was most difficult to see how my parents reacted to the situation because as parents, you have to look like you’re strong and that everything is going to be OK so that your kids aren’t anxious or that they’re not worried,” she shared.
Kimberly has not given up hope that legal papers will stop determining how human you are allowed to be. “My parents might not have papers or the legal documents to live here, but they are human… a piece of paper doesn’t make you human,” she asserted.
Her story highlights the grim reality many families are forced to live with every day. Instead they become stuck in a system that dehumanizes them and their contributions. Kimberly is committed to her education, excitedly laying the groundwork to someday soon become all that she knows she can be. She fights on, determined to do right by her family, whatever life throws at them.
