Dear Michelle,
Today we write to you as two sisters, two daughters, who, like Malia and Sasha, love their mom and depend on her for guidance, support, and love.
Still, we live in a very different world than your daughters.
Our family emigrated from Brazil in 1998 and settled in Connecticut. Yes –you’ll be here this Thursday and your husband will be visiting on Sunday.
Our mom, Ana Maria, came seeking the American Dream, doing what any mother would do for her children. For as long as we can remember, our mom has been in love with America and what it stands for – its way of life, its opportunity, and its people. As an aerobics instructor and a marathon runner, our mom had been to the United States many times and in 1998 we decided to move here permanently.
Our family is undocumented. Which means my sister and I are both Dreamers. We arrived to the United States when we were nine years old, journeyed through the educational system for most of our lives and graduated from Danbury High School. After high school we attended and graduated from Western Connecticut State University on a scholarship–both of us receiving a Bachelors in Biology in 2010. Because of our status, we felt that our college degrees were little more than pieces of paper. We often felt hopeless and lost, but our mom never questioned the family’s choice to come to the U.S., because she knew it was what was best for us.
Eventually, both of us joined the immigrant youth movement and co-founded an organization in Connecticut to fight for the rights of undocumented youth and their families. To our mom’s bewilderment, our gas money, and her unwavering support, we threw ourselves into the fight that eventually won immigrant youth across the country Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
DACA has given us a social security number, a work permit, and a driver’s license. But more than that, DACA has given us the privilege to turn our dreams into goals, a sense of belonging. DACA has been able to give us the life our mom always wanted for us–a future of opportunity, a feeling of safety, and the chance to reach our full potential and fulfill our dreams.
I ask that you and the President give my mom the life I always wanted for her–the life she came here seeking. You’ve heard the message again and again, that immigrant parents come to the U.S. to give their kids a better life. But what I know and what you as mother also know is that parents have dreams of their own.
Our parents dream is the feeling of safety and security. Like many undocumented youth, I grew up being told to be afraid of deportation; to always be fearful. I grew up sitting in the backseat of a car seeing our mom praying every time a cop drove behind us. Although I now drive freely, I still see the fear in my mother’s eyes.
Our parents have dreams of their own, and while our mom leaves every morning to clean other people’s houses with a smile on her face, I know she has other dreams for herself. At the very least, she deserves a job where she is not exploited, and I know that she still dreams of pursuing a career as a physical education instructor, which she studied for in Brazil.
I know that in the coming weeks your husband will be decide who will be included and who will be left out of an administrative relief proposal that protects families from being separated. As tough choices are made, often for practical reasons, and most likely for political reasons; I urge you and the President to think of our mom and, the mothers across the country just like her. Think of mothers who like you, dream for the best for their daughters, but also have dreams of their own; of moms who shouldn’t live in perpetual fear of being deported, and instead be allowed a life of freedom and dignity.
Sincerely,
Carolina and Camila Bortolleto
