"Si se puede!" sounded from crowds across the nation demanding fair immigration reform this past week. With numbers reaching 20,000 on Friday, Phoenix experienced the largest protest in the city's history. If passed, U.S. House Bill HR4437 will turn millions of undocumented immigrants into felons, abruptly ending any chance they had of becoming citizens, as well as criminalizing family members, clergy or anyone else who feeds, cares for, or otherwise assists them.
As I watched the crowds swell in Los Angeles and Phoenix, I recalled the sacrifices of my Mexican grandparents to give me an American life.
Times were different when my grandparents emigrated in the 1950s. America was thankful for their willingness to leave family, home and country to help build a stronger America. Back then immigrants were encouraged through workers' permits to join the American dream.
By becoming Americans, my grandparents forfeited their own future for that of their children. They couldn't speak the language and had little education, but as California farm workers, they found employment.
Like many children of immigrants, we have worked to repay our family debt and honor our American birth. My father served his country during the Vietnam era and became a university professor.
But in the years since my grandparents' arrival, America's promise of a dream fulfilled through hard work has been broken and abandoned. Like my grandparents, new immigrants contribute to our nation's economy by working in the unskilled labor force we depend upon. They own houses and pay taxes. Their children are born Americans. But unlike my grandparents, our current immigration regulations will likely never allow them the chance for citizenship.
Even so, millions of immigrants willingly cross our border to fill an ongoing need for agriculture and service workers and to fulfill a responsibility to provide for their children. But the lack of a guest-worker and earned legalization program has resulted in their living in the shadows of an undocumented status.
This past week, demonstrators asked our nation to draft immigration reform that considers the best moral and fiscal interests of our country. They asked whether Americans can afford the inflation that will result from raising the wages of 12 million low-paying jobs so current citizens could accept these positions. And how will we foot the bill for jailing immigrants or legally representing those who may have been wrongly detained? Are we prepared to pay for returning millions of people to their home country? What will happen to the American-born children of the undocumented?
The reality is immigrants keep businesses thriving and consumer prices low. And immigration reform that includes border security to keep out those who would commit crimes is as important to law-abiding undocumented immigrants as it is to citizens.
"Si se puede!" has become a test of our country's will to allow people like my grandparents to legally overcome their undocumented status. Bad laws can be fixed. We need lawmakers for immigration reform who honor those who are willing to work to become part of an American family.
Dianna is a graduate journalism student. Reach her at Diana.nanez@asu.edu.
