Maribel Martinez
Tamera Davis
Online Composition II
11 November 2021
Citizenship
How important is it to be a United States Citizen? Could it be as easy as learning how to ride
our first bike? Being born in the United States automatically makes us United States citizens but
the ones that were born outside of the country could make it extremely difficult. My parents are a
prime example of undocumented illegal immigrants. Those three words have a huge impact on
today’s society. Due to Donald Trump’s election, many people have turned to agree on racism
against Mexicans. We as a Mexican community, are not here to cause violence or take the jobs
of Americans. Families are just wanting a better life for their children.
As an American Citizen, I have a personal responsibility to help those that are trying to
become United States citizens. I have the privilege to own up and protect my country at all costs.
I am responsible to fulfill my job as a citizen to obey the law. pay taxes, and serve jury duty. I
also have the opportunity to vote, travel with a U.S. passport, obtain jobs, elect officials, and
most importantly show my patriotism. My goal is to help families obtain their U.S. citizenship,
so they can have the opportunity to receive a better life for themselves and their families.
My parents were born in a small town in Mexico, where they would work for their food
according to each day. They crossed the border to give my siblings and I a better life to succeed.
My parents crossed the border with the help of a coyote. Not an actual coyote. Coyotes are
people who help cross illegal immigrants across the border, following with a small fee that is
paid upfront. These people helped my parents cross the border and into the states of California.
This is where my parents busted their backs in the farms to help provide for their new life. They
didn’t get the opportunity to go to school or have a high-paying stable job, but they did make
sure to give us that opportunity to do so. This is why I feel like I owe them the world.
I am here today, to try and help my parents become United States Citizens. They were
recently granted the opportunity in becoming permanent residents but the goal is in a couple of
years to give them citizenship. This is a long a thoughtful process that takes time to fully
complete. The problem isn’t just the long process, it is also extremely pricey to financially
provide the money needed to complete the application. This is the main reason why many people
cross the U.S. border because they need a stable job to help pay for their documentation.
Mexican’s aren’t here to steal jobs from the American people. They are just naturally hard-
working people that are desperate to help their families out of poverty.
Overall, I believe my parents did a good job raising us to where we are all succeeding in
life. We all continued our education by going to college to complete our careers. In our family,
we have a cosmetologist, a radiologist in mammography, and two soon-to-be Registered Nurses.
We can tell that my parents are extremely proud of how far they came to see how far we’ve
reached.
