My American dream
The city, that never sleeps. A phrase often used about this city. When I first heard about New York I didn’t really understand what people meant when they used this phrase but after a couple of years living here I believe I have finally got the point. In some ways I think I even get the point better than most people around here. Sure there’s a lot of New York citizens who has been living here their whole lives and not just for the past four years as I have. They probably have a greater felling of being a part of the city than I have but on the other hand they don’t know how it is to live outside of New York. Before I came to America I lived in a small village, which was located somewhere out in the Mexican desert. First of all the weather in the desert was very warm and dry. When the temperature reached its maximum the city could almost be classified as dead. All the stores were closed, no people on the street and then the silence. No noise or sound at all. It could be like this for hours. And when people in town finally came back to life again they didn’t seem nearly as alive and fresh as the citizens of New York. The gang wars, which had been going on in my country for decades, eventually also influenced my village even though we lived very isolated out there in the desert. We weren’t exposed to a lot of war and killings but you could still see the negative consequences the war had on people. The atmosphere and mood in the village had become different from before and didn’t posses the same amount of happiness and joy. The quality of life just wasn’t as good as I used to be. Life wasn’t about living anymore instead it was about surviving. I couldn’t stand that and therefore decided to leave but I didn’t just want to leave my village. I knew all to well how the entire country had been affected by the war so the only option I had left was to leave Mexico. It was not an easy decision to make especially because I knew my family wouldn’t accept my decision easily. Especially my farther would have a hart time dealing with this. He would probably also get angry and tell me how stupid it all sounded by listing all the things that could go wrong. My prediction was pretty accurate compared to reality. Me farther didn’t take it very well and we therefore had a long discussion, which became pretty ugly. Although it was rough I knew he only reacted like that because he loved me and feared that he would never see me again. He wasn’t able to cope completely with the situation but even so he still felt some kind of responsibility when it came to my safety. He went through every detail concerning my departure making sure nothing would go wrong. The reason why he was so concerned was that I would be going as an illegal immigrant. The American government has no interests in Mexican immigrants, which can become a burden to the American society. So unless you have a good education and be able to look out for yourself they wont accept your application for a U.S. citizenship. They wouldn’t accept my application because of my educational level and economical situation. But staying in Mexico just wasn’t an option so my family and I took contact to a human smuggling group, which could make the departure possible. You may expect me to tell a story about how dangerous and action-packed the journey towards a better life I the states was but doing so would just be lying to you all. Off course some people do experience a lot of complications during attempts at crossing the border and some people even die trying to flee Mexico. In my case though I had a safe travel with no unexpected problems and the only thing that went wrong was that I got my boots wet after crossing the Rio Grande but that was it. No border police or anything and as you probably have figured out already no police or any other kind of law enforcement ever came for me. New York has become my new home and I love it. The city has everything that my old home had lost. People often talk about something called the American dream and I believe that I’m living the American dream. I’m not a boss in some giant company, I don’t earn millions of dollars every year and I don’t eat on fancy restaurants with the rest of the upper class in New York every night. As I mentioned earlier on I have a standard education so I didn’t ever strive towards a job where a university education was required. Money is important to live but I believe there’s more to life than receiving a big pay check every month. I work as a high school teacher and I love it. It provides my everyday life with everything I need. The job is challenging in many different ways, you get to now a lot of different young people, who have different backgrounds and different goals in life. My job is to teach and help these young people so that they can achieve their dreams. Its very satisfying to know that your work actually has an impact on other peoples lives. When you come from a place where you cant make a difference even though you want to but are constantly under the influence of other peoples decisions, which in my case was the bad influence of the war lords and gang leaders, a job as a teacher just becomes so much more fantastic than it may sound to people who doesn’t have the same background as I have. Teaching may not be the classical American dream but that’s okay cause I’m not a classical American citizen. My dream should probably be called the Mexican dream because I will bet anything that I’m not the only Mexican who have felt lost and helpless during the gang wars. It’s very unlikely that no one else has wanted to change his or her situation into something better.