By Juan Caminero
When I was eight years old, we moved next door to a Mexican-American family. The parents had emigrated from Mexico years ago and had worked hard to be able to raise their three American-born little boys in a quiet neighborhood on the outer rim of Cleveland. Over the course of the next decade and a half, these children became my closest family friends. Although I was raised by a Puerto Rican family, I was marveled by their culture- the community soccer games, their mother’s beef tacos, everything from the cowboy boots to the traditional love songs they would play while spring cleaning. Perhaps what intrigued me most however, were the relationships they shared with other immigrant families who they were not related to by blood but with whom they shared similar interests, specifically establishing a future for their children.
Throughout my friendship with these boys, I also made friends with their friends, who were typically first-generation American teens with immigrant parents as well. I met teens from Honduras, Palestine, Guatemala, and India. I met a pair of Vietnamese kids who I saw living in a small decaying apartment complex until their mother single handedly managed to buy a beautiful house larger than the one owned by my two-income family. I started to notice a trend among the immigrant parents of my friends; a uniquely passionate work-ethic. This immigrant work-ethic transcended among these families no matter what their country of origin was and no matter what traditions or religions they adhered to. Along with this shared work-ethic, I saw that these immigrant parents had another thing common. They were all sending their children the same message, providing strict guidelines and encouragement to get a degree or be something more than a factory worker or tool hand. They were telling them to move forward and prosper because there is opportunity before you and struggle behind you.
The American Dream has always been about “advancement”. It echoes the idea that success in our capitalist society is achieved through moving up a social class, doing better than your parents did, or achieving new milestones in history. There isn’t a place this dream is more alive than inside the mind of an immigrant. An immigrant comes to the United States knowing there is a chance to build something better than what is behind them. If we push ourselves to envision America the way an immigrant does we would look around and find ourselves in a sandbox with the opportunity to change the landscape.
It’s possible that if more people thought like immigrants, then this country which was built by immigrants, could continue to inspire both newcomers and American-born to build upon this land as they have in the past. Thus to think like an immigrant is to revive familiar ideals, ones that drew millions to the United States in order to achieve greatness, benefiting themselves and the economy. I witnessed the progression of immigrant families first hand. Of the three Mexican-American boys I mentioned, two are in school and one is a U.S. Marine making his family and country proud. As inspiring as this story might seem to me, I know it is not unique and that across this country, there are immigrants working to make the American dream a reality for themselves and their children.
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