One specific point that I wish to address in this blog is when the author talked on page 41 about a woman named Dora. Dora left high school when she became pregnant, and while she wishes to pursue more in life, she still feels lost.
My immediate thought was how much this truly reflects the latinx/hispanic culture in my life. I’m Mexican and Puerto Rican and many times, I have personally experienced women having to leave their own goals and aspirations behind due to becoming pregnant. While this can be prevalent in any culture and something many women all over the world do, I think it’s a little different for latinx/hispanic women because they belong to a culture that enforces this idea that women should almost be a servant to a man. A woman is expected to cook for, clean for, and essentially serve the man of her household (whether it be a partner or family member) because he is seen as the provider. Men typically don’t help with the childcare because of work, especially in undocumented families, because of how hard it is to get hired when undocumented. This is not blaming the culture for these circumstances, it is simply something that I’m surrounded by and this reading made me think of it. I think it’s especially hard for young undocumented women once they get pregnant on accident. With no access to many privileges the US keeps from undocumented immigrants, difficulty to find a well paying job that would allow her to properly provide for her family, and a desire to pursue higher education, Dora’s life is full of hardships that many would allow to discourage themselves, so it is admirable that she doesn’t settle for what she has.
Beyond that, this point also made me think of how hard it is to be an undocumented immigrant and feel lost. I think oftentimes, people think of illegal immigrants pursuing higher education aren’t allowed to feel lost. For example, people are oftentimes only fine with the DACA students because they earn their way through hard work into good colleges. But if they were to face hardships, that if experienced by a citizen would be seen as youthful mistakes and struggles, they are seen as lazy and not driven. People begin to think they are only using the DACA program to get ahead with no effort. And that is such a double standard. It shows that people don’t see immigrants as human beings, and simply things occupying space or going through motions. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone should be allowed to voice their struggles, documented or not.
An article this made me recall is one about a woman discussing how people believe there is a “right kind of immigrant” (https://englishbitchrature.wordpress.com/2017/07/10/on-being-the-right-kind-of-immigrant-in-america-2017/). This kind of thinking stems from white privilege and puts people with eurocentric beauty features (pale skin, blonde hair, blue eyes) above other immigrants. They are less likely to have hate crimes performed against them or to have people enraged over their presence in their country, despite being the same as any other immigrant who faces discrimination. I thought of this because as i said, I think people want immigrants to behave only in one particular way and if they don’t, then they are seen in a negative light, even if people don’t hold those standards to actual citizens of the country.
A question I have is whether the high school dropout rate for girls is higher than it is for guys?
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