Nick L.

Harvard College, Class of 2010
Human Evolutionary Biology
California

My mother and I made the perilous cross into the United States in June of 1993 when I was five years old. I became a Harvard graduate in May of 2010 when I was twenty-two years old.

Shortly after my parents made the decision that we should join my father in the United States, we made the journey to “el Norte”. While most children grow up fearing the dark, monsters in the closet, or the boogieman, I grew up fearing a monster called “La Migra”: it could destroy homes, separate families, and leave little children without parents. The nuances of our illegal situation escaped me but I understood that we were supposed to be watchful. We were never to trust anybody with our secret. We were to fit in and avoid suspicion. My parents tried to tread lightly because they were on someone else’s land; unknowingly, they had made it mine.

I learned the language and joined the ranks of “gifted and talented” children in fourth grade and became a skilled translator. By day I was learning to read and write, in the afternoon I went to order a new carburetor at our local auto body parts store for my father’s truck. I used to go outside and hide when I heard cars approaching, pretending that they were coming to get me. I will always wonder if it was a normal childhood game or if I was honing my escaping abilities for a potential encounter with my monster.

This country pretended to treat me as one of its own until my senior year of high school when, suddenly, I did not qualify for the vast majority of scholarships or opportunities that other students did, when I had to pretend that I was too studious to go through Driver’s Ed and get my permit, when I applied to nearly thirty schools and began researching the local community college despite being at the top of my class. My peers believed I was arrogant and wished to accumulate a book of acceptance letters and they resented me, but I could not tell them my secret. I could not risk unleashing the monster upon my family and self.

I only applied to one scholarship, the only one that did not shun me away for lacking the nine digits I coveted so much; the committee acknowledged me with a $50,000 scholarship. I existed. I showed promise. I would be someone.

Fifteen years later, after my mother had become a U.S. Citizen, I became a U.S. Permanent Resident in January of 2009. I have been given a green card and a nine-digit number. I am finally safe from the monster. Unfortunately the monster continues to terrorize thousands of lives; it continues to truncate thousands of dreams, and it deprives us of skilled individuals with untapped potential.

Just as the scholarship committee and Harvard’s admission committee did, legislators need to come together to acknowledge undocumented students’ potential and the immense contribution they are eager to make to this country; we have to pass the DREAM Act now.