It wasn't easy, but it was the lot of so many of us, and even in the house where I was growing up, my aunt and uncle were looking after my cousins whose mother was in Canada, and another cousin whose father was in the Dominican Republic. And our parents had made this choice so that we could have a better life. You know, they could have either stayed with us and struggled and tried to make a living, or they thought that they could carve out a future for us by going abroad and leaving us behind, and then later sending for us…

Over the past few years, I have seen the determination of immigrant fathers who worked two or three jobs without taking a dime from the government, and at risk any moment of losing it all, just to build a better life for their kids. I’ve seen the heartbreak and anxiety of children whose mothers might be taken away from them just because they didn’t have the right papers. I’ve seen the courage of students who, except for the circumstances of their birth, are as American as Malia or Sasha; students who bravely come out as undocumented in hopes they could make a difference in the country they love. These people –- our neighbors, our classmates, our friends –- they did not come here in search of a free ride or an easy life. They came to work, and study, and serve in our military, and above all, contribute to America’s success.

As an immigrant first-generation family here in this country, it wasn't about safe choices, it was about realistic choices. There was a lot of weight put into the fact that I was one of the first in my extended family to attend college [a bachelor's from Brooklyn College, a master's in fine arts from Cornell) and what that meant — what this country has to offer.

Other freshmen were already moving into their dormitory rooms when we arrived, with their parents helping haul. I saw boxes of paperbacks, stereo equipment, Dylan albums and varnished acoustic guitars, home-knitted afghans, none as brilliant as mine, Janis posters, Bowie posters, Day-Glo bedsheets, hacky sacks, stuffed bears. But as we carried my trunk up two flights of stairs terror invaded me. Although I was studying French because I dreamed of going to Paris, I actually dreaded leaving home, and in the end my parents did not want me to leave, either. But this is how children are sacrificed into their futures: I had to go, and here I was. We walked back down the stairs. I was too numb to cry, but I watched my mother and father as they stood beside the car and waved. That moment is a still image; I can call it up as if it were a photograph. My father, so thin and athletic, looked almost frail with shock, while my mother, whose beauty was still remarkable, and who was known on the reservation for her silence and reserve, had left off her characteristic gravity. Her face and my father's were naked with love. It wasn't something thatwe talked about — love. But they allowed me this one clear look at it. It blazed from them. And then they left.

My parents, in their 40s, moved to a different country, started a business, bought a house, didn't speak the language, raised two kids - it's kind of amazing.

But my parents decided to risk it, and they got in just under the wire, for in 1924 stricter immigration quotas were imposed and we would not have been allowed to enter. My father came to the United States in the hope of a better life for his children, and this he certainly achieved. He lived to see one son a successful writer, another son a successful journalist, and a daughter happily married. However, this was

Both my parents are immigrants. They came from nothing, had to work so hard, and so the idea for them, I suppose, of taking a risk, that wasn’t a luxury they had. I always knew that was the luxury and privilege that I had, that they had given me.

“I wanted to be in a place where I can start a new life, I needed to start a new life in a place where I’ve never experienced what I’ve experienced. At that time, it was for me to start a new life, through a journey of healing. Leaving Rwanda was easy for me because of the trauma experiences I have had. So I felt like I needed to be in a different place. It happened to be that I came to America because my cousin was here.

Most of the young people who leave home do so not because home is unbearable, but because they are seeking a greener pasture, often with the naïve conviction that "no matter how, it will be better out there". They are deaf to any advice that they see as blocking their destiny. What is necessary is to work hard to make our nation a better place for us, and for anyone who may wish to come and live with us.

Loving Haiti, you know, comes in the blood. And loving America, being grateful for what it's afforded my family, there are so many Americans now in my family. That's what also makes it sad to see what's happening now, in terms of how new immigrants are being scapegoated, to hear about children who could have been myself, dying at the border for lack of medical care…

My parents migrated to Canada in 1876, and I decided to go with them.

…It goes back to 1945; when my parents, right, they left paradise looking for paradise…During the adventure of Operation Bootstrap, a lot of people were brainwashed to believe that if they leave there you can have a better life over here.

When the pioneers and adventurers of our past left their homes in search of new lands, they said good-bye forever to the place of their birth and the companions of their youth. Only a lifetime ago, parents waved farewell to their emigrating children in the virtual certainty that they would never meet again. And now, within one incredible generation, all this has changed.

My parents both arrived in New York City after World War II, at different times but for the same reason the search for work. They left a country they loved, but where they could not make a living. About half a million Puerto Ricans made the same journey fleeing economic despair, the result of the US colonization of the island. Government officials blamed the people for the disastrous economic situation claiming that the problem was "overpopulation." They promoted the mass exodus of Puerto Ricans and implemented policies that sterilized thousands of poor and working women. The Young Lords are the sons and daughters of this Great Migration. As young people growing up in the United States, we witnessed how our parents were exploited, degraded, and humiliated. We felt their suffering, and we too had experiences with poverty and racism. All of this propelled us into action to fight for justice.