DACAmented Journey

“Stepping off that plane was the first time I felt like an immigrant” (WET). This quote refers to the point in the play where Alex steps off the plane in Guatemala for the first time. Alex has lived in the United States his entire life, in his own words, “this is not home”. This play taught me how so many people only have one piece of the story they take to be the truth and don’t realize there is more than one side to the story. It also taught me about all the little intricacies and complications within the immigration process.

During the play, I recalled the Hartman piece where she states, [they] had returned to Africa but they possessed no kin, clan or village home” (Middle Passage). While Alex did have family there and fortunate enough to meet them so many others don’t. Thinking over the amount of times I heard and still hear people saying, “go back to where you came from” or “you don’t belong here”. America is their home, however we are deporting people left and right to places they have never lived a day in their life. When society is calling for immigrants to be removed from their communities, they don’t realize what this truly means. Imagine being put on a plane and left in a country you don’t know, you have never lived there a day in your life; you may not even speak the language, but you are expected to make a home there. Being from or being born somewhere does necessarily make it your home.

Another part in the play to me was simply everything Alex was forced to go through. Here is somebody that has worked to become a “legal” citizen for years and still has not received a piece of paper that would change his life. When the public is telling people become a “legal” citizen then your life will be so much easier, but most of them have no idea what that process looks like. Alex, filled out paperwork, wrote letters and went back to Guatemala and to this day has still not received that little piece of paper that holds so much weight. Before jumping to conclusions, the public needs to get the full story and educate themselves on the truth.

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