Lean on you

So far this year i Have met a wonderful group of young people who are faced with the same situation as I. Gladys, Prerna, Ju, Seung, Ana, Miguel, Mark, Alejandra, Beliza, Fermin, Perla.

It's so enriching to find with in this diverse group of people, a sense of community, and responsibility towards one another. We all come from different paths in life, different ages and different places. Yet our lives have converged on a single point, in a specific moment in time due to our lack of a formal existence.

The understanding of the specifics that make up our experience helps to form a special bond, where, even if there isn't 100% consensus on what we all like, or our views, we still can understand and offer support to each other.

I've said many times, one of the best things to come from my minimal involvement in the DREAM Act movement, is the ability to meet and spend time with fellow DREAMers.

Today I look forward to going to Stanford to meed up with Fermin, and spending time in San Francisco, just being two American Youths.

September 11

It had been sunny the day before. That morning i woke to rain. weird. "Gabriel, there is something happening..." my mother called from the living room. I begrudgingly got up, and walked over to the television. What i saw next was surreal, and it changed the nation and the immigration discourse for ever.

I called Tony. yo you watchin this? "yeah....i think Nicole was one of the planes..." what? no man dont worry all the planes are grounded, it will be fine.

Glued to the television, scared for what was happening. refusing to register fully. this is a dream, a bad one. wake up.

Phone. What time is it? "hey... Nicole's plane crashed in PA..." what... " yeah, she was flying out of boston..."

Undocumented or not. 9-11 touched me. Nicole, Tony's step sister, had sat in front of me during algebra 3-4. I let her copy from my notes. I said hi when i spent the night at Tony's. A year older, she was a senior.

In a moment of fear, hatred, and heroism her life was taken from us.

Economies of Scale

My supervisor taunted me with a raise back in late may. 8.5 to 9.5 that's an extra 200 dollars a month, which would help.

All this week he told me, dont worry, it will be reflected in this check. I opened the check. Pay Rate. 8.50. This is what it adds up to: 1061 per month.

460- rent
20 -utilities
120 -gas
45- phone
80-credit card
45- car insurance
75-food
100-random (car light bulb, toiletries ect)

comes up to : $945.
Leaving about $116.

My Debt: $3500 (school, overdraft, ect)


As a side note- Total i Leech from society:
Hospital costs: 0
Student loans, fed aid ect. :0

Do the math alipac.

Legalize LA- more companies should follow suit

Just ran into this, over at American Apparel , the company came up while me and my father were having dinner, i was unaware of their stand on immigration reform. One quick google search and here we are. It even seems they can see the pragmatism behind such legislation such as DREAM act.

Recently due to an ICE probe American Apparel had to layoff thousands of its employees. Here's what founder and Chief Executive Dov Charney wrote in a letter to the laid off employees:

"Many of you have been with me for so many years, and I just cry when I think that so many people will be leaving the company," he wrote. "It is my belief that immigrants bring prosperity to any economy." - LA times

The following is a small snippet of the Legalize LA section of the American Apparel site.

Legalize Today! A note from a friend

07/16/2009 Strong Voices

"I Dream American's Dream, My name is M, I grew up in beautiful Venice, California. Welcome to the neighborhood! Back in 1988 I was brought to the United States from Mexico. I was 4 then and I'm now 25. I am "an illegal" but legally I'm just undocumented. I am American as apple pie. I've earned a B.A. in Sociology from The Humboldt State University where I also played American Football. Despite my qualifications and preparation to become a productive member of society, I cannot legally work. This land is home to me for the same reason it is home to opportunity. The reason I'm writing you today is because I would love to work with the Legalize LA campaign. I am a valuable asset to the campaign. I can give speeches, work on different ways of advertising and marketing the cause. I have numerous ideas on ways to get the truth about my situation out to the whole country. I will need your help. Your company is classy, your product is clean, and you're respected. The people of the United States must understand my people to be the same. Together we can reform immigration in our country.

Sincerely,
M

It is very encouraging to see such progressive thinking on the part of a company, which continues to push for humane immigration reform.

Un poco de vida (a little bit of life)

Things have been gradually changing in my life. I started School on tuesday. Taking a computer networking Class, which prepares one to be certified by Cisco Systems (CCNA). Pretty regular nerd stuff, IP addresses, routers, binary code ect. Its nice to be back in the class room. feels like im working towards something again. Rather than aimlessly navigating.

Also been almost 2 months since i moved into the apartment. So far its great. cooking with Kyle, sleeping in my bed (not a couch). having some privacy. Granted, it still gets lonely sometimes. there are days where it's hard to wake up and get out of bed. But it's getting better.

Getting somewhat more involved with DREAM actions. Going to be handling some conference calls for a while, and managing data for DreamActivist.org . Starting to plan another action. I feel good about actually getting more involved this year than before.

Met our neighbors. Most are college students. one Guy Yao is like the apartment guru, he always knows whats going on and says "hello". Kinda nice to have around. Our next door neighbors are three sorority girls. Which might not be so great, having parties every thurs~sat, but they seem nice enough. On Monday they invited me to a party, with their sorority and their brother Fraternity.

I figured, it's first friday's (art show) ill do that, then swing by. I never had a full college experience, so i think ill go to my first frat party as a 27 year old college grad. I hope i can still hang haha.

It's nice though. To slowly thaw out of my self imposed hermitage.

Morning on the city freeway

Worst Person of the week?

This douche bag:

Carl Braun, over at the San Diego Examiner. Reason he is a douche bag and WPOTW? because of his pushing of misinformation on his article (although towards the end there is a twist?):

Since when does Immigration Reform mean Open Borders and Amnesty?

They emigrated here about 100 years ago, legally through Ellis Island and staked their claim to the American Dream. They went through incredible hardships to get here and continued to work hard to become Americans

"legally" which meant at the time, being disease free and signing an X after arriving on Ellis Island. Nice Mr Braun. We should revert to THAT immigration process then, where do i put my X sir?

As for hardships? I and my peers have had none. And i barely speak English so it seems i'm not working hard enough to become American.

Illegal Immigrants come here because they simply want to and they cannot or will not do it the LEGAL way. It really is very simple. Millions get in line to do it properly every year. Illegal immigrants have NO RIGHT to be here. Granted, the system is messed up (thanks again Teddy) but violating it is really no different than saying you don’t like the price of the food in the grocery store so you’re just going to walk out the door with the product without paying for it.

Well, at least he acknowledges the system is messed up. Now if he could only get his brain to figure out that there is No line to get in. Baby steps i suppose.

While we are at it, fix the system, deport those that are criminals and give everyone else that are not supposed to be here a choice, leave or prove WHY you should stay? What are you contributing to our society? Did you commit any other crimes in America, other than crossing the border illegally? If not, let’s take a closer look but no guarantees.

No, it is not possible in my opinion to deport all twenty million plus illegal aliens nor should we. Many have been here for decades, made a solid contribution to our country and are otherwise law-abiding residents. If the tables were turned and Mexico gave Americans a green light to come aboard for all the benefits and opportunity you can bet your bottom dollar some Americans would have done it even though it may have been illegal. Doesn’t make it right but it would have happened nonetheless. We should however deport every criminal we get our hands on and properly secure the border so they cannot get back in. This is critical.

Interesting...this sounds kinda like something called...Comprehensive Immigration wait for it... REFORM.


Oy VEY