VivirLatino

One of the disturbing aspects of the DREAM Act to me has always been the military service as a path to legalization for the young and undocumented. The reason this disturbs me is complex. It has to do with my own history as a daughter of Puerto Ricans. My parents were born on an island that I (and the United Nations among others) consider a colony and occupied. My father was in the Air Force for some time before I was born. I have family who have served in the U.S. military and some who still do. I am anti-imperialist and am opposed of U.S. military interventions and invasions that line the pages of Latin American history and global history really. It’s not just history, it’s now. It’s the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and it’s my daily commute through the 74th Roosevelt Ave. subway station with military recruiters targeting the young and the Latino to become human frontline fodder for the military industrial complex.

Yesterday, Democracy Now had a report specifically about how the U.S. military targets Latinos. It really is worth watching, listening to, and reading (transcript after the cut). I think about two of my high school boyfriends, smart Latino young men, one who was politicized at the same time I was, and how both ended up U.S. Marines. I think of my own cousins, whom I love. I think about the way the “American Dream” is sold to us as Latinos and how that dream is defined for us, turning it into a stereotype nightmare.

I am not against the DREAM Act and I think that the report below glosses over the education aspect of the DREAM Act that so many of the DREAM Activists I know and love are behind. But I do think that as a movement we need to be honest with ourselves with some of inherent contradictions. I don’t think the DREAM Activists are stupid and haven’t considered this, as the filmmaker featured seems to imply. I think it’s complicated and something we need to wrestle with.

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