Angie Cruz’s essay “What we Deserve” caught my attention from the begging. The format Cruz decided to use to organize the story of her mother caught the readers attention due to it’s chronological template. The story begins with a photograph that has a story behind it that you can’t see, the picture of her mom and the rest of her family is only the tip of the iceberg. The central issues of the text is to raise the awareness of the audience of how much women suffer and suffered due to an unjust law system through her mother’s story. In the photograph it shows how a very young girl the age of 11 is just staring at the camera, but Cruz informs the reader that the young girl in the photograph is about to be sent away by her family to be married to man that promised a better life. Her mom’s personal life was out of her control due to how unfair the government was to women at the time and because of the desperation of getting out of property was far more important then a girl’s life. Cruz does a great job in describing the political issues when her mother was growing up, but also does a great job comparing the political issues immigrants face in today’s age as well. Cruz compares her mom’s situation to Magdalena’s where her father was taken away by ICE in Mississippi leaving her begging for someone’s help knowing her father did nothing wrong. According to the essay is states “News microphone is recording her, most likely without parental consent. She says to the world about her father, “He’s not a criminal.” When I look at the video of Magdalena, I see a child who needs her parents.”. These are the issues we see today, parents willing to sacrifice everything to seek better opportunities for their family in a foreign country but end up being separated and unable to do anything about it. This text really made me think of how privileged I am, not having to worry about being separated from my hard working family or not having a decision on my future. But also reminds me why my parents came to this nation although they knew they had to start over and were going to be mistreated at times, it makes me extremely grateful, because of them I have the opportunities many don’t have.
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Thanks for these reflections. How does the story Cruz tells about her mother’s experience connect (either explicitly or implicitly) to the issue of immigrant children being separated from their parents at the border?
The story Cruz tells about her mother’s experience connects to the innocent children separated from their parents at the border, because the children are being stripped from their freedom due to unfair laws and poverty. Cruz’s mother was stripped away from hew childhood due to the desperation caused by poverty which is the same these children face.