Waking from the American Dream
A Young Man Tells His Story of Getting Deported
By Dale Cuevas

I would like to personally thank all my friends and the Bay Area that have been with my family through this very rough time in our lives. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Dale Cuevas and I graduated from Moreau Catholic High School in Hayward. I am currently attending San Jose State University pursuing a degree in Business Marketing. My family came from the Philippines when I was four years old. Now, Homeland Security wants me and my family to go back.

Last December after my final exams at De Anza College, my mother stunned me with the truth about our family's immigration status, that we had just received deportation orders. I just woke up one day, and was told that I had to leave my childhood, leave all my memories. What was I going to tell my employer? More importantly, what was I going to tell my friends? My family has been in this country for 19 years and has built a life here. We own property, we work hard, and we deserve to stay.

Despite years of being told it was only a matter of time before we got green cards, it was in fact, hopeless. My parents Delfin and Angelita brought my older sister (Donna), and my younger sister (Dominique) and I to Fremont in October of 1985. It turned out my parents brought us here under a tourist visas. In 1996 my father sought to legalize the immigration status of our family. In doing so our case has been dragged for seven years all the way to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Ninth Circuit Court denied our case for citizenship in December 10, 2003.

Ever since we got the first letter, we knew the deportation of family was connected to the increasing homeland security measures after 9/11. Having recently visited ground zero, I understand the real threats our country faces, and we, as the people, must try everything in our best effort to ensure that another 9/11 never happens again. The problem is my family is not hiding weapons of mass destruction in our backyard. My family, and people who share our situation, are far different from the people we fear.

We have built a life here in America not just over the course of a few years but most of my life. We do all the things that kids in the Bay Area do who are working their way through college. I live at home with my parents. My older sister Donna, 24, graduated from California State University-Hayward, and Dominique, 20, is a nursing student at San Jose State. My parents have brought us here to provide a life for us that they were not able to experience in the Philippines. Its not a crime that my parents overstayed our tourist visas because its not a crime to desire a better life filled with opportunity for your children!

My goal is to earn a degree in business marketing and pursue a career, which would enable me to support a family and give them all the opportunities my parents have given me.

The outcome of this situation is that my family and I must leave June 30, 2004. We will be strong and pack our bags and look optimistically forward to our new life at a place that I know nothing about in the Southern Phillipines. I know our family will be strong, because we will be together.

Everyone needs to know that America has built institutions for the purpose of protecting the people of the United States. These institutions built by the government are not protecting my family from pain, hardship, despair, and unnecessary punishment. My family has done nothing but attempt to legalize our immigration status. We are being punished and being forced to go to a land we don't know, just because we wanted to make our immigration status "legal."

What hurts me the most about departing this country is leaving all the close friends that I have grown so close to. I have learned that through the thick and thin there are many good people that will be there for you if you reach out. So if you are ever in trouble don't be afraid to reach out to your community because they will be there to support you. The main thing that I have learned through this experience is that even though you think that the fight is over it is really never over. There are still many battle to be won.

My family has embraced the American dream and is knee deep in it, and I believe we should be allowed to continue to live in this country. If anything, being deported has made me more American. I believe being part of this country is not in the paperwork, it's the way you act. It's the risk you take for others that makes you American. On paper I might not be an American citizen, in my heart and I feel that there is no other nation that I give my loyalty to but this country. Thank you.

With all my heart,
Dale Cuevas