
Chasing the Dollar
When our family members decide to leave everything they have ever known behind and come to a country that is new is the scariest and sometimes the best decision. To make that decision it takes guts. Majority of the time you don’t know the language, culture, town, food or people. Taking that leap of hope to create a new better life. Coming here chasing the American dream.
Everyone talks about how wonderful the USA is and how there are so many more opportunities. What a lot of people fail to mention is the struggles that come with the change. What do you really give up when moving here? We are not going to pretend that the American dollar is not worth the move. The wages in our home town are nothing compared to what we can make here. That is what the majority of us chase. But our culture, values and over all selfs gets lost in the process.
The lives we live here in the states to me are very stressful. We work 40-60 hr work weeks. Our kids are slammed with school and extracurricular activities. Inflation continues to increase. It is apparent that we are just going with the flow instead of living. By the time the weekend comes all we wanna do is catch up on sleep and relax. With that our family time gets cut.The long process of going through immigration to get greencards to be able to go back and visit family reduces the chances of future generations from even knowing their extended family.
Adapting to the way we live life here in the states also demands that we change the values we have been taught from our home countries. We start becoming more “American.” One of the first things that goes is our language. Our parents try to teach us and speak to us in Spanish but the education system demands for us to speak, write and read English fluently. Religion is another thing that I feel kids growing up in the states lose too. Now don’t get it twisted. I love our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. And most of us do too but the way religion is in our home towns look very different then what it looks like here.
Everything looks different in our hometown than how it looks here. Because of that, kids that grow up in the states raised from immigrant parents always feel lost. Chasing the dollar leads to years of emotional damage that many times money can’t fix. We would love to believe that making the decision to cross the river will bring us everything we dream of but is chasing the dollar worth losing our culture? Ourselves? And many times our family because most of us can never go back.
Facebook has made it a little easier for us to have contact with our families back home but it also created emotional damage. Watching the photos of our families having a good time and creating memories that you don’t get to attend is heartbreaking. Chasing the dollar is more than just coming to the states and getting a job, and I really don’t think people realize the sacrifice one makes.
To my family Thank you, And I miss you!


One Comment
שירותי ליווי באילת
A fascinating discussion is definitely worth comment. I do believe that you should publish more about this issue, it may not be a taboo matter but usually folks dont speak about such subjects. To the next! Cheers!!