My people are murdered in the streets by men in uniform sworn to protect us. We are threatened with walls that you want to exploit our labor to build.
You clench your entitled hands around black and brown hopes and dreams and seek to bury us with your backhanded politics.
But how easily you forget.
My people are resilient. We are seeds.
We are the roses that grow through the concrete… The nopales that grow in the driest desert heat and provide sustenance for hungry mouths.
This land is soaked in the blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors.
And still, we thrive.
You... you should be ashamed.
My grandmother told me stories about men like you. Wearing ICE jackets, face scrunched up with hate, spittle flying from your spiteful mouth as she moved from home to home 10 times in one month to protect her livelihood.
Yes, my grandmother told me stories about men like you. Angry, ignorant men getting involved in dreams that don’t belong to you. Claiming we take your jobs even as we create them.
Did you think that we would lay down like dogs and take your abuse?
How easily you forget.
We are resilient. We are warriors.
Our dreams were crafted by the work-worn hands of our mothers and fathers. They are nurtured with love that has crossed borders that crossed us first.
Struggle like ours only makes us stronger. Don’t you know how muscles are formed?
We will come back stronger every time.
But how easily you forget.....
This country is built on the backbones of dreamers.
So I stand with the Dreamers. I stand with the immigrants, like my father. I stand with the exploited and the stereotyped.
But I will never stand with you.
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To get involved in supporting 'Dreamers' in the wake of Trump's DACA decision check out some of these links:
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Monica is a Realtor® + Wealth Revolutionary who is passionate about making Real Estate investing more accessible for communities of color. She writes & speaks on the intersections of la cultura, wealth-building and real estate and has been featured on a variety of media platforms including KTLA, Real Estate Game Changers Radio, Realtor.com and She’s Trending. As a strong believer that “sometimes saving money and planting roots is an act of revolution”, she is especially invested in empowering women to create multi-generational wealth by investing in themselves and in real estate. She is also author of The Chingona Manifesto™ and an investor in several tech and service based start-ups focused on serving Latinx audiences.
Connect with her at MonicaRivera.com or Instagram: @MonicaBMH