I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest declaration for DREAMer in the history of our struggle.
Two scores and six years ago, a great American, whose legacy still stands today, made the “I have a Dream” speech. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to the millions of African-Americans that were imprisoned in their own country, It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their segregation. And now, I use his beautifully crafted speech to present our own struggle, our own DREAM.
Today I write this not because I compare our struggle’s magnitude with the civil rights struggle’s magnitude, but because the similarities between the dreams behind the causes. Still today, the lives of minorities are still sadly crippled by the manacles of oppression and the chains of injustice. Still to this day, immigrants are living on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. Still to this day, fairness has not spread across the nation despite other civil right’s efforts. So I write this today to dramatize a shameful condition.
When America decided to be a world power, when it decided to not enforce immigration laws, when it decided it needed a cheap labor source, America told our parents about a dream and handed them a check. In a sense it would be fitting if we went to the nation’s capital to cash a check that was given to our parents, a check of false hope, a check that has battered our generation. Our parents fell for the trap, and now we are stuck with their check.
America has deceived its people, its immigrants, and the world. The check for the American dream was a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity in this nation. America has indirectly recruited us, the adopted sons and daughters, to her vast lands of promise. She has raised us like her own, but she has not let us overcome our parent’s mistakes. America has refused to take action. America has refused to let us, the adopted children, grow up and give back. So I am here today to cash this check—a check that will give us upon demand the riches of equality, hope and the security of justice. This is no time to engage in the luxury of complacency or to take the tranquilizing drug of apathy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of injustice and suppression to the sunlit path of the Dream. Now is the time to change the way we live.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. Harsh economic times, rising unrest among our people, unstable foreign policy, and the promises of change call for immediate action. 2010 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that DREAMies needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening the nation returns to business as usual. We can’t rest or be tranquil until the DREAM can be achieved.
But there is something that I must say to other DREAMERS. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us stay away from the deviant activities that have giving us a bad reputation.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our DREAM to degenerate into something we think we are entitled to. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of surpassing any limitation that might be forced upon us. We have to show our worth, not the evil that plagues some of our mis-representors.
For any DREAM to be achieved, we must always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There will be people who ask, “When will you be satisfied?” But we can never be satisfied as long as we are not able to DREAM. We can never be satisfied, as long as our potential is being wasted all across the nation. We cannot be satisfied as long as we, the adopted children, are not welcome into the royal home. We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that our DREAMers have come from atypical, tough backgrounds. Some of us have come from war-torn countries. Some of us have come from begging on the streets. Some of us have come from corruption-filled countries. But ALL of us have come here because of a DREAM.
Let it be known, we were forced to bite the idea of this dream. We never asked to want this dream. We never asked to come to this country as young kids. We never asked to be entitled to anything. But we do ask that our adopted mother take us in just like she took in her rightful sons and daughters.
DREAMers. I urge you to pursue your dreams, and I urge you to knock on every door of possibility. And if God forbid we don’t get our dream, go back to Mexico, go back to Peru, go back to Argentina, go back to Korea, go back to Britain, go back to Congo, go back to show that this situation needs change. Let us show our adopted mother that she needs us. Let us show her that change is boiling and she needs to check the kitchen. If we must dream elsewhere, let us not wallow in the valley of despair, rather let us use our potential and drive to improve the places where we came from, just like we would have improved our adopted mother, the only mother we know and love.
I say to you today, my fellow DREAMERS, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a DREAM. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live up to the notion it has created for us: the American Dream.
I have a dream that one day our adopted mother will take us in to join our sisters and brothers at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day we will have something to DREAM about.
I have a dream that one day all of our hard work and perseverance will pay off.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream today.
This is our hope. The DREAM act is the faith that I go to bed with. With this faith we will be able to come out of the shadows that our labels have created. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of hope. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for our DREAM. Knowing that the DREAM will come true someday.
We stand in the midst of terrifying uncertainty, but I have a DREAM, and so do you.