What do we see in the mirror? Today society, body image has become a problem that many women are impacted by. We tend to put norms of what is the ideal image that women and girls must have. Society argues that through the use of media, magazines, and each other, we put the pressure of having the perfect body image. Others argue we use these platforms to demonstrate positive body image. The implications of what society says can impact the way women and girls view themselves. Due to society pointing out women’s differences as flaws, it lowers a woman’s self-esteem When we stare at a mirror, we don’t usually point out our best qualities instead, we focus on the qualities we believe are flaws while ignoring the positive views on body image.

Social media has become the dominant source and platform of our world today. Scrolling down and up looking at posts in social media has shown that there is a connection with body dissatisfaction. “This increase in usage of social media, especially Facebook and Instagram, may negatively affect adolescent girls and young women regarding their self-confidence and body satisfaction” (Makwana). Women and young girls are being influenced by what they see in social media. Yet the influences they are looking up to are not always the reality. We have so many types of women that all look different but are not being represented. Due to the lack of reality in social media, girls assume that being skinny, tall, and white defines beauty. Causing girls to have low self-confidence and body satisfaction. According to Bindal Makwana, and her other colleagues wrote an article on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook having an impact. The Guardian’s Mahita Gajanan interviewed various girls and came to learn that many young women associated the number of “likes” with whether or not their photos that they were posting in social media reached people’s satisfaction. “It was a common theme that women were dedicating extensive amounts of time to thinking about what image to upload, photoshopping it and regularly checking their personal page to see the updated “like” counts, which in turn increased their own insecurities”(Makwana). It does not come as a surprise when social media and opinions of others have become a regulated thing in our lives. Wanting to be accepted and fit in with the norms can impact our lives mostly making women insecure. Therefore, not only are women looking for acceptance, but they are also looking for the ability to say they have such a large number of followers and trying to be on top. For example, when we see celebrities’ posts and notice that we do not look like them, it can have a mental impact on how we view ourselves, and what we see is wrong. It comes back to social media having a connection with body dissatisfaction. According to Makwanathere has been proof of a link between Instagram and body dissatisfaction. For example, Makwana states, “Emily Bryngelson, an associate designer at Ann Taylor, who admitted to struggling with an eating disorder as a teenager, revealed that she deletes selfies if she doesn’t receive enough “likes” (Fleming, 2014). She explains, “Instagram makes me so anxious. I’m always looking at other women thinking, ‘I wish I looked like that,’ or ‘I should get more in shape.’…I mean, young girls can now follow Victoria’s Secret models and see what they look like in the ‘every day.’…That has got to make any woman, let alone a 13-year-old girl, feel unsure of herself.” Many women look at social media platforms and looking at one photo can cause a negative feeling towards how they look. 

However, social media has also become a platform where many women have shared positive body image empowerment. For the purpose of boosting up other girls and women’s reflection of their body image. For example, “The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), who works with various social media platforms to ban certain hashtags, remove unhealthy and dangerous feeds, and provide a link to their website along with an advisory warning when certain hashtags or links are clicked”. NEDA has used the social media platform to get across to girls about their message of having a positive outlook towards body imaging. They have done this by creating a website called the Proud2BMe, to encourage healthy body image and a relationship with food (Tackett Brittany). According to Tackett, Instagram has become a community where individuals are able to express their experiences with others to build support and inspiration for positive body imaging. Acknowledging that social media has an impact on girls can help girls find models that display a positive body image. For example, Mazu wrote an article with a section of body-positive role models. One of the role models is Yulianna Yussef who has congenital melanocytic nevus. Which means that she is covered by large birthmarks. She states that it hasn’t stopped her from wearing what makes her feel good, and helping others understand what nevus is. Yussef herself states “On my social media feed I try to post fancy photos that showcase how confident I am about my birthmarks, self-acceptance and how I’ve learned to live with my giant Nevus.” Models like her can help other young girls have role models that do not look like the typical body image you would see in social media or magazines.

Magazines are a platform that displays the beauty standard for a woman. You flip the pages of a magazine and you most likely see what society says is the definition of a woman is beautiful. In terms of body type, skin color, hairstyles, and even ethnicity. Looking through those magazines and noticing that most of us do not look like the models being presented in them makes women feel unincluded. “Magazine and Body Image”, is an article that shared their study on how well magazines diversified what beauty looks like across 35 publications. Their study was based on studying over 3,700 magazine covers across the U.K. and U.S. According to “Magazines and Body Image”, “At least one study found looking at a magazine for just 60 minutes lowered the self-esteem of 80 percent of female participants”. Magazines not being able to represent all types of women can send the wrong message to the girls and women who look at those magazines. We quickly start looking at the differences between the photos and our reflections of ourselves in the mirror. Society creates the segment that if we are not tall, white, skinny with perfect skincare and hair, we do not meet the definition of what society believes is beauty. We then call “imperfect” skin, hair, body type as flaws. The reality is that most of the time what we see in those images is not real, just in social media. Due to editors not being satisfied with how models look, they photoshop and use image manipulation tools to create the ideal women’s standards of how they are supposed to look.  What then happens is that young girls look at these pictures and think of how they are supposed to look and in reality, there should not be a definition of what beauty is.  

On the other hand, as more people speak out about body image, we start to see differences in platforms like magazines. For example, “In 2013, 84 percent of magazine covers…featured Caucasian models, actors, actresses, and pop culture icons. 2017 found 78 percent of magazine covers featured white cover models compared to only 10 percent black and 12 percent combined Hispanic, biracial, and any other ethnicity”. Magazines are making the effort to represent all types of women. An example that showed this is when we started to see plus-size women being featured in magazines. For instance, model Ashley Graham, who was featured in the cover of American Vogue (Garcia Laia). Having models like Graham who are plus size can have a positive impact on girls who like her because they are seeing them in magazines where we only see the size zero types of girl.  According to Garcia, “there are still stylists and industry insiders willing to put in the work so that the plus-size women we do see in magazines reflect the same level of aspirational glamour as their straight-size counterparts”. Magazines are a platform that influences many of its young women and girls. Showing the different body images can help many girls and women come to realize that their “flaws” are not imperfections as they think. 

The use of social media and magazines have become platforms where society has used to show representations to the public about women and body image. Whether they are getting unrealistic images of how they are supposed to look. Or the other side of where women are embracing the flaws that society does not consider beauty. Either side women should know in reality our society is built from women being different sizes, skin color, hairstyles, and many other physical features. We all should be represented equally in any platform seen as beautiful because the message that we should get across is, what makes us beautiful is uniqueness not the standards we are put up with. 

Work Cited 

Garcia, Laia. “Why Are Magazines Still Not Letting Plus Women Actively  Participate in         

Fashion?” Refinery29. 22 December 2017. Web

Mazu. “Body Positivity-Using Social Media for Good” Medium. 2 January 2018. Web 

Makwana,Bindal,  Lee, Yaeeun, Parkin, Susannah & Farmer, Leland. “Selfie-Esteem: The     

Relationship Between Body Dissatisfaction and Social Media in Adolescent and Young Women.” In-mind Magazine. Print

“Magazine and Body Image” ZAVA. N.D. print

 Tackett, Brittany. “Social Media and Body Image” Projectknow. Web 

During the semester of English, the mission is to become writers that can write for different audiences and purposes. With the help of the writing process of invention, drafting, revising, and understanding the rhetorical elements we have been able to improve as writers. Throughout this semester, Professor Lisa Rogal, has assigned us a variety of assignments in order to accomplish the course objectives, something I believe I did. Demonstrating my improvement with the assignments of essays, journals, and reading multiple genres I was able to develop and improve as a writer and reader and check off the list of course objectives.   

“Explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations” and “Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations”, are two of the course objectives that we practiced from the beginning of the semester towards the end, by reading the varieties of different genre readings. Reading the variety of genres like “Black Men and Public Space” by Brent Staples, “Consider th8e Lobster” By David Foster Wallace”, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, “Women These Days” by Amy Butcher and other readings, I was able to practice recognizing the rhetorical terms. For example, when I wrote my first journal it was based on “Black Men and Public Space” by Brent Staples. In writing this journal (figure 1) I had in mind Staple’s purpose, audience, and stance, which were important in this reading to convey Staples’s message overall. 

Figure 1: 

I remember when we read “Consider the Lobster” By David Foster Wallace”, the media was an important rhetorical element we discussed. Knowing that this essay was first published in a gourmet magazine, it helped me figure who his audience was in the beginning and what he was trying to express the value of lobsters. Or the reading “Women These Days” by Amy Butcher the design of her essay was important to get a compelling response from her audience. Having the first three paragraphs all about research and then a few sentences of a personal anecdote, it empowered her essay because readers are reading about horrible cases of women being mistreated and seeing no punishment, and then you read those last few sentences, about what her significant other has to say about women. It causes the audience to have a strong reaction to what she has written because you get her personal experience that helps the readers see her perceptive. I practiced using this rhetorical element in my first essay, the personal narrative. At first, I didn’t realize that I was including the elements in my writing, but after we wrote the reflection on our notebooks about pointing out our rhetorical elements in my essay, I realized that I had used some of the rhetorical terms, such as purpose, audience, stance, and genre to write my essay. For example, I wrote “By telling my story, I was hoping to accomplish some awareness of how important DACA has been for young adults and life-changing”, this was me trying to express my purpose.   

Writing the exploratory and critical analysis essay I was able to achieve the “Developed strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing” course objectives. Before knowing about learning strategies for generating my ideas and text, I would just start writing, then, edit and have my final paper. I noticed that it helped me get the paper done but I wasn’t improving as a writer. Once I put to practice strategies like, listing, freewriting, and mapping, I came to learn that it helped me transform one general topic into a thesis. For example, in figure 2 you could see that I used mapping to narrow down my topic. When I wrote my critical analysis essay, I used the listing strategy.   

       Figure 2: 

Within the process of writing this essay I also accomplished another course objective, “Engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.” Being part of the writing workshops was very helpful in my writing process. Having someone else read your writing gives you a chance for you to know if your audience would understand what you are trying to say. For example, one of my peers gave me the comment of rephrasing. I took into consideration what he wrote, and I made the change, the final result was Professor Rogal commenting on this too, (figure 4).   

Figure 4: 

“Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias” is another English course objective. When we started to write for our Critical Analysis Essay, we had a class dedicated on how to evaluate a source to see if it’s creditable. When we went to the library and were taught how to use the CCNY Library, I was able to successfully do this course objective. In figure 5, you could see the process I took learning to locate a research source. I first listed ideas to brainstorm, to help me create my search combinations. Even adding filters like peer-reviewed journals was helpful to see if it was credible. 

Figure 5: 

For both, exploratory and critical analysis essays we had to learn how to convert our sources into citations. Following the MLA format, we first practiced by doing citations for “Black Men and Public Space” by Brent Staples and “Consider the Lobster” By David Foster Wallace (figure 6). I would reference back when I made my citations for my source on both of my essays, I found it very helpful. Towards the end, I was more comfortable writing my citations. This is how I fulfilled the course objective of “Practice systematic application of citation conventions.” 

Figure 6:       

From all the course objectives I found this one to be the most challenging because it was not easy doing an analysis. Even though it was hard for me, I was able to fulfill the course objective, “Compose texts that integrate your stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation” successfully. I believe I demonstrated this course objective by writing my critical analysis essay. This essay is where you had to show what was your stance on the topic of your choice. In figure 7, it shows my stance towards the problem of the gender pay gap. In this essay we used strategies like critical analysis and summary to compose a text that would explain the evidence that supported our thesis. 

 Figure 7:  

By doing this portfolio and writing my self-assessment, and posting it in the CUNY’s Academic Commons, I’m accomplishing this course objective, the “Understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences.” Posting it on the website, I’m using digital technology to reach my audience. However, throughout the semester, giving in my essays and journals through digital technology, my main audience was professor Rogal. Due to attending online classes, the only print technology I used was when printing copies of my exploratory essay for the workshop. Also, prior to the outline class, I would print out my readings, because I would annotate them.                                                                                                                 

English 110. with Professor Rogal, to help me improve as a writer and reader through the practice of writing assignments and readings, I was able to learn a variety of strategies and skills to improve as a reader and writer. Comprehending the rhetorical elements, I was not only able to point them out but also be capable of using them to write. Going on forward, I know that I will continue using what I learned in this course in my future. 

Society today has taken a different approach to the issue of gender inequality. Some argue that gender inequality does not exist, and others argue that it is an issue we have. Even with the campaigns, like the “Equal Pay Today” or women speaking out about it, there are still some people who do not agree with the issue of gender inequality existing in workplaces. Gender inequality has become an ongoing social problem occurring in many workplaces. Women today are being treated differently to their male coworkers because of their sex causing a separation in their work environment. Gender inequality has been shown through the concept that there is a gender pay gap. It is a problem that is affecting women today and if there is no solution it will be a problem that will have an effect on the coming generation of young girls. 

The difference pay gap between women and men is one of the main arguments of gender inequality existing. Where in workplaces women and men are getting different paid checks for doing the same jobs.  Kurt Stanberry, and Forrest Aven wrote a research article called, ““Unequal Pay for Equal Work”: Why Women Still Lag Behind After the 50th Anniversary of the U.S. Equal Pay Act.” This article informs their audience that gender-based compensation inequalities in the United States still exists. They provide evidence from other authors who are also proving the gender pay gap. In 1963 the Equal Pay Act was introduced as a law for the purpose of men and women to be paid the equal amount for doing the same job. The law prohibited unequal wages to men and women who perform jobs with similar job skills. Over the years the act has been “strengthened” based on events that have occurred relating unequal pay (Stanberry and Aven). The Equal Pay Act was designed to protect women from unequal wages in workplaces. A law that was designed over 50 years ago and it still has relevance today, which comes to show that the law is not working. It shows that there has not been a real change. According to Stanberry and Aven’s article, the authors of the American Association of Professional Landmen study found that no matter what variables; education, experience, independent or company landmen, are removed, the results are still similar. This multi-year study was done according to the energy industry, their purpose was to study men and women with the position of a landman. According to the article landman is “the official term used in the industry for a person who negotiates leases and contracts related to the acquisition of mineral rights for energy companies” Women with the position of landmen are still not able to close the gap of income between them and men. Their results were that “company landmen males earned $7,000 more than company landmen females, while independent males earned $4,500 more than their female counterparts.” Another of the study Stanberry and Aven analysis is the General Accountability Office study. In the study they are examining the glass ceiling metaphor for female and male managers.  The GAO study declared the following “In its report to Congress, the GAO stated that despite extensive research on the progress that women have made toward equal pay and career advancement opportunities over the past several decades, there is no consensus about the magnitude of earnings differences between men and women, and no explanation as to why such differences may exist” (Stanberry and Aven). Proving that gender  is still an issue when it comes to getting a paycheck, they continued with a further study to try to “performed a quantitative analysis to determine differences in earnings by gender and also to identify what factors may account for the differences.” They came to two conclusions, (1): “Differing work patterns lead to a large earnings gap between men and women suggesting that working women are penalized for their dual roles as wage earners and those who disproportionately care for home and family. (2): Men with children appear to get an earnings boost, whereas women with children lose earnings. Men with children earn about 2% more on average than men without children, according to the GAO findings, whereas women with children earn about 2.5% less than women without children.” Their conclusion is not as much of a surprising outcome for many people because this issue has been an ongoing discussion of the unequal pay between genders. What surprises me the most is that even with this evidence there are still people who do not believe the gender pay gap exists. Evidence, such as “women in positions such as CEO or in-house counsel often earn about 75% of what men with the same job titles earned. The median weekly salary for a woman chief executive, for example, was $1,500, compared with $2,000 for a man” (Stanberry and Aven). It shows that women with the same job titles as men are earning less than what men are making. It an issue that does not seem right or fair. Authors Stanberry and Aven stated “Is it enough to assert that equal “opportunity” has been achieved or is it more accurate to conclude that equal opportunity is not enough, that true equality in the workplace requires equal “results.”” I agree with this statement, it is not enough to say that women are now given the same opportunities as men, that it should be enough, and we should be satisfied with it. If we put the same effort as men, it’s our right to pay the same, a man would not be judged for standing up and wanting more, so why should women be okay with just what is given to them. 

Society debates the issue of gender inequality and the pay gap difference. There are people who hold the position that there is a justification for having a wage gap and that gender has nothing to do with it. “Gender Pay Gap: Are Women Paid Fairly in the Workplace?” by Thomas J. Billitteri, discuss the question, “Is discrimination a major cause of the wage gap?” Director of employment and work/life programs at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Vicky Lovell states the evidence from David Neumark studied of sex discrimination in restaurants, concludes that “The study is a telling bit of evidence that the wage gap is real and that discrimination plays a significant part in it.”  In this study Neumark was looking at high-end restaurants, he thought that the waiters and waitresses could earn more than in a low-end restaurant. Neumark states, “The chances of a woman getting a wait-staff job offer were 40 percentage points lower than those of a man with similar experience”, proving that the place you work or the experience does not matter because there is still a pay gap seen between genders. Yet, some still argue that causes of the wage gap are based on the type of work field, the role you play, or experience that can lead to “lower compensation” for both genders. However, like Neumark concluded in his study, having the same work field or experience there is still signs of the gender wage gap. According to Hudson Institute’s Furchtgott-Roth said in congressional testimony, “Women are not excluded from these or other jobs but often select professions with a more pleasant environment and potentially more flexible schedules, such as teaching and office work. Many of these jobs pay less” (Billitteri) Proving that wage gap has nothing to do with gender inequality, it justifies the wage gap between female and male, saying it should exist. Yes, this is true not all jobs pay the same and there are other factors that can affect the wages but what about the cases where you have men and women doing the same jobs, they have the same experiences and education. For example, a case like Lilly Ledbetter, who was a worker at the Goodyear Tire plant for 19 years. Due to the company’s pay-raise decisions it created a growing gap between her wages and those of her male colleagues. By the time she left Goodyear year, she was earning $3,727 a month. The lowest-paid man doing the same work got $4,286. The highest-paid male made 40 percent more than she did. Ledbetter decided to sue in 1998 and won about 3 million dollars, however, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the verdict in 2007 for filing her complaints too late. (Billitteri) Catherine Hill, a director of research at the AAUW, made this statement, “If a woman made the same choices as a man, would she earn the same pay? The answer is no,” We have seen cases where a pay gap has no other explanation but have common the gender bias, proving that gender inequality in the workplace exists. “A significant wage gap is still with us, and that gap constitutes nothing less than an ongoing assault on women’s economic freedom,” declared U.S. Representative Rosa L. DeLauro. 

Gender inequality is an ongoing issue and there has been some improvement but for a huge social problem, the issue is still there. Author by Violetta Khoreva wrote an article called “The gender pay gap shrinks, but why so slowly?” The purpose of her article is to explain the existence of the gender pay gap and analyze reasons as to why the gender pay gap occurs. Khoreva explains the Fair Act in 2005 that required to pay for jobs that are comparable in skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. “As a result, the gender pay gap shrinks on the one hand, but still statistically remains on the other hand.” Meaning that problem has somewhat fixed but the issue is still there. It is like putting a band-aid on the injury, in this case the injury is the pay gap. She goes on to say “gender pay gap does not legally exist if pay differences are due to differences in the value that the marketplace attaches to particular jobs or to differences in skill, effort, responsibility, or working conditions” Meaning that society, or specifically the government justified the pay gap with ideas of the differences that a job may ask from an individual, proving the gender inequality is still an issue. Khoreva uses the metaphor of the glass ceiling to explain that there is an existence of men earning more than women. According to the article “Glass Ceiling” published by Sage Publications, Inc, the glass ceiling is a metaphor originated during the middle 1980s to explain the barriers that are put on women in work. It is the idea that women are experiencing the challenge of rising to a higher position compared to men.  According to Khoreva the Glass Ceiling was the formation of investigating the gender pay gap. If women are having the trouble of being promoted considering that they have the same education and experiences as men, they are likely to be making less money because they cannot move up the ladder. 

Gender inequality is an issue that is been seen in many workplaces, even employers in hospitals, where the gender gap pay has been proven to occur. “What’s driving the gender pay gap in medicine?” by Sarah Boesveld discusses that the gender pay gap between female and male doctors. Boesveld starts the article by stating, “More women than ever are qualifying as doctors, yet in Canada and around the world, they’re consistently paid less than their male peers.” Which brings back the idea that authors Stanberry and Aven said, is it enough to assert that equal “opportunity” has been achieved, or is it more accurate to conclude that equal opportunity is not enough, that true equality in the workplace requires equal “results”. “In a recent international survey conducted by Medscape, primary care physicians in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Brazil, and Mexico reported similar gender pay gaps, with female doctors in those countries making 20%-29% less than their male colleagues”, proving the gender pay gap. This relates to another famous metaphor called the “glass escalator.” This metaphor comes from the references of men doing typical dominated female jobs and are getting paid more than women. For example, nurses are associated as a female job but when you have a male nurse you will see that a male nurse getting paid more than a female and getting promoted faster compared to a female nurse; who is doing the same job. “On a glass escalator” published by News Limited stated “While women in male industries are faced with a glass ceiling, men benefit from the glass escalator and are often encouraged into supervisory or more senior positions.” It proves to say that there is gender inequality. You witness men being respected more than women who are in the same job field. They are shown this respect by being promoted and earning more than what a female would earn in the field. 

Gender inequality is an issue that society is facing. Women being paid less than men because of their sex is an issue that we have tried to fix, and yet we are still debating about the issue. Gender inequality is an issue not only affecting women in today’s presence but also the coming generation of young women. They will confront this problem if we do not do something about it. Denying the issue will not help anyone because we won’t have changed. We must speak up and talk about a solution that will help everyone in society, especially women who are being discriminated against because of their gender. Gender inequality cannot be ignored anymore, we must put a stop on an issue that has been occurring for years.

Work Cited

Billitteri, Thomas. “Gender Pay Gap: Are Women Paid Fairly in the Workplace?” Social Problems: Selections from CQ Researcher. 14 Mar. 2008. Print. 

Boesveld, Sarah. “What’s driving the gender pay gap in medicine?” CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal. Joule, 6 January 2020. Print. 

“Glass Ceiling.” Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. SAGE Publications, 2008. Print 

Khoreva, Violetta. “The gender pay gap shrinks, but why so slowly?” Kadin/Woman 2000. Eastern Mediterranean University, June 2008. Print. 

“On a glass escalator.” Sunday Times [Perth, Western Australia, Australia]. News Limited, 20 Oct. 2013. Print. 

Stanberry, Kurt, and Forrest Aven. “Unequal Pay for Equal Work’: Why Women Still Lag Behind After the 50th Anniversary of the U.S. Equal Pay Act.”  Compensation & Benefits Review. July 2013. Print.

I am one of the millions who did not have a choice. I was a one-year-old girl who has been taken from what was supposed to be my home. My parents made the sacrifice of switching up their whole lifestyle to make a better future for their children. However, it’s a sacrifice that I am thankful that my parents made for my brother and me. Although that sacrifice came with a price, it is a price that I didn’t come to understand until I was not able to get a job, the possibility to apply to college, financial aid, a bank account or even get a thing that most 16 years old’s want, a driver’s license. I was a young adult hiding in the shadows, because of the fear of deportation.  

Until 2012, the year where former President Barack Obama gave millions of young adults the opportunity for a better future in the United States. He gave the chances that our parents wanted for us. I felt like I could finally exhale the breath I was holding in for years. When the DREAM act was announced and what opportunities were given. For the first time I felt what I knew to be home for many years was finally willing to help young adults like me. To have a better future in this country, a country that I have lived in for more years than my own native country. For 19 years, I considered the USA my home because it is the place I grew up and came to know.  

The DREAM act sounded amazing, but it also brought me to fear to apply. Fear because that meant I had to come out of the shadow that I was under. I had to really think about how this would affect me. I was granted opportunities that to citizens seemed like nothing but for me, it opened a huge door because I was able to get a work permit that allowed me to work, get a driver’s license and open a bank account. However, on the other hand, I was now in the government’s radius that I am here illegally, and I have the chance of deportation no matter what. I had to think whether these opportunities were worth the risk, I was conflicted because that meant that I was no longer hiding yet was exposed to the government who just view us as aliens, not people. The DREAM act was a blessing in disguise because of its pros and cons. Overall I chose to see the DREAM act as a blessing, and I was proud to apply for the Dream act in 2016, becoming part of one out of millions of dreamers.  

Feeling part of this country was and still is a dream of mine. It is crazy to think I would want to live anywhere else but here and yet it is the place where many do not want people like me to be in. We work hard, we contribute to the country as much as we can due to the boundaries that are placed on us, yet we are not welcome. Racism from politicians and people who are closed-minded are affecting the lives of others who have done nothing wrong and are people who just want a better future in a country that they call home. I once felt like I was alone and that I was the only one feeling scared and lonely. I never realized there are millions of dreamers out in the world like me. Waiting for this country to accept us and view us as an American. My experience is just one story that is similar to many others. By telling my story I hope the person reading it is aware that there are people like me out there in the world. All we want is for the United States of America to acknowledge that we are not here to harm. We are here because our parents were brave enough to bring us to another country that we did not know about but grew up to have so much faith in. Being a dreamer is the act of bravery that many young adults took to be acknowledged and try to prove what we are really made of and that we are here to make a change.