Growing up in America, it is commonly accepted that most people around the world’s wish is to migrate to America, the land of opportunity and freedom. Trying to pursue their American Dream of whatsoever they hope to achieve in America that they can't accomplish in their own country. For many people it is different, on their experience and reason for their journey to America. My grandfather is a Mexican who took the journey of becoming an American citizen and making his American dream come true.

Life isn’t the easiest in Mexico; it is a country with a great deal of poverty. “Once you enter you see the drastic difference in the two. [America is] hygienic, with nice houses, private communities, and you notice the wealth, compared to Mexico, that is unkempt, homes are constructed of clay and bricks, and poorly composed buildings surrounding the community,” says my grandfather comparing his sight of America to his homeland that he had abandoned when he first arrived. My grandfather never had the thought of moving to America before he moved with his family to a city named Tecate, Baja California, Mexico, that is right next to the border with his parents at age eight. “The purpose of us moving was purely for school and for my parents to find a job,” he explains. “My life was in Tecate, I didn’t want to leave it all...”

Until “age 17 I started wanting to move to America [because] economically the situation wasn’t the best,” he points out. He was on his own at age 17, alone without his parents and older brother who had already moved to the United States. “I didn’t feel the need to [move to America] until I was barely eating and starving because I couldn’t afford food to feed myself.”

Before the interview I imagined a story of how crossing the border was the hardest thing to do in his many years of living, since many stories about their cross to the land of freedom and opportunity are unimaginable to listen to. However, he explains it was the hardest thing to do in abandoning his friends and everyday life, “[but] at the time the border wasn’t strictly enforced, there were no immigration officers guarding the border, it was like an open gate welcoming people in,” my grandfather describes. “I was illegal when I crossed, at age 17, and quickly got my [American citizenship] with the help of my parents, who were citizens already themselves.” America wasn’t strictly enforcing the border, which surprised me; I had thought that ever since the walls that separated the two countries were constructed no one was allowed to cross it without a passport. His journey “wasn’t difficult, and it was the best decision of my life,” he says with a smile on his face.

The transition to America from Mexico, for my grandfather started in 1968, in the beginning being problematic. “In the beginning I worked in mostly every Mexican’s first American job, in factories, but I tried my best getting a better job and I started in construction, and I stayed there,”

he explains. “My American dream was to have a car, nice clothes, and buy myself food.” I can’t envision how hard or difficult it would be for someone to leave their home and go to a country where people don’t speak the same language as you. When asked if he had any worries, he replied, “Worries, not so much, but I was nervous of coming to the unknown and what I was going to do when I arrived.”

In a couple of years his American dream came true and earned everything he desired. However, with an American dream, like his of having a job and being economically stable, he doesn’t believe that it is achievable without many difficulties. Nowadays it is a huge risk and extremely dangerous to illegally cross the border. Making him believe that “the American Dream doesn’t exist anymore,” in his perspective because even America is economically struggling and finding a job is easier said, than done. On the other hand, my grandfather is “grateful with what has happened and couldn’t ask for more.”