Jazmine Silva

Our American heritage and Our Responsibility for Preserving It

What new challenges will America face as we move forward into the future?

The United States of America, land of the free and home of the brave. The big issue with
this statement is that several of our citizens consider the equality of our country to be false hope,
because they are discriminated against based on the color of their skin. What is freedom; ‘the
state of being free or at liberty rather than confinement or under physical constraint.’ With this
said, if an individual is being limited by either the government, a superior or an individual of a
different race, to carry out the simplest tasks we do on a daily. What kind of freedom do they
really have?
As a hispanic female, I am not shielded by the cruelty of those who believe that hispanics
and latinos should not be able to prosper from this country. Though, I can not speak for every
hispanic or latino family, I can proudly defend my belief that many hispanic families who come
from their countries in seek of a new home, push themselves over the limit to provide just the
slightest bit of hope and ease for their family. Both my parents came to this country from our
beautiful homeland of Peru. They did not come to this country because of its welfare nor its food
stamps, but, because they wanted to give my brother and I the life they never had. Coming from
a country of a different heritage and culture and a completely different language, they worked
hard to at the end of the day provide food, a home, and a well deserved education. Yet, to this
day, even with the hard work my parents have put into my ‘perfect life’ and overall this country,
political figures and government leaders, define themselves by saying that any hispanic or latino
man, women, or child who comes to this country comes with one purpose in mind, and one
purpose only. To steal the life of the REAL American.
In recent years, I have seen the issue of discrimination between all races around the
world. As a student of one of the most diverse schools in the state of Connecticut, I see the
difference in races. I am not blind to the different colored faces who walk the halls. For four
years I have been surrounded by the beauty of what is diversity as a community, and I have
learned to love and defend not just my race but the race of my fellow peers. Though it is
heartbreaking to see first hand, just how much each of these individual races suffer because of
discrimination. A black man cannot walk down a quiet street without being questioned by the
eye of a policemen. A hispanic women cannot ride the local town bus without being judged for
being an immigrant. And, despite the fact that Muslim is not a rase, men and women of this
ethnicity are questioned everyday whether they are terrorists, or an overall danger to this country.
What world are we creating for the future generations of America, if we constantly
surround ourselves with the ludacris ideas that surround discrimination? What real freedom are
we providing to the citizens of this beautiful country? If a men or women is not free to express
their race, he or she will never be truly free.

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