Yousef Khan ’22
Spring 2021
It may not have been Olivia’s decision to come to the United States as a ten-year-old by paying Coyote to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, but it is her firm choice to stay and fight for the community of South Philadelphia. Olivia was born in Mexico and grew up in Philadelphia, and being undocumented, community organizing is personal for her and her family.
“I think that there’s power in people coming together,” she says. There is a common [mis]perception about undocumented migrants in the U.S. and they are somehow reduced to their legal status. Or undocumented migrants’ stories are portrayed in a way that is almost an appeal for sympathy or acceptance. Popular media showcase the high achiever “Dreamers” as the ideal undocumented migrants. But there are Dreamers like Olivia who are unapologetically undocumented and whose story is one of resistance against the criminalization of immigrants. Olivia’s story embodies how to be a Mexican in America and not necessarily a culturally hyphenated Mexican-American. Olivia is passionate about teaching and connecting with immigrant children to help them succeed in school and beyond. As a senior student of Educational Studies at Swarthmore College, Olivia is concerned about education inequalities that exist in the Philadelphia school system and throughout the U.S.
She knows the struggle of immigrant children in the American school, “I remember that learning English was something that I had to do because I couldn’t defend myself, right, if someone did something to me. I couldn’t tell anyone.” Olivia’s earlier memories in the U.S. are being called a “wetback (an insulting term for undocumented Mexican).” She said, “there was a lot of bullying, like physical.”
As a Mexican, history is important to Olivia; knowing that America was built on the genocide of indigenous people and slavery of African Americans empowers her to reject the “white-washed” American dream.
Speaking about the history of U.S. annexation of Mexico and capitalism’s reach across borders, Olivia says “we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.”
Growing up in South Philadelphia, Olivia struggled with identifying with a specific community because there weren’t many Latinx students in the school who spoke Spanish. In high school, where students were mostly black and Asian, Olivia was hesitant to identify as Mexican because of the widespread stereotypes and being subjected to ridicule. Whenever someone would ask where she was from, she would respond: “I will always ask people to guess and wherever they guess, with that something I will go [identify] with.” Over time, Olivia has learned to embrace the dual nature of her identity, being Mexican and living in America, “not from here, not from there [ni de aquí, ni de allá].” “So, I always feel that we’re crossing between borderlands, right, whether it’s language or culture and it’s the same thing with English,” said Olivia in response to the question of cultural assimilation.
Olivia has one piece of advice for newly arrived immigrants which she believes in, “it’s definitely about the community that you built…. but a community that fights for social justice.”
I think that there’s power in people coming together.