Sonia’s story: living in fear
What has affected me the most has been to live with the feeling that I’m stuck in a cage, because of the situation my husband and I are in. 
We cannot return home and do not have licenses to drive or work and that limits us as people, but it also makes us stronger to fight for what we believe in.
We live in fear, we are scared that the police will detain us, that we will get deported and that my children will stay alone or that they will detain my husband and I will be alone. I live in fear every single day. Every time my husband comes home later than usual instead of thinking “oh maybe he hit traffic” or “maybe they asked him to stay later” my heart immediately asks, “has he been deported? Did he get stopped and arrested?” This actually happened when my first son was born. He was stopped and our car was taken away. My life is pending on what could happen here, and on how we live each day. We are both undocumented but we are good people we go to church we try to fit in, yet people still discriminate and think we are less than them, and that leaves you marked.
I have been living here in the U.S. for 3 years and my husband has been here for 6 years. We have 1 son who is 2 years-old and something that has scared us is that we will be deported and that we will not see our baby again. I did not come here because of economic hardship. I had a good job in Mexico, but I came to be with my husband. Two weeks ago, I stopped working because the manager asked that we hide for awhile. We were scared that it was ICE. Although it ended up being the IRS, I was scared to think that I was working for a business that was breaking the law. I’m pregnant again and I don’t want me or my baby be adversely affected by this situation.
It frustrates me that a place so grand like the United States is using us. We as Latinos contribute to the economy, we are important; we are not just another vote for any person running in office. Like many others, I feel that all politicians are vying for our community’s vote. But after the elections, they forget about us and those promises that they made to us. We are being utilized just for politics, and they are cutting the possibilities for us and our children, and what affects us more is the limitations that we are faced with. The senators use the explanation that they are just following the law, but can they not see that they need to do more than just that? Look at what has become of our home countries, what they have done to them because of political power; it’s time for them to change all of this. Although we live in California not Arizona the SB 1070 really scares us – it’s as if we are slaves once again, limited our rights, and people are even scared of stepping outside their front door.
