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Playing the Victim: An Immigrant’s Plea to Michelle Obama
The Huffington Post published a letter from an immigrant mother to Michelle Obama, pleading for immigration reform because she has been “refused the right” by the United States to raise her two children with her husband at her side. He was deported 22 years ago.
For nearly my entire life, I have been a victim of harsh immigration laws, laws that have rendered my children fatherless. In addition to being a single mother, I am an immigrant and a minority woman, which only compounds the struggles that I have had to face. I have worked up to three jobs at once in order to meet my family’s daily needs. I have had many years where I was only able to see my children in time to put them to bed at night and early enough to send them off to school in the morning. Summertime was even more tragic when I had no choice but to leave my children at home alone for hours at a time while I tried to make ends meet. It was my faith and my prayers that allowed my children to remain safe and to thrive within their own lives.
Today I can proudly tell you that my children have surpassed all expectations that society placed on them based on heartbreaking statistics. My children refused to be defined by the assumption they would be trapped in a cycle of poverty. Both of my children have gone on to become successful professionals, graduating from the University of Notre Dame and the University of Houston. They persevered as best they could with the resources that were given to them.
Now I ask you to please just imagine how different our lives would have been if my husband and their father, had been at our side. If my children were able to accomplish all they have without their father, can you imagine how much further they could have gone with him? Would having their father at home to love and support them be a hindrance in their excellence? I would have been able to celebrate Mother’s Day in a much different light. I would have had my partner and my confidant to help me with the obstacles of life instead of having to face them alone. I have lived in quiet submission to this injustice for many years believing that I was alone in this ordeal. Now, as I watch the growing number of mothers who are facing what I have faced, I am appalled and saddened that our country is destroying American families.
I can only imagine the comfort and gratitude you must feel when you watch your husband provide love and support for your daughters. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 24 million children, one out of every three, live without a biological father present in their life. More than 5,100 U.S. children are in foster care because their parents are detained or deported. These statistics display a major crisis in our country. Our country’s immigration laws are only adding to this devastating epidemic as hundreds of thousands of people, many of them parents, are deported every year.
From one mother to another, I ask you to support laws that stop deporting our fathers (and mothers) and to reunite families. You and your husband can help me and our beloved country resolve this crisis affecting so many mothers.
Just listen to her language: Victim. Harsh. Tragic. Quiet submission to this injustice. Ordeal. Our country is destroying American families. Crisis affecting so many mothers. Devastating epidemic.
Has this woman stopped to consider that she is the cause of her own suffering? That her choices are the source of her own pain? Her husband’s choices? Has she ever considered that her children have suffered because her husband chose to ignore the laws of this “beloved country” instead of obeying them like countless other immigrants have done?
Has she ever stood in front of a mirror and seen her own reflection and realized even for a fleeting moment that she and her husband are the ones who robbed their children of their father’s comfort and strength—not the United States of America? Has she ever reflected on the fact that when you choose to do what’s wrong, you inevitably pay the price—and that can be quite an “ordeal”?
While I have the greatest sympathy for people who are suffering, even on account of their own mistakes, I have little patience with people who won’t admit the part they play in the tribulations of their own lives.
The author of this letter, Patricia Guillen, never admits her husband’s own culpability. Never does she confess he did anything wrong. Never does she talk about the possibility of moving to be with her husband. Getting her children into a good college was obviously more important than having them raised with their father. What was keeping them from leaving the U.S. and returning to their country of origin? Poverty? Violence? We don’t know. She doesn’t say. There might be some very good reasons for not moving back to be with her husband. But that was still her choice. She weighed her values and chose to stay here rather than reunite her family.
I can sympathize with her children. I grew up with my father absent most of the time. He was a U.S. Marine. He served in Vietnam and later worked in other countries as a topographical surveyor. He would be gone for long periods, leaving my mother to care for us on her own. We didn’t have much money — and she had to work too. I grew up often alone, coming home to an empty house. That was the choice my parents made in service to the country they loved.
Why did these children not have their father with them? Because he broke the law and then he chose not to take his family with him when he had to leave the country. That was his choice. America didn’t “do” anything to them. They aren’t victims of harsh laws (and even if they are harsh, the Guillens knew the laws when they came here and still violated them—try doing that in Mexico, for example, and you’ll see what “harsh” really looks like).
There’s no injustice here, and I’m more than offended by Ms. Guillen’s accusation that this great nation is “destroying families.” My father and my grandfather fought for this country, bled for this country. My father is disabled now because of that service. He fought for what is good and true and just—and he left his own family in order to do it. I won’t stand by and quietly submit to accusations leveled at my country by a woman whose husband has disrespected it by violating its laws, a woman who claims to be the victim because she had to live with the consequences of his and her own choices.
She is right about one thing. Her children are victims. They’re victims of their parents’ decisions. Patricia Guillen needs to turn her finger around and aim it at herself. Her suffering is her own fault, not the fault of this wonderful country. Stop demanding your self-defined “rights,” Ms. Guillen, and teach your children a lesson they really need to learn: Take responsibility for your own actions, stop playing the victim, and do what is right.
The devastating epidemic we face in this country is a lack of personal responsibility, as people demand rights that aren’t rights at all and then pretend to be victims when they don’t get what they want. This is the crisis we face, and if we don’t do something about it, we will wake up one day to find our “beloved country” isn’t so beloved anymore. The opportunities people like Ms. Guillen so cherish won’t be there any longer. And where will we flee to then? Where is the next shining light on the hill? There isn’t one. That’s why we need to preserve this one — and we can’t do that if people aren’t willing to obey our laws, respect our Constitution, and take responsibility for their own choices.
Published in General
Check your citizen privilege.
Good post – mucho gusto.
Terrific post! My favorite part of her diatribe of self-pity is “I am an immigrant and a minority woman, which only compounds the struggles that I have had to face.”
So, let me get this straight. You left a country in which you were, presumably, not a minority in order to come to the US and become a minority. And now you claim that being a minority in America is a tremendous hardship that makes your life worse.
Why would she have come to such a detestable, bigoted country? Wouldn’t it have been better to stay home?
Surely, if you voluntarily come to America, simple gratitude should stop you from running off at the mouth about how terrible we are….
Bravo!
“We live in a society that emphasizes rights; the majority, minorities, employers, employees, victims, and criminals all remind us of their rights. Indeed, central to the social, political, and legal fabric of the United States is the Bill of Rights. The codification into law of fundamental human rights is an essential safeguard against the corrupting influences of power and human weakness as manifested in bigotry and prejudice. However, focusing on rights as the basis of conduct and policy is to create a society that is driven by advocacy, leading to a loss of community and reducing the motivation to work for the common good.”
~ Mohandas K. Gandhi
Amen, Denise. The solution to that woman’s problems consists of two words: go home.
Part of your concluding paragraph: “The devastating epidemic we face in this country is a lack of personal responsibility, as people demand rights that aren’t rights at all and then pretend to be victims when they don’t get what they want.”
Me: Amen.
A few years ago, in her book Londonistan, Melanie Phillips wrote about what she called “dutiless rights.” She concluded: “The only duties recognized by the rights agenda are obligations on the state to deliver group rights.”
Guillen wants the “right” of citizenship for her family, but the “duty” to comply with the laws of our country are just so inconvenient.
I, for one, am sick of people who demand rights that have no connection to the most basic of duties: comply with the danged law.
This isn’t complicated, and no one is oppressing Guillen or her family.
Recently I saw bumper sticker with something along the lines of
“Pilgrims, the first illegal immigrants”
The car also sported an “I like ObamaCare” sticker.
A little Google searching turned up this from March. Wife listed on the petition is Patricia Guillen, same as the author of the article, and the “22 years” matches (as does Patricia’s photo). Apparently the husband pleaded guilty to drug possession in 1992 (he claimed a relative hid the drugs in his house) and was deported. Earlier this year, he snuck into the country and was deported again. I’m guessing they took the photo between the reunion and the second deportation.
Walk a mile in her shoes, people. Until you really face her options how differently you say you would do things is hypothetical – iow, it carries no real price.
‘Walk a mile in her shoes?’ Always the same answer, not the victims fault for not returning to their ‘home’ country, its ours. Not the victims fault for their personal choices, its societies. 22 years and she couldn’t join her husband so the family could be together? That’s the USA’s fault? The theory of 100% responsibility is that if you don’t ‘own your own choices and responsibilities then someone else has to… for her children she didn’t rejoin her husband? Own the responsibility… no wait, blame those decisions and responsibilities on someone else that’s easier. Much easier to be the victim and then have others claim we don’t understand their ‘options/reasons/decisions’. We all carry the real price with us everyday, its called being responsible so please don’t patronize the rest of us with condescension for a lack of compassion, there is no country on the planet more compassionate that the US.
Zafar: I think you should be saying that to her and not to us! She’s the one standing in judgment! Intimating that we’re bigots!
Does a lack of experience of her life mean that we cannot take positions on the issue of immigration, or does it mean that we cannot take a position that differs from hers? Is this generally a hermeneutic that you apply?
Is there a position that you can take on a political issue that does not disagree with a position taken by another person with a different lived experience to yours? I’d have thought that your condemnation was not merely of us bigoted immigration enforcement supporters (a view that I would like to claim is not entirely costless for me), but of almost anyone who posts or comments on Ricochet on almost any issue.
I often find it difficult to comment on your posts DCM because your arguments are always so complete. :)
I do sympathize with her. Life is full of hard things. When her husband was caught with drugs, he had to be deported. That’s tough. But that’s the law. They knew that when they came here. I have immigrant friends from Britain and they keep their noses clean because they don’t want to be deported. They know and respect the laws. This woman’s husband didn’t–at least that was the decision of the courts.
I don’t know why this woman didn’t return to Ecuador with her husband. I’m sure it’s because life is better here. This is where she wanted to raise her children. I understand that immensely. This is a great nation. But that was her choice. That was not the fault of the US.
My problem with this woman is her accusations against this nation as if she is a victim. But she’s not. Her husband isn’t. He violated the law and had to go. What are we supposed to do? Ignore criminal activity? Keep people here illegally? That’s the context of her letter. This is a “crisis” she says we’re facing in this country. I’m assuming she’s talking about the deportation not only of legal immigrants who have broken the law but of outright illegal immigrants. We’re just supposed to ignore the laws so everyone can make easy choices and not suffer consequences? Will that be good for families? For our country? I don’t think so.
Like I said, and let me repeat, my problem with this woman is her accusation against this country, against me as a citizen, against the laws that hold us together. She doesn’t take responsibility at all for her own choices or her husband’s choices. There is no humility in her letter. Only blame–blame that others will capitalize on to promote their own amnesty agenda.
I don’t need to walk in her shoes to sympathize with her as a woman and a mother who has gone through hard things in life. I don’t need to because I’ve walked in my own shoes, suffered the consequences of my own choices, lived with pain in my own life. In that sense, I can empathize with her. But that is not the issue here. The issue is what she does with her pain. Does she look to herself, her husband, and their choices to accept responsibility or do they blame others?
My plea for her to take responsibility is actually more compassionate than simply agreeing with her that our country is unjust.
Real compassion does not keep people wallowing in blame and victimhood. Real compassion instills strength and courage as people take responsibility for their own lives.
Thanks, ET. :)
Why on earth is she writing Michelle Obama? I don’t want to come across as sexist, but I think we were better off when the role of First Lady was largely confined to being a hostess.
Because Michelle gets her way.
I’m not entirely sure that that’s as true as is popularly perceived, but if it is it is by far the most disturbing issue raised by this letter.
The eloquence of this letter creates the impression that it was more likely to have been written by someone with the educational background of a person such as Michelle herself. You don’t suppose…… Nah, an Obama wouldn’t lie. ;-)
She spoke of having to work multiple jobs. Seeing as she is illegally in the country, she herself was breaking our laws every time she got a new job, and lied about being authorized to work in this country. Victim? Nope, perpetrator.
From the petition at the link I gave above:
Re #21 I couldn’t get the quote function to work. The two paragraphs are directly quoted (and so I’m sure the description is somewhat self-serving). But there is no indication that the family were illegal immigrants, except when Mr. Guillen tried to break back into the US at age 70.
I believe she is here legally. Her husband was deported for violating drug laws as an immigrant.
I didn’t say they were illegal immigrants. If he was unjustly tried, that has nothing to do with immigration reform. That’s an issue many citizens deal with. Another issue entirely. But our laws are that if, as an immigrant, you break our laws, then you are deported. If she wanted her children to be with their father, then why not leave the country to be with him? If she chose to stay here, that was her choice, not the fault of the US, which she claims is “devastating families.”
She has also written this in such a vague way and citing the epidemic of deportations that she is clearly saying that our immigrations laws for deporting illegals are unjust. Again, she is accusing the US of being unjust instead of holding illegals to account for their own actions and taking responsibility for their own choices.
Agreed. I was responding to RushBabe’s comment #20.
Gotcha. Thanks!
The fact that this was a drug violation that she disputes infuriates me even more though. Her issue is with the criminal justice system as far as the innocence of her husband. (sorry if I’m skeptical though). If he was innocent of the crime, that is tragic (but it still has nothing to do with immigration laws). If was guilty, then there is no injustice here. Our immigration laws are designed to deport criminals for a reason. But this infuriates me because she’s using her situation–which is very specific and loaded with questions about guilt and innocence–to exploit the issue of illegal immigration and the deportation of illegals as if that is unjust. She also completely ignores the fact that she could have gone to be with her husband at any time. Again, her choice. Not the fault of our immigration laws.
I find the entire letter extremely manipulative and offensive.
Oops! Sorry! I own my mistakes, and this was a big one.
Zafar, Over the years I have considered leaving my country several times to try my luck elsewhere. Never once did I think about entering the country I was interested in illegally. I certainly did not consider breaking into that country, stealing its social services and then blaming my illegal activity and my life choices on the people that have tolerated my theft for 20+ years. So yes, I walked in her shoe and went in a different direction. Or are you saying that the only way I have a right to comment on her life is if I lived my life in exactly the same way she did?
Not at all James, it just means that (imho) we should be less quick to judge her as a person – iow we should be a bit more humble.
DC – many people commenting here seem very sure that in this woman’s position they would have felt differently about the law and (perhaps) have acted differently. Until we’ve actually been in that kind of position – third world passport, kids to raise, a choice between making a place for the kids in the first world and keeping the family together – I’m sceptical and the certitude. I also got not sense of gratitude/good fortune that we don’t have to make these choices, that (most?) of us were born entitled to a first world passport.