When you grow up undocumented you are often putting others first. It’s not that you don’t have the ability to make decisions for yourself, it’s that you often see this behavior modeled in your parents and other family members, and the extended undocumented community. Even the journey itself to the United States from your home country was one made for the greater benefit of your family. Para darnos un futuro mejor, para obtener mas oportunidades.
As I graduated high school and attended college I noticed myself modeling this type of selfless behavior. I believe there are benefits to making selfless decisions, however, I started noticing a darker side to feeling like I didn’t have a say in certain aspects of my life. For example, when it came to leadership opportunities where citizen peers would be paid for work I would often find myself asking to still partake but foregoing any type of compensation as DACA was not in place yet and there weren’t other ways to get paid. I had one mentor in college who actually took the time to find an alternative way to pay me for a leadership role and this was after I said “I’m ok with not getting paid because I’m undocumented”. This mentor went out of his way to make sure I would get compensated for the work done, which was being an Orientation Leader at Eastern Washington University. That was the first time someone did this type of advocacy for me, there was no taking advantage of an eager girl wanting to get leadership experience. I do understand the importance of experience and being able to build your resume, but when you’ve grown up not realizing there are other options for fair compensation, you forget you have the right to ask for pay as well.
I often told myself this narrative-that any type of work, any type of experience was worthy in itself as I initially shouldn’t even be in the country to begin with. Just as the media portrayed undocumented individuals as second-class citizens, I too began internalizing this narrative. I would often feel an internal struggle with going out of my way to be involved but just like my parents who never stopped physically working, I modeled a behavior of what a “good deserving immigrant” should do in this country. We should work hard and be thankful for what we were given. Hard work is embedded within the immigrant narrative.
I remember a phone call for a job offer a year after graduating from college. I was so excited I said “yes!” right away, no negotiating, no taking some time to pause or requesting a few days to think about it. Instead I thought, I finally have DACA, I should be thankful to even have this opportunity to work. That is no longer the case and I make sure to ALWAYS negotiate, whether it’s pay or benefits, I know that everything is negotiable. I have also finally understood the advice that some of my mentors had given me during the interview process for jobs, that they weren’t just interviewing me, but that I was also interviewing them. At first, this advice puzzled me, I didn’t think I was in a position to be turning down job offers, for me I was always the one in the position of desperately wanting to be the best candidate, I had a really hard time being in the position where I could think critically about the job, the organization, and the people interviewing me. A personal win for me has been turning job opportunities down, taking myself out of the interview process when it no longer felt right, and transitioning out of jobs when I knew it was no longer serving me. This is something i would have never done before due to my previously undocumented status. It had been engrained in me to just take what I was given and be content.
So how did I start making this transformation for myself? Well, I started putting myself first as I noticed how much additional work I was doing, whether that was within the jobs I held or extra leadership opportunities I signed up for. During this time I also started seeing a counselor who helped me unlearn behaviors of needing to go above and beyond. I didn’t realize that my legal status had led me to become a people pleaser and someone who had a hard time standing up for myself. I had no boundaries, the word “No” was not really in my vocabulary, and I felt the constant need to prove my worth in this country.
Through therapy I took time to reflect on how much additional labor I had been doing my whole life. Setting boundaries was challenging as well, I often received criticism for saying no to leading presentations on being undocumented. There were days I really didn’t want that to be the focus. After all, I had been undocumented for 25 years. There was not a single day that I didn’t think about my status. So through therapy I learned that I had other identities aside from my immigrant status, this is something I continue to work on today. Through therapy I learned that I had the right to say no to opportunities when I felt exhausted or emotionally and mentally drained. Prior to therapy I was unaware of the toll it was taking to constantly be in that mental space of discussing my status or the fear I felt in sharing personal experiences of growing up undocumented.
I write this blog post today because I’ve been working as a professional for 10 years now. Within this span of 10 years my legal status has transitioned from DACA, permanent resident, to then citizen (this is not a linear path and not everyone has the opportunity to actually adjust their status, a lot of people might remain undocumented due to the barriers in the legal system that prevent certain immigrants from adjusting their status). In the past 10 years I’ve learned what it means to become selfish. Selfish in the sense that I am choosing my mental health, that I am choosing when and where I feel comfortable enough to discuss my immigration experience, and selfish in the sense that I put my own peace of mind before deciding to be the “model minority immigrant”. I choose myself in terms of what I say yes to, whether that’s a leadership role, events that I attend, projects I take on. I choose myself by saying no to jobs, people, or projects where I feel my own mental or physical health will be at risk. I didn’t always choose myself, and again it’s something I continuously work on.
As a professional I aim to model this behavior when it comes to making asks of students who represent my own identities, I don’t ever want them to feel exploited the way I sometimes felt in certain spaces as both a student and professional. If there’s compensation available to students, I make sure to provide that, or provide a summary of bullet points for students to add to their resumes after they’ve participated in leadership opportunities (I often found myself unsure of how to word/format certain presentations or events I supported with, I now offer students the language they can use for their resume so they can update it as they go). Selfish decisions are what have allowed me to pursue joy as someone who comes from an immigrant background. I don’t think I would have known a more humorous side to storytelling had it not been for me deciding to change my own narrative through the “UndocuJoy” lens. I now realize this specific post is not as humorous but what it does is show a side to my lived reality that I don’t often discuss publicly. I also hope professionals who work with students can use this post as a guide when working with students who may also be constantly getting asked to discuss their personal (minoritized) identities in public spaces,I hope that others who might relate to my own identities find comfort in knowing they can be both selfless and selfish with decisions they make in the pursuit of educational and professional goals.
I end this post with sharing a resource that my therapist shared with me in my first year of working with her (I can’t recall the exact source, if you know if it feel free to reach out and I’ll update this post with the source). A tip I recommend is to turn each one of the “rights” below into flashcards and display them if you notice you are struggling with one of them. I like to put them up close to my workspace and they also help guide conversations I have with my counselors. I often look back to each of these “Rights” to remind myself that I have agency, I have a voice, and that I can make selfish decisions. I hope that others who might be in a similar situation as myself can read this as a way to start or continue putting yourselves first. In order to support others, we need to first take care of ourselves.
I have a right to need things from others
I have a right to put myself first sometimes
I have a right to feel and express my emotions or pain
I have the right to be the final judge of my beliefs
I have the right to my opinions and convictions
I have the right to my experience-even if it’s different from that of other people
I have a right to protest any treatment or criticism that feels bad to me
I have a right to negotiate for change
I have a right to ask for help, emotional support, or anything else that I need (even though I may not always get it)
I have a right to say no; saying no doesn’t make me bad or selfish
I have a right not to justify myself to others
I have a right not to take responsibility for someone else’s problem
I have a right to choose not to respond to a situation
I have a right, sometimes, to inconvenience or disappoint others
UndocuJoy 