Graduation Speech: Immigrants To Honduras

It’s the first day of school, and the warm welcome that I was expecting from my fellow classmates has yet to come. In every class, I’ve been introduced as “The new student who immigrated from Honduras,” and without fail, my peers have all given the same reaction. They stare at me like I have “imbecile” written across my forehead. I tried not to ponder too much about all the questions and rude comments they conjured up in their heads when they heard that I was an immigrant, but the inexorable thoughts ran through my mind anyway.
“She’s probably illegal.”
“I wonder if she smuggles drugs.”
“Her family is definitely living off the government.”
Those were the remarks that I imagined they’d make. While it probably seems wrong to assume the worst
in people, assuming the worst is something you naturally resolve to when all you’ve known is the worst. I lived in Tegucigalpa and Tegucigalpa is a city filled with crime.There is gang violence, robbery, murder, you name it. We left behind what we thought was the ugly side of humankind, only to be greeted with something that was a lesser evil.
The lesser evil being rude people who were not used to the idea of change and didn’t mind stating their opinion. My parents thought that the modest, quiet town would be peaceful enough for them to start over with their kids, but to our surprise, this unknown town in the northern part of Texas, was extremely secluded and seemed to be stuck in the past.
The town’s name was Celeste, and it was predominately white and Republican. The way immigrants and people of color were seen was quite negative, and we were heavily stereotyped. Back home, it may have been violent,but most people were kind there, unlike the people here.