Sometimes when I am lying in bed at night unable to sleep, worrying about bills and my future, I wonder how different things would’ve been if I hadn’t run away that April morning. I wonder if I am better off living my own life under my own rules and values. Things haven’t turned out exactly as I expected them to. Maybe my parents were right. Maybe there is nothing worth fighting and living for in this system of things. In those sleepless nights I wonder where I’d be and what I’d be doing if I had done what was expected of me. That picture scares me even more than my own real life (if such a thing exists). Those thoughts are what I like to call my wake-time nightmares. But sometimes they are so horribly attractive, so frighteningly enticing, that I close my eyes and wish I were somewhere else living somebody else’s life.

But, where are my manners? I am talking to you like if we knew each other for a long time when you don’t even know who I am. My name is Esteban Chavez and I live a complicated life. I am what some kind journalists and politicians like to label as an undocumented worker. Others, however, are not so kind and I fall in their illegal immigrant, illegal alien, or simply illegal category (for some I am a dangerous criminal)

I don’t mind the labeling, though. I even understand the strong (xenophobic and racist, some would say) remarks some Americans make about people like me. South of the border some patriotic Mexicans use the same tone when it comes to the bullying the USA has done to Mexico (a couple of invasions, economic blackmail, slaughters of Mexican workers in their own country, etc.) ever since it became a country. But I am not going to fall in the never ending game of name-calling, finger pointing and mindless argumentation in which many (from both sides of the issue) have fallen. I just want to tell you my own story.

Everyday I wake up thankful of living in a country where people like me can have a second chance in life, and that is in itself the American dream many of us come looking for. So please be kind enough and don’t judge me without first listening to what I have to say. I am sure you’d appreciate the same consideration if you were in a similar situation. On this space I will write (to the best of my abilities and my limited English) the ongoing and dramatic story my life has become. It isn’t much, but that’s all I have. A story written from the heart.