the thing that stands out the most is that the student never said they were undocumented and the teacher him/herself said that the student was not a citizen... nothing more (or less), but claims to be ok with immigration. k.

i especially love this part of rant:
"Nowhere did they sing it in Italian, Polish, Irish (Celtic), German or any other language because of immigration."

Oh how dare the anthem be sung in any language other than English! The effrontery!

And people just really don't know. I myself didn't know the intricacies of the whole process, how the situation is different for everyone. People really think that people come here to collect welfare and leech off people because that's what would make them happy. Of course, feeling like a capable, hard working person who is trying to take care of themselves and their own would make one miserable. One person replied to me saying that only 1% of illegal immigrants are contributing members of society and the other 99% are parasites. And they question my statistics. They don't know about aging-out; they don't know how backlogged all of it is.

I have talked to many online & have read a lot of comments from people who really really think that all that is stopping people like us from obtaining citizenship is our supposed laziness. They tell us we should go take citizenship classes and do it the right way. They really think we want to be in this situation as if it affords us rights and privileges that citizens don't get while not paying taxes, of course. They think that we are coasting.

I have to bite my tongue sometimes and just state the facts of my life, that I would love to be a contributing member of this society, have been in several ways, and would love the chance to have political recognition of what I already feel and am: American. You tell them stories about people in our situation who do contribute, who even fight for this country, and move on from the conversation, where too often people berate you as just a mere lawbreaker who is sucking this country dry.