I don't necessarily know how to start with this. There are many things to say a talk about so I'll just go ahead and start.

My name is Luis Antonio Salazar Rodriguez or just Luis Salazar for short. Many things happened that lead to my family deciding that we needed to move here to the United States.

I all mainly started on May 10th in Mexico, and that was the day that we celebrated Mother's Day. My dad and I had decided on a present for my mom that I would give her.

My school had decided to make a little celebration for Mother's Day, that's why we bought the presents. I remember that day almost perfectly. We had dressed up nicely in our little cowboy hats and boots. There were chairs around a big court that we used for basketball and probably soccer. I remember how we danced and performed for our parents and guests.

I also remember how at some point, a rumor started going around that the Zetas, which were a powerful and dangerous gang, were coming over and were going to take over the town.

Because of that rumor, people started to panic until eventually everyone started to just run out of the school and head to their house because they did not want to be caught up in a gunfight.

I remember how we had to turn off all the light in the house, how a truck parked right outside my grandmother's house. Then my dad climbed to the roof to hear what they were talking about.

When my dad came down from the roof, he told us that he overheard them talking about kidnapping a woman inside the house. I would later find out that they were talking about my mother. We had to scale a wall that was behind the house and stayed in the house of one of our neighbors.

The next day, one of our relatives came to get us early in the morning and we decided to escape to the United States.

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My mom and dad along with my third younger brother were the first to come to the united states. I don't remember where I stayed during that time. But I do remember the journey that we took to get here.

It was just my younger brother, my cousin, and me that we're heading to the US this time. We were pretty much smuggled inside. Two women picked us up and took us through the border. I remember that they told us to just pretend to be asleep, which I believe I did a terrible job at.

After we passed, we opened our eyes and we passed the checkpoint. After that, we had to stay at their house for the night. I remember how we three slept at the corner together and fell asleep.

When we woke up the next day, we were taken to the house of this old man in a city. Which is where my mom was waiting for us. After that, we were taken to where we would be staying for a while. I remember that place well. We stayed in a room where there were two beds, the one that my mom and dad slept in had a frame which was pushed beside a wall, while the one I and my brother slept in was just the mattress and was beside my parent's bed forming an "L" shape together.

I remember one night well, which is when my father asked me at night in the dark when we were all going to sleep if I would accept him as my father. I didn't understand that real meaning behind the question, since he was with my mom then in my eyes he was my dad. So I just responded with a simple "yeah." That room was also where I first broke a bone in my life.

I remember that after we had to move from there and on our way to North Carolina, we had to sleep on the floor with just our blankets for a long time. Though I never really thought too much about it.

After all of that, many things happened that led to the point where I am today. We moved through a couple of houses and sometimes we barely had money to put any food on the table. I remember that my mom once told me that she sometimes that to make a budget in order to stretch out 200$ throughout the week.

I love my parents, and they have sacrificed literally almost everything for me, and for that, I will be forever grateful.

I want to say that I love my country Mexico. It is a beautiful country and I am proud to be a Mexican. But I also acknowledge the dangers that are within it as well as the dangers that my family face and will face if we stay there. I also acknowledge the beauty and greatness of the United States and I would love to stay here as a citizen.

We as immigrants know that what we are doing is wrong and that we should not be here. Trust me when I say that all that we want is to go back home and stay with our family, our grandparents, mothers, fathers, aunts, and all of our family. But the dangers that we will face, our children will face, and the things that we will be exposed to again are very frightening and dangerous that we chose not to go back.

Though nothing stays the same forever, there may be a change in our country that will make it better and we can go back. Many things can happen in one day and we have been waiting for a couple of years. Nothing is set in stone and things can still change. We are not dead and our story is not over, so we will keep on fighting and surviving.

For as long as there is life, there is always hope. Which is something that we have always had, and will continue to hold on to until we die.