Reflective Essay: The Land Of The American Dream

It’s twelve o’clock, I can finally see land. I’ve been on this crowded boat for days. It reeks of garbage and odor down here. I hate the upper class. They have luxury rooms upstairs while we rot down here. But soon it will all be over, I’ll be in America, The Land of Dreams. Finally they dock the boats. There’s no windows down here, so I can’t see the ocean or the dream land. They haven’t let us upstairs since we got on the boat. After waiting for hours, the guard comes and gets us. I tell my brain to remind me to breathe as I walk up the stairs to the upper deck. As I see sunlight, Im flooded with emotions: Fear, hope, happiness and, sadness. I tried to remind myself everything would be better from here on out, but I was so wrong. I walked off the boat into a rustic, wooden house.

The began to separate us into small groups and detain us. One by one, they called us up and questioned us. I was one of the lucky ones, I learned English when I was only 5. Now being 18, I was fluent in the language. For the ones that didn’t speak English, it was very hard for them to answer basic questions. I sat in the room pondering every question they could possible ask me, just waiting to hear my name be called. My mind started to drift to my home country, Italy. In Italy there was a time of poverty we were trying to escape. Me and my family saved up just enough money to leave and we did. “Laura Ricco,” the guard called out. My train of thought sudden stopped and I was jerked back to reality. I stood up trying to avoid the hundreds of eyes on me. As I walked towards the table, and sat down. There was two men and a woman staring straight at me. I looked to my left and saw the line for the health check. A particular little girl caught my eye. She had long, curly brown hair. The women, during her health check, was holding scissors and cutting her