Friday, November 26, 2010

Him Ranjit : “Fighting for Our Lives”

When we're fighting for our lives, 
we won't stop till we win.
My name is Him Ranjit. I'm a sophomore at UT-Austin. I am a
future engineer studying Biomedical Engineering and Government. I am an active student here in the UT community, involved in University Leadership Initiative, getting people out to vote and being involved in sports and other events. I am, by any means, very ordinary student like any of you; I study in PCL till late at night, work out in Gregory Gym, go to the football games, stay in long lines at Wendy's just to get my daily meals or just sleep in the couches of the Texas Union in between classes. I am very much like everybody in this university expect for a nine digit number.

More after the jump.

Even though I am an American by heart, I am undocumented by my status. I was 
raised in Euless, Texas, a city between Dallas and Ft. Worth since I was ten but I am originally from Nepal, a country squeezed between Indian and China. I grew up in 
this great country envisioning a great future as an American. But throughout the 
path to my dreams, I find roadblocks everywhere I go. 

From trying to get into a university to getting a drivers license to working part-timeto pay for school, I've had to go through obstacles because of my status and
sometimes not being able to do something that everybody else views as a given. 
The roadblocks aren't just structural; its hard being a undocumented student in the midst of American peers, to come out and explain your situation. But today I'm 
coming out as an undocumented student to say that we're tired of living in fear and more importantly, to urge the passage of the DREAM Act. 

As you've probably heard, Dream Act is a bill in congress that will give us an 
opportunity to be able to gain a pathway to legalization through military service or college education. This is a great bill to empower the students across, not just me, 
to stop living in fear and reach their potential by being integrated into the Americansociety. We have opposition to this bill that don't want the community to achieve its potential but we're fighting for something much greater than what opposition are 
fighting for; we're fighting for our lives. And when we're fighting for our lives, we won't stop till we win. 


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