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accountant, but her low pay didn’t put food on the table nearly enough, so my parents ventured
out in hopes of the “American Dream.” We had a small house that was equal to the size of a
common living room area in homes you find in the United States. There were five of us,
including my grandma and older brother, living in the house. On many occasions my grandma
handed me the phone and told me it was my mother on the other end. I would listen to a
woman’s voice telling me she loved me. I would make out words to talk back, but I was too
young to realize who it was. For all I knew, my grandma was my mother.

Now, here we were more than twenty years later, and she was telling me how she had
missed the expiration date on our green cards. She also explained how long the application
process would take and mentioned that some men that had called her, and other important
information I should have been listening to. She talked loud and fast. I couldn’t grasp anything.
My phone had also slipped out of my hand. I heard her voice and a few key words here and
there, but I sat frozen. And I was really late to work, even though my car was parked in front of
the entrance. It was five years ago, in 2008, when I moved from my parents’ house in New
Jersey and ventured out to Georgia. I had started a life of my own. Flash forward to 2013, and
my mother called me with this curveball. I was twenty-six years old and happy in a respectful
relationship with my boyfriend. I had met his family, made memories, had promising plans. This
curveball not only affected me and my future, but it also affected him. I felt as if I had been
slapped with a note saying “just kidding” about my life.

It scared me further that I was about to deal with this mess without my parents’ guidance.
I imagined the fear factor wouldn’t be as intense if we worked as a team, but I lived in Georgia
and my parents were in New Jersey. I was independent and confident, but I wasn’t ready to fight

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