When I was in the tenth grade, a Jewish man visited my school to talk about his experiences during the Holocaust. However, his account of his time spent in the concentration camps was not what touched me the most. He related that when he was a young boy, he and his friends thought that in America money grew on trees. He said that growing up in Czechoslovakia, he always dreamed of coming to America and living the "American dream". I could see the tears well up in his eyes and could hear the tremble in his voice when he began to tell us how lucky we were to be born in the USA because "it is the best country in the world", quoted the Jewish man. That was the first time I realized how enormously blessed I am to be an American. I am so privileged to have never experienced the agony of persecution, the danger of combat, the loneliness of imprisonment, or the pangs of starvation.
English: Immigrants entering the United States thr...
English: Demonstration against the expulsion of wo...
Immigrant rights march for amnesty in downtown Los...Torture has never been something I worried about. I have a good house and plenty to eat. I can go to church/mosque/synagogue without worrying about getting arrested or harassed. I am attending college, majoring in Journalism, while millions of people can not even read. I own a computer, something that I view as a necessity, while countless others have never used or even seen one. Freedom of speech or access to clean water are inaccessible luxuries much of the world.
However, I feel these necessities should not have to be luxuries. We should be more open with our immigration so that we can share our wealth with the starving, our public education system with the illiterate and our health care with the sick. Everyone should be able to attend a religious gathering without...