Love, Hope and Borders

Towards the beginning of our relationship, Jose and I made a dinner reservation at Octane to tell my mom that he was undocumented. At the time, I was SO nervous to tell her. Looking back on it now, I don’t know why I was. My mom, a protective mama bear has always been concerned about my life and any hardships I may have to go through. Because of this, I think I was worried that she would realize the upcoming hurdles I would have to endure and I was hesitant to tell her about Jose because more than anything I wanted to stay in a relationship with him and I didn’t want her to say otherwise. Sometimes I overthink things, and this was definitely one of those times. We ended up nervously telling her over dinner, and she didn’t bat an eye. She thought we were crazy for being scared to talk to her about it.

In fact, my mom was the first one who knew I was falling in love with Jose before we even started dating.

Jose and I met at Rock Valley College in the Mass Communication Department. It was not love at first sight, but we instead grew fonder and fonder of each other each day, and then finally it came to a point where I knew I couldn’t live without him. One of our largest projects for Mass Comm was to create a live news show. Each student had to bring in people to interview and then move through the whole video and audio instruction. I brought my mom and aunt that day to be interviewed to talk about their roles as teachers. It was a bit overwhelming for me, and I was nervous. Jose was there for me during the entire show, and he made me realize that I could do it. He made me feel at ease. Afterward, my mom mentioned that my eyes were sparkling whenever I talked to Jose.

For one of Jose’s video projects, he informed the class that he was undocumented. I did not see the video, but I heard from other people in the class that he was not a US citizen. It didn’t concern me. I just knew that Jose was kind, passionate and handsome, and I was falling deeply in love with him. I also knew that if we were to start dating, I would do everything in my power to ensure he was protected. I’d be a warrior for him through and through. It was that simple. I fell in love with a great human, and nothing else mattered. And it’s true, mama bears know best– that sparkle in my eyes was really there, and I don’t think it’s ever gone away.