Thread: TX-SOB STORY FOR ILLEGAL - BECAME A LEGAL RESIDENT????

Another SOB story from the Houston Chronical to PUSH the DREAM ACT AMNESTY BILL. How did he become a "LEGAL RESIDENT" after entering the United States as an ILLEGAL. The same author has written an article yesterday PUSHING the DREAM ACT.

The act (DREAM ACT AMNESTY) was the only hope for Moreno until just recently, when he became a legal resident with the sponsorship of his resident sister, a registered nurse, and brother, a medical assistant.

A trumpet's note of hope in a mariachi opera
Student finds security with residence card, but it's a horn that may sound his future
By LISA FALKENBERG
Copyright 2010, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Dec. 6, 2010, 11:09PM



Mayra Beltran Houston Chronicle
Fabian Rivera, left, and David Moreno, both with Mariachi Aztlan from the University of Texas-Pan American, warm up before performing To Cross the Face of the Moon at Talento Bilingue de Houston.

The young mariachi — a trumpeter whose powerful vibrato bounds effortlessly from his wiry frame — isn't the star of this opera.

He blends into the arc of strings and brass and midnight blue, bejeweled charro suits accompanying the singers in the spotlight. But he finds his story center stage.

The Houston Grand Opera's production, To Cross the Face of the Moon or Cruzar la Cara del la Luna, touted as the world's first mariachi opera, captures a Mexican immigrant family's journey to Texas and the sacrifice and loss that come with it.

Without taking a stand on the politically charged topic, the opera humanizes members in our society often relegated to one dimension: hotel maid, landscaper, dark, wall-scaling figures in the stock footage that loops relentlessly on Fox News.

It's not an opera that allows the audience to melt lazily into cozy seats. It calls us to stand in uncomfortable shoes. To feel the art in reality's vivid relief.

David Moreno, a 20-year-old junior at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg and a member of the school's Mariachi Aztlan, didn't experience the tragedy of the family in the opera. (The main character, lured by the promise of more money to support his family, leaves them behind to work in Texas. His pregnant wife and their young son try to reunite with him, but the wife dies crossing the border.)

Moreno says he saw his parents in the characters' sacrifice and in their romantic ideals of what they hoped to achieve in America. Moreno came to Texas at age 5 on a vacation visa with his family and never left. He lived most of his life in fear of being found out, a captive of his undocumented status and the Valley checkpoints that locked the family away from the rest of the world.

"My threat every day was 'what if we got stopped?' My dad had to drive. And if we got stopped, they would take him away," Moreno told me in an interview Sunday before the opera's final performance at Talento Bilingue de Houston.

He has vague memories of the journey from Monterrey to El Norte and of the tears and hugs when the family reunited with mom in Rio Grande City. He remembers the one-room house his father paid for at first by mowing lawns on the owner's property. As a child, he recalls seeing his father rise before dawn and come home after dark, eking out a living with odd jobs: painting, plumbing, roofing. His mother would clean houses and babysit.

Seeking a way out
Moreno's first trumpet was a used horn rented from his sixth-grade band director. Music soon became his life, and also an escape from life, which was filled with daily struggles reminding him that even though he felt like and spoke like and dreamed like an American, in the eyes of the law and some of his classmates and teachers, he was an impostor.

As a teen, the talented musician, a three-time all-stater and drum major of the high school band, missed contests and his senior trip because he couldn't travel without papers. Without a driver's license and a Social Security card, he couldn't drive or find work. The family scrimped for every dollar. They'd walk into Wal-Mart with $10 to feed five people, Moreno says.

He eventually graduated from high school with honors and is now pursuing a music education degree at UTPA, with the hopes of teaching music or performing professionally. He's the kind of student the proposed DREAM Act was written for. The legislation would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who came as children, stayed out of trouble and attended college or joined the military.

It promises a way out of a kind of paperless purgatory. It promises a chance to become productive citizens, to work, to give back to a country that gave them so much. And, sadly, it promises to fall victim, once again, this week to the gridlock politics of Washington.

The act was the only hope for Moreno until just recently, when he became a legal resident with the sponsorship of his resident sister, a registered nurse, and brother, a medical assistant.

A safe crossing
Within a week of receiving his permanent resident card in the mail, Moreno boarded an airplane in October for the first time. He flew to Washington, D.C., to play for President Barack Obama at a ceremony for the signing of an education bill.

Earlier this month, on his trip to Houston to play in the opera, he approached the Border Patrol checkpoint in Falfurrias with an anticipation he'd never known. He showed his card. And he was allowed to continue on his way.

It's a line his parents still can't cross.

On the stage this weekend, Moreno watched the characters in the opera and thought of his parents. He wished they could be there. And in a way, they were.

Center stage.

lisa.falkenberg@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 27574.html

BOO FREAKING HOO CRY ME A RIVER. THIS DOES IN NO WAY TUG AT MY HEART STRINGS, NO NOT ONE SCINTILLA MILLIONS OF AMERICANS AND LEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE GOING THROUGH HARDSHIPS A LOT WORSE THAN THIS, AND THOSE WHO ARE PANDERING TO THESE ILLEGALS CHOOSE TO TURN A BLIND EYE TO THE SUFFERING OF THEIR OWN PEOPLE. THESE KIDS AND ADULTS HAVE NOBODY TO BLAME FOR THEIR PLIGHT BUT THEIR PARENTS! AND WE OWE THEM NOTHING.

Another sob story so the Elitists can push their agenda of Blanket Amnesty for their ILLEGALS via the DREAM ACT AMNESTY BILL. This article is a SOB story written as part of an organized campaign to generate support for more ILLEGALS to scurry across the border to the United States! The Elitist are no more concerned about these children then they are about United States Citizens; Just Follow the Money.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 27574.html

cry me a river .all of the amercian I know are going the same thing go back home .

So he claims to be ALLl American and a member of the Mariachi Aztlan Band. Yeah Right.

Bad News, many of the comments on the source article are Pro-ILLEGAL; the article is a SOB story written as part of an organized campaign to generate support for the DREAM ACT AMNESTY BILL! Of course we know Houston is a Sanctuary City and the Houston Chronical supports ILLEGALS.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 27574.html

Again, The DREAM Amnesty Act advocates IN-State tuition for ILLEGALS who now replace innocent American students in the limited seats in college at a time when over 10% of Americans are out of work and their families are struggling to train for new jobs and pay for college. Why would you support in-state tuition for the ILLEGALS that will attract more ILLEGALS to the United States and train ILLEGALS for jobs it is illegal for them to have. These students should go back to their HOME countries and stop draining our resources that could be used to assist United States Citizens and not the ILLEGALS! Just follow the money! The Elitist Politicians and their Elitist Political Contributors want to continue to have United States Citizens pay the benefits for their ILLEGALS while they continue to have their BOTTOM LINES increased at the taxpayer's expense!

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 27574.html

Originally Posted by USPatriot

So he claims to be ALLl American and a member of the Mariachi Aztlan Band. Yeah Right.

And you can bet they are not playing God bless America with their lame band. An opera about illegals crossing? Hey illegal, if you miss your mamasita and poppy so much, why not just take your used (sob) trumpet back to mexico. We dont like your idea of music anyway.