Everyone, meet Pedro. Pedro was born in Mexico, but at the ripe old age of thirty two, he decided that Mexico just wasn’t he felt it should be, and decided that he and his young family should seek refuge elsewhere. Pedro settled on the United States of America, the land of opportunity, freedom, and life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness- and anyway, it was right upstairs. Unfortunately, Pedro decided that, instead of simply crawling under a fence, that it was necessary to actually fill out all of those emigration papers. After a few short years on the waiting list, Pedro was finally able to move to Texas, only a few miles away from Mexico and where almost everybody spoke Spanish (he had spent all that money on English language lessons, but it was a relief knowing that his precaution was just that, a precaution) - and now, Pedro is living the American dream.

Before Pedro moved to America, he and his family were struggling. He worked hard, but he could still barely feed his family and pay the bills in the same month. He had lived in a small, dirty house that everyone hated, but they held on to it, thinking that if they could only get to America, then everything would be okay.

Despite some troubles, his new life in America was much preferable to his old one in Mexico. Indeed, everyone spoke Spanish to him, and he hadn’t spoken a word of English since crossing the border; why, the only sign at all that they were not in Mexico was that the street signs were in English! It started off small- he managed to rent an apartment until they were able to scrape up enough money to buy a house. However, he found that his minimum wage cashier job just wasn’t cutting it, so he took another one. As his days grew longer, he couldn’t help but think of how lucky he was- he would have been hard-pressed to find that many jobs in Mexico.

Eventually, they managed to raise enough money to buy a house. It was smaller than their house back in Mexico, but that was fine, it only meant that their utility bills would be lower. Their neighbors were fantastic; they always got out of his way when he was coming down the street. Pedro was also very pleased with his children, too, as they were getting nearly half of the answers right on every assignment! Pedro was especially proud of his eldest son- as he grew older, he joined a gang. Pedro liked knowing that his son was surrounded by so many friends, and he could tell that his son was happy, too; Pedro often caught him coming home at night, so happy he couldn’t walk in a straight line, or even remember who he was! Yes, it was the good life in America, and with every passing day it was getting better.