Mo Abdollahi
Monday, May 17, 2010
The Dream is Coming

My name is Mo Abdollahi, and I am an undocumented immigrant.

I have known for a long time that I am undocumented. I have also known, for a long time, that I cannot return to Iran, the country of my birth. There are many reasons for this- the most important of which is because America is my home- but one major reason is because I am gay. In Iran, capital punishment is the penalty for homosexuality.


After high school I worked to save enough money to pay out-of-state tuition. When I had enough community college credits to transfer, I applied to Eastern Michigan
University. I sat in the counselor’s office, handed him my transcript, and he told me, “Mohammad, you are the kind of student we want at this university.” He then handed me an acceptance letter. I was in.


I looked at this letter and thought of my mother. With this piece of paper, I could go to my mother and tell her that she didn’t have to stay up late crying anymore, that she didn’t have to blame herself anymore, that she hadn’t done her children wrong by bringing them to this country. I could tell her it was all worth it. Then, the counselor brought back his supervisor, who told me that they could not accept me because I “needed to be in a line to get in”. The counselor then reached over his desk and took my acceptance letter from me.


I left. My future was being held hostage. A short time later, the DREAM Act came up for a vote in the senate, and 44 other people decided that they too were going to hold my future hostage. Three years later, my future and many others are still being held hostage as we fight to pass the DREAM Act. Join us.


■Graduate of Washtenaw College, Associate’s Degree, Health and Human Services
■Co-­‐Founder, www.DREAMActivist.org
■Co-­‐Founder, ONEMichigan, coalition of Michigan organizations
Follow Mo!
Facebook: Mohammad Abdollahi
Twitter: @midreamact
Country of Origin: Iran
Current City: Ann Arbor
Age: 24

link to http://www.thedreamiscoming.com/2010/05/17/mo-abdollahi/