No one checked to see if I had a place to live or food to eat, and at 14, I found myself basically on my own.

I feel like there's this misconception that immigrants come here and just don't care about the system and paying taxes, and that's not true. My father was desperately trying to be a legal contributor to this society.

When there are deportations, you better believe there are families involved - there are parents being separated from their children. It doesn't reflect our values as Americans, and I don't think it fixes the issue. I think there would be a lot of advantages to creating paths to citizenship for people who are already working here so they are contributing to our economy.

After a while, you're growing up so quickly and you begin to not know your parents anymore. You're left with the memories you had as a kid, but you're not a kid anymore and your experiences are separate. We are now much closer and communicate almost every day. It's a lot of work, but what holds us together is the hope that we will one day be together again.

I had dreams, but always told myself, 'Nah, that would never happen.' For a poor Latina, (acting) wasn't a reality.

No one checked to see if I had a place to live or food to eat, and at 14, I found myself basically on my own.

Since I went public with my story, I've never experienced such hate. I sometimes want to crawl under my blanket and hide forever and say, "No, that's some other girl who had an opinion." My blood has boiled a few times, but I just have to come back to earth and say people are entitled to their own opinions and I'm entitled to share my story the way I want. And that's exactly what I'm doing.