Harvest Happenings – March 2023 – Cross Timbers Gazette | Southern Denton County | Flower Mound

Harvest is a community stuffed with people from all walks of life. We really like celebrating our neighbors and discovering their story. We lately were being capable to celebrate Harvest neighbor Joel Dominguez as he turned a United States citizen! The joy on his experience and how proud he is to lastly be an American renewed my adore of state. The problem of immigration stirs intense thoughts, but Joel’s journey to citizenship is value sharing. I questioned him to share just a small of his tale:

“On January 26, 2023, I grew to become a United States Citizen! It was a day that I have dreamt about for so quite a few many years, 23 to be precise. I am so grateful to God and for the opportunity to grow up in this terrific region. My mother and father separated and my mom determined to go to the United States to start a new lifetime and provide a greater foreseeable future for me and my brother. Numerous a long time experienced handed when my mom questioned if I wished to live with her. I was only 13 when I remaining Mexico. I did not entirely comprehend the journey I was about to go on nor did I notice that I would under no circumstances see my father all over again. He passed absent a few decades afterwards. My journey, just like many other immigrants, was difficult. My mother defined to me that somebody would choose me up and smuggle me into the United States. This was the only way for me to get to my mother. As difficult as it was for me to depart my hometown, family and buddies, I remaining with hopes just like quite a few other immigrants…to have greater lifetime. I witnessed and expert so numerous issues that I experienced by no means been uncovered to at the time I arrived at the border. The method of crossing undocumented was incredibly tough as you can picture. I swam across the Rio Grande, walked overnight for many hours, and was put in the trunk of a auto for a extensive trip. I was frightened, worn out, and hungry. I actually didn’t imagine I was likely to make it. God gave me strength. He guided and safeguarded me. I was ultimately reunited with my mother and started out my new existence in The usa. Hunting back, it’s challenging to consider I survived that at these kinds of as young age. Thanks to DACA (Deferred Motion for Childhood Arrivals), I was equipped to uncover aid from deportation and was allowed to work lawfully. This was a blessing but a short term option. A couple of yrs soon after my wife and I were married, we started the immigration approach to get my green card. The system to develop into a United States citizen is a very long a single. It was only lately that I was finally able to qualify for citizenship. Citizenship has been a thing my wife and have prayed for in the previous 10 a long time of our marriage. I am so grateful for the existence I have in this state with my spouse and children and that my kids will hardly ever have to go through what I experienced to in buy to turn into a United States citizen. I am so psyched to be ready to be a part of them in singing, “I am proud to be an American wherever at least I know I’m free…” and I am energized to ultimately be able to vote!” 

I am grateful for Joel and his relatives and the willingness to share his tale. I hope his vulnerability and his appreciate of this country, evokes and revives your patriotic spirit.