The Dreamer

I wrote this song with Jackson Browne about the Dreamers, the young people whose futures are stuck in limbo because of their immigration status. Many in America see immigration as a simple issue of law and order. They say these young people must face the consequences of their parents’ choices, and must not be allowed to live and dream here, in what is often the only land they know. 

But “law and order” is far from simple.

People migrate in response to economic and political conditions far bigger than themselves. Global economic trends, government corruption, political intransigence and misplaced ideology are all at play. And there is a great amount of money at stake.

Yet the immigrants, the most vulnerable pieces of this enormous puzzle, are condemned as the transgressors – the “illegals.” No one brands corporations, politicians, small businesses and homeowners as “illegal” for perpetuating and profiting from undocumented labor.  The immigrants themselves are the scapegoats in an unjust system with no shortage of the complicit. 

This is because they are perceived, wrongly, as “the other.”

At Los Cenzontles Cultural Academy in San Pablo, Calif., we have witnessed beautiful, motivated American children, our students, forced to return to Mexico because a hard-working mother or father was deported.  We know talented, committed, culturally American young adults whose vast potential is cut short because as small children they arrived to the United States without papers.  In any other time, these young people would be deemed ideal American youth.

They are not the other. They are us. 

The Dreamer

Just a child when she crossed the border
To reunite with her father
Who traveled north to support her
So many years before

Left half her family behind her
A crucifix to remind her
She pledged allegiance to this land
And does the best that she can do

A donde van los sueños (Where do the dreams go)
Nacidos de la fe y la ilusión (Born of faith and hope)
Donde no hay camino ni huella (Where there is no road nor footprint)
Solo deseos en el corazón (Only desires of the heart)

Eagles fly up on columns of the wind
Fish swim currents of the sea
So people's lives glide through rivers of their dreams
In their desire to be free

Today she just got the order
They're taking steps to deport her
Her heart is trembling with the fear

That she can't make it anymore

We dam the waters around us
Pollute the air that surrounds us
But the walls we build between us
Cement the walls within our hearts

A donde van los sueños (Where do the dreams go)
Nacidos de la fe y la ilusión (Born of faith and hope)
Donde no hay camino ni huella (Where there is no road nor footprint)
Solo deseos en el corazón (Only desires of the heart)