I used to wonder
About dreams and reality,
I think the difference lies
Between papers and illegality.

I used to wonder
About them and us,
I think that is something
We don’t really need to discuss.

Now I wonder
About that wall,
And I ask myself
Does it need to be so tall?

Tonight I wonder
As I lay in bed,
If I’ll be next
Or if my parents will be gone instead.

To find inspiration for this poem, I simply flipped through my copy of Selected Poems of Langston Hughes to find a poem that struck me. I immediately saw “Border Line,” and reading it reminded me of the ongoing immigration crisis in America. I recalled the nearly 700,000 DACA recipients who live in constant fear of deportation because they trusted the US government to continue protecting them. Now, our government has walked back on that promise and is only one judge away from deporting the DREAMers en masse.

In my poem, I was sure to keep the same rhyme structure and questioning attitude as Hughes. I also tried to use some of his language to heighten the sense of confusion, discomfort, and terror felt by the speaker. I intend the audience of this poem to be any American. I hope that anyone who reads this poem comes away with a fuller understanding of the fear that DREAMers go to bed with every night, not knowing if, when they wake up, they will be ripped out of their home and sent to a country that they’ve never known.

My illustration also expresses this point with a jumbled mess of lines and shapes surrounding two words, “papers” and “wall”. There is often confusion and uncertainty as to what the future will bear. Will the speaker receive their papers and became a legal resident? Will the wall be built, symbolizing American isolationism and exclusion? Will the speaker get thrown out of the country altogether when they wake up in the morning?