Immigrant Heritage Month: 'Devious Maids' Star Dania Ramirez Talks Coming to the US at 6 Months Old, Being a Productive Member of Society [Watch]
"Devious Minds" actress Dania Ramirez spoke with MSNBC's Jose Díaz-Balart at the start of Immigration Heritage Month, which officially kicked off in June, about her experience coming to America as a 6-month-old child and the things her family has endured.
She chronicled her family's journey, through interviews, from the Dominican Republic to America in a documentary called "An American Alien." Footage of that video, as evidenced in the interview, shows how her mother sacrificed for her and the rest of their family, in an emotional segment of the film.
See the video below.
"Our American dream is in you ... But it was hard to leave you in our country to come here by ourselves," Ramirez's mother said in Spanish, according to NBC News.
The emotional video not only speaks volumes about what she went through, but the expressions evident on her face as well as Dania's prove the struggle is real.
Current statistics show that there are roughly 41.3 million immigrants in the United States. That number makes up about 13 percent of the U.S. population, which is more than 300 million.
"As American citizens now and as new generations of Americans it is super important to embrace the fact that America is built on immigrants, that this work ethic they instilled within us matters," Ramirez told MSNBC's Díaz-Balart. "I'm a mother now and I cannot even fathom the thought of leaving my kids even for a few days."
Global Grind reports that the documentary was directed by Ramirez herself along with Bev Land. It features the actress in the streets of New York interviewing family members in a neighborhood.
She also questioned her mother about possibly regretting leaving her sisters in the Dominican Republic, but her mother tearfully replies that she does not regret it because they made it there. She said she came here for Dania to achieve the American Dream.
There is often a stereotype associated with immigrants, as if they do nothing to make society any better.
"The misconception of an immigrant in America is that we're not productive members of society. I'm an immigrant, my parents are immigrants, my entire family are immigrants, and we came here for work," Ramirez said in the documentary.
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