Jessica, a rising third year law student at Fordham University School of Law, is one of our summer associates. She is currently the Senior Notes Editor for the Fordham Journal of Corporate and Financial Law and a student attorney at the Immigrant Rights Clinic. Here she shares her family’s immigration story. 

As a child, being deemed an American seemed quite arbitrary in my young mind since it was bestowed upon me solely based on my mother's physical location when I was born. Though born and raised in the States, I frequently divided my years between the United States and Taiwan, where my parents had emigrated. My Taiwanese relatives often did the same, visiting the US every so often. Growing up as an American citizen amongst non-citizen friends and families invoked the ever slight feeling of guilt, yet also one of pride. Though at the time I could not fully comprehend why, non-citizens of the United States always wanted citizenship.