I first heard about the DREAM Act in 2002. I was just about to graduate from high school, and the immigration lawyer my father had hired mentioned it off handedly to him. I remember using internet search engines to research some information about it, but at that time there was very little information online.

Many months later, as a freshman in college, again I typed DREAM Act into an internet search engine and I discovered the Coalition of Student Advocates (CoSA) web forum, which has recently shutdown.

I found a lot of information on CoSA, but I was still very naïve about exactly all the hurdles a new bill must go through to become a law. This topic had barely been covered in high school, and it had been ages since I had watched School House Rock's "How a Bill Becomes a Law."

At the time I was confident that by the end of my sophomore year in college, DREAM Act would have passed and I would have my driver's license. Then that quickly changed to by my senior year of college. After graduating college I was very hopeful that this would be the year that DREAM Act would pass. I figured it had to because I had a degree and I couldn't work, and that life really couldn't be that unfair. I was wrong. So now it is 2008, and in the fall I will be beginning graduate school. Now my new expectation is that by the time I graduate with my Masters degree that DREAM Act will have become law.

Immigration advocates and DREAMERS have had to have a lot of patience over the years. It's hard to not allow your hope to pursue your dreams to soar every time you hear positive news about DREAM Act or rumors that it might be attached to another piece of legislation, even after having your hopes crushed year after year.

Our continued hope for the future always reminds me of a line in the song, "How I Know You" in the Broadway Musical, Aida: "I never have abandoned and nor I think could you; that spark of hope for freedom, no terror can subdue."

Lastly I'd like to post the lyrics from the song "Patience" from the movie Dreamgirls. We have had to have an immeasurable amount of patience, and this song puts that very feeling into words.

Patience, Little Brothers
Until that morning of a Brighter Day
Patience, Patience
'Til that Brighter Day
Patience, Patience
'Til that Brighter Day