Everyone knows the United States of America as the land of the free.

It's a country full of promise and opportunity, a place where people can be whatever they want to be. It's also a second chance at getting life right.

It says so on the Statue of Liberty, whose pedestal contains a bronze plaque inscribed with a poem by Emma Lazarus:

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

These words undoubtedly have been repeated by millions of immigrants, both documented and undocumented. To me, in the end, it doesn't matter how you came here. It is what you do to better yourself and your family once you arrive that counts.

I am a first-generation American. And I owe that to my father, 36-year-old Juan Javier Serrano of Yakima.

My father left Mexico when he was 17. He was raised in a family of 14 children and began working at a very young age -- 5 years old -- helping out a shoemaker to help his own family.

When my grandfather was applying for his U.S. citizenship, he decided to also file for one of his kids. Out of 14 of them, he chose my father, who now works at a Yakima fruit-packing warehouse as the night shift manager.

My mother, Magdalena Serrano, also an immigrant from Mexico and now a U.S. citizen, attends college during the day in pursuit of a social work career.

It's because of my father's sweat, hard work and long hours of labor that my siblings and I had the best childhood, one of which any child would dream. I grew up with two loving parents and a chest filled with toys.

I owe my U.S. citizenship as well as my success to my father's decision to immigrate to the United States of America. My father gave me a very precious gift, the gift of life, a better life than the one he would have been able to offer me in his home country.

And I will continue my education as my father did and as do millions of immigrants, documented and undocumented, who continue to come to the United States to build better lives for themselves and their families.

Most immigrants leave their native countries due to dire circumstances. Picture this: a family of 10 with only one income of about $5 per day. This was Mireya Romero's life in Mexico.

Romero came to the U.S. from Mexico when she was 20. She had been working since she was 12. She left her homeland to find a more promising job so she could help her parents feed and clothe her brothers and sisters. She didn't believe assembling sunglasses for 12 hours a day for $3 was enough. Added to her father's pay, the large family lived on about $5 a day.

"I remember when I was younger in Mexico, all I wanted to buy was a stick of gum, but I couldn't even afford that," says Romero, who had heard wondrous stories about life in the U.S., stories such as making more than $100 a day picking apples.

Her cousins who had worked here made it seem, she says, as if there was money growing on trees. She quickly learned this wasn't the case. But she doesn't regret her decision to come here.

"I can't imagine myself back in Mexico anymore," she says. "My children were born here and their lives were started here, and this is their birthplace."

Now, the 38-year-old mother of two teenage boys lives a well-educated and established life in Yakima as a social worker. And now, she is able to purchase items she could only dream of back then, such as a car or computer of her own.

Argelia Perez, a 46-year-old student at Yakima Valley Community College, has a similar story. While her husband owned a pharmacy in Mexico, it didn't yield enough income to raise a family. So they came to the U.S. for a better life for their future family. Their two children were born in this country.

Perez and her husband were among the estimated 2.7 million who received lawful permanent residence, thanks to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

Like Romero, Perez says she doesn't regret her decision to leave her homeland. It's because of that decision, she says, that her teenage kids now have a better and brighter future.

Fifteen-year-old Maria Jin, a junior at Yakima's La Salle High School, expresses gratitude toward her parents for immigrating to the United States. Jin was born in Korea, where she lived until she was 6 years old. Her mother obtained a student visa, which allowed Jin's family to live in the U.S.

"It wasn't always easy," Jin says. "I remember just wanting to be like all the other kids. I didn't want them to look at me and treat me different just because I didn't eat, talk, or look like them. After all, I was just a kid."

Coming here often means leaving everything behind.

"I had to start all over again," says 63-year-old Marta Wilson, who moved here from Nicaragua, where she had been a teacher for 25 years.

But once she arrived in California, she had to go back to school. She started by volunteering at her kids' schools, then earning her associate's degree and becoming a teacher's assistant. Now she is a certified teacher and is in the process of becoming an American citizen.

According to U.S. Census Bureau, 700,000 to 800,000 undocumented immigrants settle in the U.S. each year. And an estimated 8 million to 11 million undocumented immigrants are currently living in the United States.

Bruce Lloyd is the spokesman for the local chapter of the Minutemen, a national organization that has volunteers patrolling U.S. borders and reporting illegal activity to federal law enforcement officials. Members of the group routinely speak out against illegal immigration.

Lloyd says he supports legal immigration: "I'd lay my life on the line for all those who actually do want to become legal, educated citizens," he says. "Those are the sort of people who we want and need in our country and they have my respect."

Daniel Perez, a 50-year-old Seattle-based outreach coordinator for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, assists immigrants from at least 100 different countries each year. He estimates 85 percent of the people he interviews express being treated unfairly at their work place, in school and in stores.

People seek out Perez because they feel they've been discriminated against because of their race or legal status. And as they go to him, the tired, poor, homeless huddled masses -- like my father and his father before him -- continue to cross the border.

No matter how many barriers the U.S government builds, no matter the obstacles, no matter the struggles, documented and undocumented immigrants will continue to come here.

Their desire for a better life is more powerful than any barrier.

* Jessica Serrano attends La Salle High School.