There's no question that Camila Cabello has a pretty sweet life. She earned a spot on The X Factor when she was only a high schooler, which launched her music career with girl group Fifth Harmony. Cabello has since moved on to a hit-making solo career — complete with collaborations with artists including Machine Gun Kelly and Shawn Mendes — and officially achieved her dream of dominating the pop scene.
While the singer is at the top of her game right now, she wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth or any Hollywood connections. In a new interview with Glamour, Cabello, who moved from Cuba to the United States as a child, recalls a time when she had almost nothing.
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Cabello and her mother Sinuhe Estrabao sat down with Glamour to discuss the challenges of immigrating from another country, which Estrabao explains they did in order for Cabello to have a better life with more opportunities. The pair discuss how they had to struggle in order to stay financially afloat and how Cabello's father was unable to join his family in the United States until a year and a half after their initial move. The "Bad Things" singer admitted to Glamour that it wasn't always easy adjusting to her new life:
"A lot of things were suddenly so different — being at a new school without my friends, I didn’t speak the language, and I missed my dad," Cabello told Glamour. "I had a little Disney calendar I would mark with x’s until the day he was supposed to come. When he finally did, a year and a half later, I was so happy!"
Now, Cabello hopes she can inspire others going through the immigration process. The recent immigration bans and talk of a wall between the Mexico-United States border has certainly made some immigrants uneasy. She told Glamour that she plans to use her music to connect with those who are struggling:
"I want to make a love song for immigrants. That word, immigrant, has such a negative connotation — I can just imagine all the little girls who have dreams of coming here and feel unwanted. It inspires me in my music to do my best to give [them] the light that I have. I want to be what people think of when they think of America — a person who, no matter what her first language was or what her religion is, can see her dreams come to life if she works hard enough."
Get it, girl. It's about time someone reminded us that immigrants contribute a whole lot to the culture of the United States — and, in this case, insanely catchy pop hits.
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