Monday´s in my new life

Monday, September 5, 2011

Monday’s are tough, I am reminded that people go back to work and kids go back to school but I am also reminded that my life is on hold.  There is no job for me to get back to and there are no kids for me to take to school.  My days are filled with loneliness and silence, lots of silence.  For the most part it is only grandma, grandpa and I who are home all day.  I have an ogre aunt who lives here but she heads off to work 6 am - 4 pm and when she gets home, she is too busy hating life and her own parents to talk to anyone.  So for the most part, when she is home she moves through out the house like a ghost.  When he’s not gone, off to find the next breakthrough in the world of chronology Grandpa locks himself in his study to read all day.  Grandma and I gather for meals and “novelas” and laugh about days passed.  I must get used to my new life and the silence that comes with it.  Gone are the days when my days were filled with screaming girls finding a place to hide as they were playing, gone are the days filled with work and chores, gone are the days of joining my girlfriends for drinks and having dinner at Chanchos house.  I must accept my fate and my new life.

My return

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Family gathers once again and everyone has questions, Y are you back? Did you get your papers?  I want to crawl in a hole and die.  I know they mean well and they are just curious about this process I am going through but their questions cut through like knives.  Why am I back?  Shouldn’t I be home with my husband, enjoying being a newlywed?  I find it hard to answer their questions with the not I have in my throat.  A stay strong and pray that I don’t break out in tears when I reply that I was told to wait three weeks or less for a reply.  Every one has more questions and I answer them to the best of my ability.  This is not an easy process and every day I remain in Mexico feels like I am further and further away from being home.  I try to make the best out of a long day with family and questions, lots of questions.  The men leave and the women gather to talk and laugh.  As I look around the circle I try to draw strength from all the wonderful women around me.  Life hasn’t been easy for any of them either and although we focus on the things that affect us I am glad to be in a place with “mujeres” that I can learn from and share with the time I have here.    

The fair comes to town.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Since I have returned to Ojo the town has been buzzing with life.  They have been setting up for the local fair all week and food, candy, clothing and toy stands start to go up everywhere.  As I walk through the streets on my way to buy groceries I feel the place come alive.  I want to feel the same way but its hard when I am so far away from the things that make me feel alive.  I feel a bit in the dumps lately and I must look it because aunt Ruth comes over to invite me to go with her to listen to music and watch performances in the town square.  I need something to keep my mind occupied and so I agree.  We watch musicians sing, dance and watch as they announce the fair’s queen and her court.  Everyone in town is out to witness the event and the town square is crowded with people wanting to get a glimpse at the royal court.  I watch because have to and because I am there but I can not find joy in the things I do lately.  I need a pick me up and maybe a call from my husband will help.  At 9:30 pm I excuse myself and let my aunt know I have to head home for my 10 pm call from home.  The call comes in and I fall apart, some days are better than other and today is one of those “less than better” ones.  I love you honey, thanks for reminding me that I have a beautiful life to come home to.  

AB 540 Students: Me

Friday, September 2, 2011

The past calls me today and I am quickly reminded that I have so much left to do in this world.  As the phone rings I am sure it is my husband calling, since I left home the only time my cell rings is when it’s him.  I am surprised when I hear a former colleague on the other end.  I have always been passionate about helping people especially young people like me.  Helping AB 540 students are what truly drive me.  Although an AB540 student myself I like to pass on the knowledge I have learned and motivate young people to keep their heads up and continue on this very difficult journey.  I feel like if they can see one person in their situation succeeding maybe they can believe it for themselves.  During my life in the U.S., I made it my business to be the person people called in my town to ask about AB540 students and ask how to help them.  I created power point presentation and packets to hand out and offered myself as a resource any time.  A few months before I was banished to Mexico I had made a very sad presentation to a group of about 75 bright and talented community college students.  Some of them were valedictorians and most of them were in the top percentiles in their high schools.  Students that could have been at some the country’s best schools but because they were “undocumented” they were left to attend the only affordable form of education, community college.  A teacher and part time counselor at the community college had heard about me and asked me to speak to these students.  Because of their intelligence and grades the school offered them a one year full scholarship for tuition and books but after the first year it was up to each student to pay for school.  The group had about 140+ students and she said that she would excuse the students and only the AB540 students would remain.  More than half of the room stayed to hear my lecture.  As I looked around the room the fear set in, they were looking at me hopeful that I had the answers to their problem.  Who did I think I was?  How did I ever think I could help them when I could barely help myself?  There were so many of them and it reminded me of how lonely I was when I thought I was the only one.  Here there was a room full of students in the same situation and all they could do was comfort each others pain because they could not be any more help to each other than I was now to them. 

I delivered my presentation and handed out the work that I have so diligently gathered over the last 10 years.  People were in tears and everyone was thankful.  I handed out my home made business cards to more students than I care to remember and everyone wanted to share their stories of triumph and failure.  We were all victims of the same situation and now were there to help each other heal.  The teacher that invited me was also very thankful and asked me to send her all the information I had delivered so she could continue to help students like us.  I emailed them to her on the spot, thanked her myself and wished her well.  Today, months after that presentation she was calling me to ask me to send her the information again.  She had transferred to a different community college and wanted to help other AB540 students there; she no longer had her previous email and was anxious for me to resend her the information.  I explained to her that I was in Mexico and was not sure I had access her to that information since I keep it in my hard drive at home.  I promised her to look in my email the next time I was at the internet café and send her what I could.  Once again we thanked each other; she wished me well and said she would keep me in her prayers in hope of a speedy return “home”.  Her call reminded me that I have so much left to do in this world.  That being undocumented is like having a scar or a tattoo you can’t get rid of.  You can try but the, scar or the ink will never truly fade and even after I have “papers” the pain and trauma will always remain with them, it is what drives me.  Thanks for the call Terrie it brought more hope than you know.  

Who´s taking care of who?

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Early in the morning Grandma let me know that she needed to go to a doctors appointment in Zacatecas.  Like most of the women in my family she is strong and stubborn, usually this is a trip that she takes alone but today I think in part for fear of the rain she said if I wanted to come I could.  I quickly rose to my feet and changed for fear that she would change her mind.  While I have stayed here I have noticed how sad life is for my grandparents and perhaps maybe most older people their age.  After 16 children and countless grand and great children I find that my grandmother in Ojocaliente is one of the loneliest women I know.  She is wise and independent and although my grandfather is still alive she would rather bury her head in shame before she asked a man for anything.  I notice how my aunts and uncles including my own father can go weeks without calling her and just asking how she is.  I lower my head in shame for not being a better grandchild.  Every morning she wakes up at 5:30 am (6 at the very latest) and begins her routine chores of sweeping and mopping every room in the house.  On Monday’s she does laundry (by hand) and on Tuesday she shops for groceries.  She is a small and frail woman who otherwise would be sitting in a chair rocking her tiered 76 year old body.  Grandma suffers from countless ailments that you would neither think nor believe.  Mainly it is hear weak heart that has everyone worried although not worried enough to stop giving her grief. 

We walk quickly to the bus and make our way into the big city.  I am happy, excited and scared to take this trip with grandma mainly because I so rarely get to just spend time with her.  She’s always coming or going, cleaning or cooking something somewhere.  Even when we are alone in the house I can go hours without seeing her.  The part that is scared is afraid that she would slip and fall while under my watch, or that something would happen to her and I would not know what to do to help her.  I gather my strength and hope that everything will go well today.  We sit and talk on the bus, about the people getting on, the weather and the city.  She hates traffic and at her age would really rather not have to deal with people, if it were up to her she would be perfectly content staying home and never seeing another soul.  A taxi takes us from the bus terminal to the doctor’s office where we wait for her to be seen.  There was rain in the city right before we arrived and the hospital is quickly trying to run on its generators.  It is dark when we get there and soon enough the elevators and the offices are filled with electricity.  I say a little prayer hoping we make it home before the rain catches up to us.  I might have a heart attack if I have to walk with grandma in the rain, she might fall or worst get wet and sick.  As quickly as we arrive she is dismissed.  It took us longer to get here and wait than what the doctor took to see her.  Grandma explains that she is upset they switched her doctor and she will surely be calling someone to let them know how upset she was.  I smile at her spunk and glad that I have some of her in me.  I ask her what the doctor said and she is quick to remind me that “it’s none of my business”.  I tell her I love her and that I want to make sure she’s ok and that it is my business but “children shouldn’t get involved in grown folks business”.  It’s the first time I actually feel like a kid at 31.  We go downstairs to the pharmacy were they fill her grocery bag with medications.  I am worried that they are over medicating her but she says that at her age, it is the medicine that is the glue holding her body together.  We’re back in a cab and on our way to the bus station to catch the next bus back to Ojocaliente.  Back on the bus hopeful that we can make it home before the storm, I can see the storm clouds chasing as the bus moves forward and I pray that the bus makes it there quickly.  Off the bus and quickly home, we aren’t home but 5 minutes before the storm comes in with a vengeance.  Grandma calls me into her room and thanks me for accompanying her, she says she was worried that I wouldn’t get out of my pajamas if I hadn’t gone and that she wanted to take care of me while I am sad and away from my family.  Here I was worried about her and it was grandma who was taking care of me today.  

Hardworking

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Today, as I purchased groceries I was mad because I had nothing left over to tip my bagboy.  Here in Mexico, those who can work and those who cant try.  I am surrounded by disabled men selling me candy at every bus stop, women selling me their home made goods at every street corner and children bagging my groceries at the store.  When I first got here part of me, like my husband did a double take at the children lined up that cash registers waiting to bag your groceries in hope of a small tip.  Sometimes 7 maybe 8 years old it is expected that when needed and while not in school even the smallest members of a family contribute to its well being and sometimes it’s a parents way of teaching morals, values and most important the value of money.  The American part of me (because after 23 years I feel like I have one) wants to detest the fact that small children are working like that, but the Mexican part of me (the part that still has memories of being a child here) is also proud of the way my people rise to the need. 

 

In the U.S. people like me and my family are described as thieves and criminals.  Often being accused of taking “American jobs” when in fact most often it is us who do the jobs Americans aren’t willing to do.  I’ve seen Americans holding signs that read “will work for food” and “why lie, need beer” while brown people like me stand on the side of the roads selling flowers and oranges.  We are criticized for selling those items but what no one stops to notice is that as a culture we are taught to work.  For better or worst we are taught we can’t get ahead in life unless we work.  Glen Beck talks about what a drain we are on the U.S. when in fact immigrants do not qualify for any social services, not Medical or Medicaid, not Unemployment and certainly not Welfare like people scream about.  If people stopped and thought about it, you need social security numbers in order to access these services.  When you are undocumented you do not have a social security number.  However, undocumented workers pay into all these systems even when they work illegally.  Employers must remove a Social Security tax, state taxes, federal taxes and medical taxes.  If you contribute to these systems but cant access them, what happens to all that money?  The truth is that the U.S. needs us as much as we need the U.S.  That money goes unclaimed and benefits those “citizens” who can access the services.  At the end of the year the IRS takes its share as well.  Undocumented or not the IRS wants its share and they even provide a Tax Payer Identification Number (TIN) so that no person gets away without paying their share of taxes.  Of course like in any country there are those individuals who take advantage of the systems and just like there are undocumented people who may take part of systems that don’t apply to them there are plenty of citizens who do the same.  I know plenty of “citizens” who rather than go back to work in a minimum wage job will take all the unemployment money the government will give them.  Once exhausted they scream and bitch, complain and blame for not having the benefits anymore.  I know this to be a fact because I know some of those people personally.  Then when there are actual needy individuals they are short changed, given the run around and scrutinized for needing the services.  There are good and not so good people who take use services wisely and those who take advantage of it.  Should we devalue those who need it because of those who exploit it?  Last I checked it’s the U.S. where you are innocent until proven guilty.  Unless you need welfare or an unemployed, then you must be punished for being poor.

Fireworks at dawn

Tuesday, August 30, 2100

Although I didn’t sleep much today I was rudely awaken by the sound of what I thought were bombs going off.  It was 5 am when I heard the loud boom’s and shot out of bed myself.  Alone in the dark I sat on my bed shaking because I thought it was the sound of violence.  The sounds were so close that I was sure the violence was just around the corner.  After a few minutes of silence in my room and refocusing my eyes and my ears I noticed that my dark room was suddenly filled with light right before the boom’s, I gathered enough courage to go to the door to find that the sound was coming from fire works.  On the other side of the wall they were setting off fire works.  A single firework every minute for twelve minutes straight followed by two double fire works and one triple firework signifying 15 minutes had passed.  This went on for an hour as I stood in the doorway alone in silence.  We had heard the fireworks before but they always sounded far away, today they were on our street right behind the wall of the house.  In the dead of night the house lit up with the lights from the fireworks one by one they welcomed in the morning.  

Delia´s Crossing

Monday, August 29, 2011

I am back to doing nothing, the days are long and monotonous.  I finished reading the book E sent me and was excited and sad to have finished it.  When he first told me he was sending me a fiction book I wasn’t thrilled about the matter since I am an avid reader but don’t care much for fiction.  I read it partly because my husband had been considerate enough to send me a book and partly because I need things that will help the time pass a little faster.  Fate had it in its path to send this book my way.  The story is of a young girl who lives in Mexico after the death of her parents in a car accident she is sent to live with her well off aunt in Palm Springs California.  When she arrives to the U.S. she is faced with the hardships of adapting to a new place with new people and a language she is not familiar with.  She experiences hardships beyond belief and eventually decides to head back to Mexico to be with her very poor and ailing grandmother, only to arrive to the sad fate that her grandmother had died during her journey home.  There were so many ways in which I related to the main character Delia and hope that like her, I too can find strength and my way “home”.

“This walk I began with my grandmother was the start of a long journey that would take me from my home and my friends in ways I could never have imagined.  I was kidnapped by cruel fate and condemned to be a prisoner of destiny beyond my control.  Even the simplest choice would be denied me.  I would loose everything…Essentially, when I left here, all I would have would be my name, Delia Yebarra, and even keeping that would become a challenge.”

-V.C. Andrews, Delia’s Crossing

First Wedding Anniversary

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Arrived in Ojo around noon and was a total emotional wreck, our first wedding Anniversary and I am not there.  Sometimes, some of us spend an entire lifetime looking for a partner who will love us and share with us life in its all agony and glory and when I finally found that person I am told I must be punished for finding him.  I am tiered from all the traveling and emotionally weak.  My grandmother and aunts come out to greet me but I don’t want to look at them for fear that I will begin to cry.  I yearn to be in my husbands arms and to hold him once again.  I keep asking myself how we could be apart on our first wedding anniversary.  I know it’s all my fault and I need to cry even more, but there is no time for crying because I must change and be ready for church in less than 20 minutes.  I am happy to have a distraction, I quickly change and out the door with my aunt to pick up my little cousin so he can go to church with us.  As we walk through the streets we notice the town is filled with carnival rides and stands, the people are ready for the “ferias” annual traditions that honor the town’s saint and kick off the month of September when Mexico’s independence is celebrated.  We walk past the church and see the dancers and the crowds of people dancing and standing.  They are all waiting for the pilgrimage to arrive.  People from various towns gather by foot, car or bus to caravan together until they arrive at the town’s church to celebrate the Virgin in this case.  We watch as the buses, trucks, cars and hordes of people arrive to be greeted by the priest and the people.  It’s a beautiful sight to see and the tears start to flow.  How could I be surrounded by so much happiness when I was so sad?  I want desperately to change my attitude but I cant, everything reminds me of E and sends me on an emotional ride. 

The church is overflowing with people and we can’t even go inside and frankly I am content with that.  I don’t very much feel like praying today.  I pray and cling to hope that isn’t there and I am tiered of feeling like my prayers are going unanswered.  I feel like organized religion is just another way to keep the poor people down so they don’t rise in masses demanding what is owed to them.  Everyone tells me to pray and have hope but how do I do that when I am so far away from home and can’t even be with my husband on our first wedding anniversary.  A year ago today we were laughing and dancing, sharing our love with our friends and family.  Promising each other that we would be together forever and right now forever seems like it never came for us.  We head back home and I am happy to go back to the room I am staying in and sleep.  If I sleep through today maybe tomorrow won’t feel so gloomy.  In the evening E calls and I loose it.  I sob, weep and bawl.  I want to stay strong for him since I sense he feels the same way but I can’t. I cry desperately and tell him I am sorry and that I want to go home.  He tells me to be strong, to hang in there and that it will all be over soon but it doesn’t feel that way.  I apologize for being weak and more tears flow when he tells me he wishes he could hold me and make it all better.  I wish for the same but have to settle for pretending everything is fine.  Everyone knows I am devastated to be returning to Mexico but no one will say anything for fear of upsetting me.  Little do they know that I have no tears left to shed with them all I have is an empty hole where my heart used to be.  

In our home and in our bed is where I hope you are honey and I want to tell you that I miss and love you very much.  I am sorry we can’t be together today but I promise you many other lovely anniversaries where no one will be able to keep us apart.  I promised you a life time of love and happiness and I am sorry this is how we started our lives together.  I know that someday we will be together again and in the mean time, no matter how far away I will always love you and no matter how long I stay I will always love you.  Sincerely, your biggest fan and doting wife.  

Love Song- Adele

Whenever I am alone with you, you make me feel like I am home again

Whenever I am alone with you, you make me feel like I am whole again

Whenever I am alone with you, you make me feel like I am young again
Whenever I am alone with you, you make me feel like I am fun again

However far away, I will always love you

However long I stay, I will always love you

Whatever words I say I will always love you

I will always love you

Whenever I am alone with you, you make me feel like I am free again

Whenever I am alone with you, you make me feel like I am clean again

However far away, I will always love you

However long I stay I will always love you

Whatever words I say I will always love you

I will always love you

However far away, I will always love you,

However long I stay I will always love you

Whatever words I say, I will always love you

I’ll always love you, I’ll always love you

I love you

My so called life

Saturday, August 27, 2011

I bid dad farewell at the bus terminal and ask him to give the babies hugs and kisses for me and to tell my mother and husband I love them.  He hugs me and I don’t want to let go, maybe if I hold him long enough he will decide to take me with him.  But that is not a decision he can make and I can not go.  I am heading back to what is now “my so called life” in another 18 bus ride back to Zacatecas.  It seems as if this is the longest ride I’ve ever been on, the bus stops at every small town and drops of passengers and picks up new ones.  I am board almost immediately and decide to pull out the book E sent me.  I am not much of a fiction reader having gotten used to reading up on the latest studies and public health issues.  I pick up the book and can’t put it down Delia’s Crossing by V.C Andrews is the first in a new series about a young girl from Mexico whose parent die and is sent to live with her estranged aunt in Palm Springs, California. The horrid woman and her ugly daughter make Delia’s life a living hell.  Delia is home sick, alone and afraid.  I immediately relate to her and want to know everything about her.  The bus ride gets longer and the exhaustion and sleep soon kick in.  It’s hard to sleep on a moving bus with an uncomfortable, non reclining seat but I close my eyes and hope for some rest.   

Happy Birthday to one of my favorite ladies, I love you and I am thankful everyday for having you in my life.  Thank you for being amazing! Love, one of your faithful minions.  

Wait

Friday, August 26, 2011

Not much is happening with us today.  We are afraid to go anywhere, not that we have somewhere to go but we are even afraid of going to the grocery store.  The hotel van takes us to the DHL office so I can sign the right over to pick up the response packet to dad.  We talked it over last night and there are a lot of people in the hotel who have been waiting 3, 4 even 6 weeks for a response and there is no way we can afford to stay that long in Juarez.  Hotel is expensive and the few affordable places in town are not safe for a woman alone since no once can stay with me here another 3 to 6 weeks.  Together we decided that it is best that I return to my grandparents back in Zacatecas.  When a reply arrives in a few weeks it will be dad who will have to come to Juarez alone to pick up the response.  If I am approved then he will call me and tell me to get on the next bus.  If they ask for more time or more evidence then that will return to California and I will have avoided an unnecessary and unpleasant 18 hour bus ride. In the mean time all we have left to do is wait, call and check the websites for updates.  I am not thrilled about not being able to go back already; although I knew there would be no response for a while part of me was hopeful that I would be home in time to celebrate my first wedding anniversary with my husband.  Dad and I go back to the hotel room and pack, preparing for a departure tomorrow morning.  

Freedom is expensive

Thursday, August 25, 2011

More waiting, that’s all we did today.  Although the lady yesterday said that a response would take three weeks or less we are all hopeful that it will be less and that miraculously we receive a response almost immediately.  Clearly we all know that, that won’t happen but our hope keeps us in Juarez.  The day turns somber quickly as we turn on the news to hear of the morning death count in Juarez.  Two cab drivers were killed in the early morning hours; they were executed and left to die in their cabs.  It makes me sad and I wonder if our paths ever crossed while taking a cab ride.  Suddenly the news are buzzing there has been a tragedy in Monterrey (a neighboring state).  Someone set fire to a casino killing over 52 people including a pregnant woman.  The news and the cops are investigating and the president is delivering a speech about it.  One street over our hotel a man is being chased and he decides to hide inside a school.  The men chasing him care little if anything that he went inside a school and begin shooting.  Five people are killed and luckily no children are hurt.  Dad and I usually eat a super market down the street we are tired of hearing all the sad news and head out to get a bite to eat.  He decides that today he doesn’t want to eat at the supermarket and instead he wants to go across the street to a sea food restaurant.  We walk across the street, sit and order our meal.  While we eat we hear a loud boom but take little interest in what it could have been.  Suddenly the street is filled with police, military and ambulances.  Something must have happened close by because we can see the drama unfolding a few feet away but it’s far enough for us not to see what is happening.  We get back to the hotel and overhear guest commenting on being evacuated from the supermarket because there was an explosion across the street.     

Later on the news we hear that two junk yards near by were robbed.  Once the thieves found what they wanted they threw Molotov cocktails inside and lit the places on fire.  Dad and I looked at each other in amazement since this is the closest we have ever been to the Juarez violence.  We were supposed to be at that supermarket when dad changed his mind.  It’s still eerie to think we could have been so close to the event.  We hear more about the day’s events in Monterrey and hear how the event is tied to organize crime.  The owner of the casino did not pay the local gang or drug cartel and they felt the need to send a message, pay up or die.  Only rather than hurting the owners they hurt 52 innocent people.  The president is calling it an act of terrorism.  So much violence here and I still find it hard to accept that the U.S. doesn’t consider it a war zone.  When people can’t shop for groceries for fear of being bombed, when kids can’t go to school for fear of being shot and people can’t go out for some entertainment for fear of being burned alive isn’t that a country at war?  It is the drug cartels that are calling the shots, terrorizing people and keeping them at home in fear isn’t that what the Taliban did to its people?  Didn’t the U.S. go to war with practically all the Middle East for the terrorist attacks on 9/11?  I don’t want to compare but this country is at war with itself and there is no U.S. military stepping in to help.  As long as there is fear and uncertainty here the U.S. will always be supplied with cheap drugs and cheaper labor, so why mess with a good thing.  Freedom is not free and we must keep remembering that.     

Please pardon me...

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Today I wake up and I am surprised to have gotten a good night sleep and even more surprised that I feel numb.  I should be nervous that today may be the day my fait is decided but I am not.  Dad and I get ready and head downstairs where the hotel van takes some many of us to the U.S. consulate for our appointments filled with judgment and resent.  Appointments answered by people who have no actual say in you future.  They take your paperwork and pass it on to the people who do and those cowards never see your face, because if they did, they might have to look at the face of an actual person, a wife, a mother, a sister.  In the van we recognize a young man who like me had been taken to the U.S. a child, his wife, now studying to be a doctor is applying for him only for him his appointments were more difficult because at a young and naive age he decided on getting some harmless tattoos.  They interrogated him relentlessly and took pictures of all his tattoos, I imagine it is to check criminal records but it’s still shameful.  He tells us his second appointment to submit a pardon packet is tomorrow and he is going to go pick up his packet from some delivery place.  This process has introduced us to so many people with sad and hopeful stories.  All of us in one place for the same purpose and its hard to imagine that not all of us will be returning to the lives we knew.  The young man tells in his broken Spanish how he is staying with strangers in a rented room and how much violence there is in his town.  He stays indoors for fear of kidnappings since he doesn’t speak Spanish very well and when he speaks it is obvious he is a foreigner.  We tell him I am on my way to submit my packet, we wish each other luck and I arrive back at the consulate.

Again, I want to feel nervous, nauseous, fear, something, but I do not feel a thing.   There is an overwhelming sense of calmness and acceptance.  My husband and my brother-in-law have spent countless days and nights putting together my pardon packet; filling it with evidence of how much I am needed home and I recognize that I am helpless.  There is nothing more I can say or do to change the course of my destiny.  In a few hours and days it will be up to some pencil pusher who has never met me to decide where I should call home and with whom.  I am back in the same lines with the same list of numbers being assigned to us only today there are no holocaust reminders because I know none of us are being led into incinerators. It only feels that way.  I sit and I wait my turn like the hundreds of people in the waiting room.  We sit, wait and stare at the mindless television for our numbers to blink on the screen.  I watch people go to windows where they return with tears, joy, sorrow and blank looks.  The same scenarios repeat themselves and I want to feel something like all those people are feeling but nothing comes to me. 

After sitting in the waiting room for four hours my number appears on the screen, number 7785 is being called to window 72.  As I walk the next few steps towards my fait I wonder if any of the pages in my packet will make a difference.  I arrive to find a woman annoyed that my packet looks the way it does.  It is 2 or 3 inches thick, whole punched at the top, fastened together by metal prongs and sectioned of by dividers.  It is professional looking but to her it’s a nuisance.  She takes it apart, rearranges it and tells me to sit and wait for number to be called again so I can pay my pardon fee.  We stare at each other for a few seconds and she calls out through the window “you can go now”.  I can go now? Are you serious?  I have waited 23 years of my life for this moment, I have slaved over countless hours of home work to obtain a bachelors and masters degree, I have volunteered on every political campaign imaginable in my area, I have given my time to non-profit organizations and have cried many nights for the things I could not do for my family and this is it, I can go now?  Now I am furious, that some one like her could decide my fate.  I look at her face for answers but there are none.  There is no interview there are no questions, my fate will be decided on paper.  The only question I can bring myself to ask her is how long I should wait for a response and she replies “three weeks or less”.  A stand there just a little longer in case she decides she made a mistake and wants to call me back for some questions but I see nothing in her face and she repeats that I can sit and wait for my number again.  As instructed I sit and wait only this time there are fewer people in the waiting room and I hear people talking to one another now.  They are sharing their stories with each other and I am curious to know them as well. 

I meet a 24 year old woman with a 3 year old child in San Diego dying of kidney failure.  She was told to wait and see if an agent could review her case so she could get an answer that day, she waited 7 hours to be told to try again tomorrow.  Another young woman is in tears, she has been in the immigration system for almost 9 years now and was recently notified that she had been approved 15 months ago but because she never got the letter notifying her they had voided her visa and she had to start the process all over again.  The consulate conducted an investigation as to why she wasn’t getting her mail and it turns out her mother-in-law had received and signed for the mail only to deny to her and to her own son that anything had come.  The woman was sad and angry that her own family member had prevented her from being with her husband all this time.  They told her she would have to start the process all over again since it’s their policy to close any cases older than a year with out a response.  Another two hours to pass before my number is called a second time.  I wait in line where my pardon packet fee will be collected and watch in front of me how a woman pays over $5,000 dollars in pardon fees for her and her 10 or so children.  I stand there thinking how that much money doesn’t guarantee her a visa and neither does my $585.  I pay my fee and head back to the outside where dad is waiting for me; he’s there with another young woman we met in the cab yesterday.  We sit and she tells me she too had been approved many months ago and never got a packet in the mail.  The consulate blamed the packaging service and the delivery service blamed the consulate none of helped her since she was pregnant and had to deliver her baby in Mexico after being stuck there for almost 7 months now.  They told her she could come back on Friday to pick up her new visa, it didn’t matter now though, her daughter had been born in the Mexico making her a Mexican citizen and if she wanted to take her to live in the U.S. with her husband she would have to wait until her daughter was approved and she didn’t know how long that was going to take now.  I try to comfort her by telling her she doesn’t want to go back to North Carolina anyways since I heard on the news that they were under a tornado warning.  But she says she’d rather be home in a tornado watch then be somewhere that’s not home to her.  I know how she feels and I feel stupid for even saying such thing.  Everyone here shares one thing in common; they are all suffering from leaving family, friends and the life they knew behind, perhaps never to return to it again.          

Back in Juarez

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Being back in Juarez is a reminder that this life is not my own.  I am greeted by news papers with headlines of death and violence.  People think that if you are in Juarez to go to the consulate or a hotel you must have money and everyone wants a piece of it.  The cabs charge you an arm and a leg to take you a mile up the road to ensure that you take no money back to wherever you came from.  My bus arrives early and I must wait for dad whose bus is very late.  I honestly think that I have lost all fear by now.  Everyone insist on treating me like a poor defenseless woman but I feel like now that I’ve been through this what more could someone take from me that hasn’t already been taken by this immigration process?  I have no money, no self esteem, no jewelry and very little hope left, but they can take what’s left of it.  Dad arrives and I am happy to see him and sad that others aren’t with him.  Of course I knew they wouldn’t be but again that last bit of hope wished that I could see more of my family again.  Just as close my sister sends me a beautiful birthday card and some money which is always welcomed I read her card a few times and close it quickly before I begin to cry.  A bag filled with stuff from my husband is next.  He sends new movies, magazines and a book so I can keep myself entertained while I am in Valparaiso with nothing to do.  I notice a card from him and with out reading it tears flood my eyes.  Our anniversary is in a few days and I still hope that I will be home in time for us to celebrate it together but both of us know that wont happen and he sends me a lovely and tearful card just in case.  My husband has always been a lovely and thoughtful man which one of his best features but in this case I almost wished he hadn’t sent me anything because it makes me miss him so much more.  I know I will spend many a lonely nights reading his card over and over until it falls apart in my hands. 

I understand that when my parents decided to immigrate illegally into the U.S. they accepted a life of obstacles and hardship but I wasn’t allowed to make that choice.  In the first interview the woman over the counter asked me if I knew that when I turned 18 I should have returned to Mexico.  My answer was no, but I wanted to let her know that things aren’t black and white like on her paper.  In real life, life is complicated and can’t be answered by a simple yes or no.  After all, how do you leave the people you love for a second time and at that point the only place you call home now?  At 18 I knew English better than I knew Spanish and more U.S. history than most Americans.  How was I supposed to return leave everything behind again?  And so now I am being punished for staying with my family and continuing to live in what we considered our home.  Sometimes my thoughts and my sentences don’t make sense but neither do some of the laws that now prevent me from being with my husband. 

40 days and 31 birthdays

Monday, August 22, 2011

It’s been 40 days in case anyone is counting since I left my home and everything I loved.  It’s my birthday and I am packing for what is sure to be another disappointing trip to Juarez.  I have an 18 hour bus trip ahead of me and I want to be excited hopeful but those parts of me are slowly fading.  I think that my mother is right, the more education I have the more cynical and cold I get.  I want to be hopeful that this trip will be the trip that sends me home to my husband but the logical part of me reminds me that this is a process like everything else, this process is intended to discourage people and take their money and self worth with it and that takes time.  My husband and my brother-in-law read the blogs and warn me that people are saying it’s taking them 3 to 4 weeks to get a response from the consulate after they submit a pardon packet.  I try to prepare myself for the bitter and cold fact that I may have to return here but I still wonder if maybe just maybe they will see what a good person I have been, how much my family and friends miss me and insist on sending me back.  At least for this birthday I wish I had a candle to blow out and make a wish.  I’d wish for world peace because it seems more plausible than my return home right now.  I say good bye to my grandmother who prays over me and wishes me a safe journey.  Eighteen hours of solitude is no way to spend a birthday but I must be punished for the choices that were made for me and be ready to accept the fait I am given.          

Miguel and his "burrita blanca"

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Grandma is feeling better today and we shower to make sure we are good and ready for church today.  As we walk up to the church the bells ring and grandmother stops, the church bells tell her that today we will be saying good bye to someone else.  This week has been filled with death and the little Mexican village has had one or two deaths everyday this week.  Women don’t wash clothes on Sundays or do house work because it is the Lord’s Day but death waits and cares for no one.  Arriving in church with a body in the front makes me sad and I want to cry.  I am somehow reminded how I was unable to attend my great-grandfather’s funeral a few years ago when he passed. 

When the decision was made that we would be heading to the United States we really had no clue that we would be leaving everything and everyone we loved behind, perhaps never to see them again.  When my father moved to the U.S. a few years before us it was my great grandfather who became the only man in my life.  I loved him so much and he would play with me and call me his “burrita blanca” or his white donkey.  Trust me it’s was a term of endearment that I cherished.  He would sit on his stool in the kitchen and make me get on top of his cement table to sing and dance for him.  He would clap for me and cheer me on.  He was always my biggest cheerleader.  Then he would insist on taking my grandmothers “reboso” or shawl and using it to play bullfighter with me.  I was the “matador” and he was the bull he would chase me all around the house until I would start to cry, he would take me in his arms and wipe my tears away telling me that the best matadors don’t cry and I was one of the best.  His love and support meant so much to me that when I found out he had died my world shattered and I thought I would never be able to recover.  I was a selfish teenager who didn’t care to understand why we couldn’t travel to burry him.  I was sure that we would be allowed to return if the U.S. knew it was an emergency.  It took a lot out of my mother to explain to me why we couldn’t go burry him.  Today in this church with the smells and the rituals I am infuriated that I could not share this moment with my own great-grandfather.  Why couldn’t I be given the opportunity to say good bye to him, to kiss his forehead and tell him I loved him.  How come no one told me that the last time I saw my grandfather when I was 7 would be the last time I would ever see him.  Why didn’t I hug him longer, tell him I loved him more and why couldn’t I do that to my own family now.  So much is taken from us when we make decisions like the one that was made for me 23 years ago and today this man went to meet his maker and I was there to witness it.  If I am the one who is still alive, why do I feel deader than the man in the coffin?     

Shots ring out

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Without a television or radio and a sick grandmother I rely on the trees, flowers and birds to help me pass the time.  Although grandma is still sick she insisted on checking in on her plants and on her “milpa” a tiny plot of land where she planted corn stalks.  We went out back, watered the corn stalks and sat to watch the birds fly.  As the end of the day approached we watched all the birds gather in one tree, slowly more and more of them gathered until the tree became dense with so many birds and so in unison they left that tree and moved to a bigger tree.  More birds gather in the smaller tree and repeat the pattern of the previous birds.  Finally we hear a shot and all the birds that were gathered fly quickly out of the trees and find comfort elsewhere.  Grandma and I sit for another minute until we hear one shot after another.  There must have been 10 or 15 shots in a minute or two before grams and I realized that we need to go back in the house.  The shots sounded like they were in the distance but close enough for us to hear the echoes left by them.  We are reminded that things here in this small town are not like they used to be.  Violence has shaken this small town and so many others and no one in this sleepy “pueblo” is safe.  With the sun still settling in front of us we retreat inside the house and begin to prepare our beds.  The shots were not heard much longer after that, followed by ambulances and police sirens.  Grandma is still weak from her sickness and she wants to go to bed at 8 pm, there is still light outside and she insists that I go to bed too. 

Luckily I have Sex and the City to save me.  One of my few precious belongings that I was able to bring on my journey was my Sex and the City collection.  Carey, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha all keep me sane when I am home sick.  I remember how I would beg my parents so they would add HBO during the months the series was on.  My girlfriends would gather at my house on Sundays and we would sit to watch the new episode and bring our own commentary to it and to each others lives.  I wish I could have those times back, simpler times when me being illegal didn’t matter.  I put my headphones on and loose myself to in the show.  Around midnight I am reminded that I am not home and I hear shots again only this time they are closer and an explosion.  I take off my headphones and turn my computer off.  I sit in the dark and listen to the madness outside and all I can do is pray again.  Pray that my eyes close and that when they open this will all have been a bad dream and I wake up in my husband’s arms and screaming kids pushing through the doors and jumping on the bed.            

Boredom

Friday, August 19, 2011

Today is a day of rest and boredom.  Grandmother is so ill she doesn’t even want to get up and eat.  I force her to have at least some tea and a tortilla to make sure she’s not without food all day.  I am not sure I want to eat myself.  I hate days when I have nothing to do.  It is the nothingness and the silence that bring about thoughts and feelings, mostly of home and how much I wish I was there.  I try to keep myself busy but it is difficult here since I don’t even have a television to distract me.  Grandmother has some less than pleasant neighbors whose children climb her wall, steal the fruit from her trees and anything they find in their paths.  They leave trash on her stoop and constantly break windows and fixtures.  Grandmother is afraid that if she did have a television or even a radio they would surely break in to take it and so she manages without both.  I however have been programmed to need and some television, I crave the drama of reality TV or even the sadness and fear that comes with the daily news.  So I am at least comforted when the silence is broken by the yelling of grandma’s neighbors.  Part of me is curious as to what is happening on the outside.  I hear three or four men yelling at each other and I want to open the window and at least take a peak but I don’t because fights aren’t want they used to be and two grown men with differences no longer simply “duke” it out and let it go.  Now weapons are brought into an argument and it’s the innocent and the bystanders that always get hurt.  Instead I turn off the lights and pray, hoping that the fight will soon be over and that I can sleep through tonight so tomorrow will be another day closer to taking me home.           

Abuelitos

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Grandma wakes up sick and all she wants to do is sleep.  I am once again glad that I am here to help take care of yet another grandmother who has fallen ill.  I feel like there is so much for me to make up for and although I know I can not make up 23 years of being gone in one week or even one month I can’t help but want to try.  There is so much I have missed and so much that I want to do for my family here in Mexico as well.  Although they say distance makes the heart grow fonder it is love that keeps the memories there.  I can not tell you how many great memories I have of my grandparents and how sadden I am that it took 23 years and my return for me to truly value that.  Now in their old age I see myself in each of them and wonder if I will be half the women my grandmothers are, if I will be half as intelligent as my grandfather is and if I will have the strength they did to watch my own family grown up and leave me like we did.        

Life goes on

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Time seems to be slowing down and the days only get longer.  Today we went to visit Aunt Luz and the only cousin who still lives at home with here.  Aunt Luz is the only remaining daughter of grandmas who still lives in Mexico.  Five of her six children decided to go in search of the American Dream while Aunt Luz and her family stayed to search for their own dream in Mexico. 

I sit and I listen to the stories of her youth and her own children.  I remember how fun my times were here as a child.  Aunt Luz and her husband always had a farm and animals and her back yard was always filled with alfalfa and hey bails where we would jump and make forts and hiding places.  It’s hard to believe now that my cousins are adults with children and lives of their own.  I am not sure how it is for other children who are forced to immigrate at early ages and are taken away from their homes but for me coming back to Mexico I want things to be like when I was seven.  For me time stopped when I left my grandmothers house.  Coming back now I want my cousins to be little and for us to grow up together like we were supposed to.  There are cousins who have visited us in the states but there are so many more that we have not seen in over 23 years and we all feel like strangers to each other.   Now are tossed into the same pot to pretend as if time has not passed and we are the best of family, yet the reality is that over the course of 23 years everyone moves on and creates lives of their own, lives that don’t include those who have passed and those who have left.  You know about each other and word comes of the health and wealth but in the end the lack of communication creates more than borders and barriers.  Now it’s the age of technology and things like the internet and facebook allow us to stay in contact more often but the 23 years of not being there for life’s major and unexpected events has still created a sense of strangeness. 

Each one of us goes on with the lives we were given and those who go to “el norte” or north to the United States are mostly remembered by the money they send “home”, but, for the children, we are left to be forgotten.  Not by choice but out necessity, the need to continue and survive.  I imagine that there must be some resentment from those who stay towards those who go north in search of a “better life”.  What is so wrong with the life here?  For those who stay it is a slap in the face to say that America is a search of a better life, as if those who remain behind by chance or by choice have a lesser life than those who head north.  I am a stranger in the place where I was born and life won’t let me forget that. 

Lucky girl

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Not much excitement in Valpa but I was supposed to be here as a reminder of how lucky I am even in my situation.  I once heard Oprah say that to be born a girl in the United States made you the luckiest girl in the world.  I think of that quote quite often and know personally how true it is and today I was reminded of that by a 97 year old woman getting her Identification for the first time and by a 27 year old “wixarika or huichol” woman who wished she could read.

Today’s highlight involved waking up early to accompany grandmother to pick up her ‘voters’ card which is the country’s version of a National, State and local identification card all rolled into one.  The card is designed to give its card holder the ability to vote in all elections.  Its accidental use is as a valid form of identification for its citizens.  Each State has mobile unites which set up shop in various towns and people travel for hours to reach one of the mobile units.  The requirements are a birth certificate, a phone or electricity bill and another form of identification.  When people don’t have one or more of those requirements then they must bring in two witnesses to testify that the person is who they say they are and the witnesses must already have a voter’s card.  The intent of the government is that every citizen will have the ability to vote for its government representatives but I find it odd since while I am in line over half of the people there can’t red or write.  Most sign their names with X’s and have to be given instructions at every step of the way because they can’t read the signs.  The person shows up, submits their paperwork, takes a picture, leaves their finger prints and comes back in 1 or 2 months to pick up their new voter’s card the next time the mobile unit is back in town. 

Grandmother came two months ago to renew her card and she is only picking up her new card.  This process takes us over 5 hours and one employee processes a little over 75 people who are there to pick up and submit documents for new cards.  I witness a 97 year old woman being taken by her family to obtain her first form of identification and sign her X on the back of her new card.  I am not sure if she’s even aware of what is going on but her family explains that they need her to have identification for her to travel to the U.S. for the first time.  I feel joy at being able to witness this historic event for a woman who has seen so much and could wow us with stories of times long ago.  I am lucky and I need to remember that I have had privalidges unheard of by many and the fact that I can type these words and share them with others makes me even more fortunate.

Afterwards we travel to the bus station where a young “wixarika or huichol” woman sells the jewelry she makes to support her family.  My mother made friends with her after her many trips to the bust station and when I came my mother sent her some gifts.  She was genuinely happy to receive them and I got the sense no one had ever given her anything.  When my mother returned home to us she brought me a beautiful hand crafted bracelet made by this woman.  I wanted to buy some of her jewelry for my friends back home.  Grandma and I arrived to see her reading the paper.  Grandma asked her what was new in the world and embarrassed she said “I don’t know, I don’t know how to read but I like to think that I do”.  An immediate wave of sadness swept through me.  At my worst day as an illegal woman in the U.S. I at least new how to read and write and I have taken that privilege for granted.   I know I get down about my situation but she reminds me again of just how blessed I am to be who I am.  

One more week

Monday, August 15, 2011

I wake up irritable and cranky.  The lack of sleep from the past few nights is exhausting.  My bags are way over packed and I have no idea how I am going to make it to the bus stop, transfer and make it to my other grandmas.  I am excited to head back home someday soon and I have purchased every trinket under the sun that I can bring back to friends and family as a thank you for their love and support while I am in Mexico.  Grandmother and aunts decided to pack to me with even more items in the event that I should go home after my Juarez trip in a week.  I am hopeful that after Juarez, the U.S. consulate will love me so much that they see I must go home immediately.  Pie in the sky I know but it’s what I cling to. 

The day’s trip is longer than I anticipated.  Aunt Mar is headed back to her home in Queretaro (which is a different state) and her bus leaves at 10 am.  I awake at 6 am and we are on the bus by 8 am.  When we arrive at the bus station we are surprised by setbacks.  Aunt Mar’s bus is packed then second one is late, third one never arrives and she finally leaves by 12:30.  I wait in the bus station until my bus leaves at 2:30 pm and hope there are no unexpected surprises waiting for me.  There aren’t and I make the 3 hour trip to grandmother’s house.  I arrive in Valparaiso and grandma couldn’t be more excited to see me.  She even hires a taxi to take us home and greets me with home made cheeses, tortillas and gorditas.  I fall into her bed exhausted and ready to rest.