It’s Tuesday morning as I drive to my student Angelica’s
house to have our weekly ESL class.
I’ve prepared the lesson and it takes me less than 10 minutes to drive
the three miles between my house and hers. It’s close and yet worlds
apart. Last week the distance
between her life and mine became even greater.
As I inch down the steep driveway
of her house there are cars everywhere in different states of disrepair. Angelica’s husband is a mechanic. When
he lost his job at the VW dealer a year ago, after 10 years, he kept
working. Now he runs his own
business out of their double car garage even though they live in a suburban
neighborhood. I leave my car in the middle of the driveway knowing Angel will
take my keys and park me somewhere.
It’s like a free valet service for the maestra de Ingles - the English teacher.
“Good morning, how are you?”
Angelica greets me in her strongly accented English. She has a big smile as reaches up to give me un abrazo.
Typical of Mexican middle-aged women, Angelica is less than 5 ft. tall.
I like the warm Latin greeting. I haven’t seen her for several weeks, as she has had to work
overtime at the clinic where she is a cleaning maid. Understandably, she never turns down extra hours of work.
We settle in to a windowless,
carpeted room in the lower level of her house where she has set up a table and
chairs, lamp and white board…the perfect private classroom. I keep Angelica
speaking in English as much as I can even though my temptation is often just to
have a good long chat in Spanish.
There is always some catching up with “how is everyone in your family?”
and “everything OK this past week?”
She apologizes for the patched ceiling that has been that way for 6
months since they had a leak from the kitchen upstairs and haven’t been able to
get it fixed.
I wait for a pause in the
conversation to start our class and see if she has finished homework I assigned. I have just asked how Viri and Jose are
doing, her adult children who live at home and are in their 20’s. Instead of the expected “they’re fine”,
she pauses visibly undecided about how much to say. She makes a decision and blurts out “they’re in
Mexico!”
“Mexico!” I exclaim as this is the
last thing I expected to hear.
“Did they take vacation from their jobs to go visit?” She had not mentioned this to me before.
“They are visiting the family and
grandparents but not vacation, it is a special program she tells me. You know,” she says reluctantly “ the
DACA….”
I have no idea what she is
referring to but feel like I should.
“ That’s good, yes? I’m not sure how to continue. “How long
since they were in Mexico?”
“Many years…since they were little,”
she gestures holding out her hand to indicate the size of a toddler. I realize they have not been back to Mexico
City, since they left 14 years ago.
Angelica tells me they are
visiting cousins, aunts, and uncles and family. “They have special permission to be able to go and are coming
back on Saturday. I am so worried
if everything will be OK and they can enter the US again. But they have special
papers from DACA.” Her house
suddenly seems quieter than ever knowing her son and daughter are out of the
country. I think about how much Angelica and Angel rely on them for language
translation, driving them, as they don’t have licenses, and help with their
day-to-day lives. Suddenly
Angelica looks totally lost, something I’ve not seen in her before.
“I’m sure they will be fine and
arrive back with no problem.” I try to sound soothing still not totally
understanding what I’ve been hearing.
She continues, “You know, Kristina,
it is very difficult…we don’t have papers. But my children have work permit and licenses under the DACA
program from President Obama. Now
with the election, we don’t know what will happen to us and this program and so
Viri and Jose went back to visit.”
Although I have never inquired, and
the Literacy Council in their training reminds us not to ask questions, I now
know that they are undocumented immigrants. These are the people I hear about on
the daily news and whom politicians are threatening to seek out and
deport. How could I be so
naïve? Perhaps what threw me off
was the fact that they live in a nice home they bought two years ago and have a
mortgage.
When I get home I do research. DACA stands for Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals, which is a US immigration policy put in place by President
Obama in 2012. It allows certain
undocumented immigrant workers who came to the US before they were 16 and
before 2007 to get 2-year work permits and be exempt from deportation. But it
is not a path to citizenship.
Viri and Jose came as children and they fall under this program. As for their house, I learn online that
any foreigner legal or illegal can purchase property in the US although it may
be harder to get a mortgage
.
Our English lesson has not even
started but all this revelation has left me stunned. Angelica continues in English to tell me how worried she is
about the upcoming elections, how scared they are of Trump and what could
happen to them with a change of administration. She goes on to tell me that Viri,
soon to be 26, is exploring prerequisites to immigrate to Canada.
“We did something very wrong, a
long time ago,” she tells me referring to their coming to the US
illegally. “But we work hard, save
our money, and just want to have a better life,” she looks at me as if pleading
her case.
Many small things begin to fall
into place…one being our conversation last fall about the Blue Ridge
Parkway. This beautiful mountain
highway runs through Asheville and is free and open to the public. Angelica and
her family had never ventured on it even though there is an entrance 5 miles
from where they live. I brought
her a map, encouraged them to go see the fall foliage, and she told me they
did…once! They were afraid because
they didn’t know where it went, if you could turn around, and I suppose they
might worry that someone might stop them along the way. Perhaps it might be a highway they
weren’t supposed to be on and that would bring trouble.
Angelica doesn’t tell me to keep what
she has just revealed a secret, but I make a point of assuring her I will not
tell anyone. She says she trusts
me. Still feeling shocked, I’m
anxious to get back to my reason for being there – our English class! And so we do. Angelica, who is highly motivated to learn despite her basic
elementary school education, has done her assigned homework perfectly and we
spend the rest of the two hours going over the chapter we left off with. All is back to where we were...
But it’s not. On my way home I feel like something
has shifted in me. I can’t stop
thinking of Angelica and Angel at home, just 3 miles from me, and Viri and Jose off in Mexico I think about Angel who works so hard
repairing cars 7 days a week building up his business to now include American
customers. That includes my neighbor whom I recommended to her. I think about Angelica
with her big smile and her hard working spirit. I’ve met both adult children several times and they speak
English like Americans, work hard at full time jobs while aspiring to go to
college when there is money available.
The stereotypical lazy Mexican just doesn’t exist here.
Immigration in all its aspects is
on the news day and night…whether it’s immigration in the US and the
politicians running for office who are vowing to change things one way or the
other….or immigration from Syria and Africa to Europe of people desperate to
live their lives with some dignity.
All last week I thought about this
Mexican family I’ve grown so fond of and have so much respect for, and realize
what a privileged life I’ve had.
Knowing and working with Angelica has put such a human face on the issue
of immigration and been a revelation of what is at stake here. Now I listen to the news in a different
way imagining who these immigrants are as human beings and real people.
