Driven to Succeed: Aracela Dominguez
“N-no, no! It can’t be true!”
It's July 7, 2009 at eight o’clock in the evening.
Fifteen-year-old Aracela Dominguez is working on math homework on the dining room table of her Central Oregon home when she hears disbelief, anguish, and horror shake the usually solid voice of her mother.From the other end of the line on the Pacific coast of Mexico, her uncle delivers the news that they’ve all anticipated, yet no one wanted to hear. A man out walking his dog has discovered the partially buried body of her aunt, her mother’s only sister, after his black lab started chewing on something in the bushes.
After seeing their flyers all around the city and hearing pleas for her return on the radio, the coroner called the family for the fourth time to come and identify yet another middle-aged woman.This time, it did not take long for Aracela’s uncle to recognize his sister’s bruised body and face, despite the three bullet holes in her temple.
Aracela will soon be a senior at a nearby high school. After the last bell had rung in June of 2011, she met with two volunteers of the Latino Community Association to speak of growing up undocumented in our community.
Aracela’s aunt was not a drug dealer, human trafficker, or thief. She was a school teacher who had volunteered to make party favors, napkin holders, and gifts to honor the padrinos, the godparents, at Aracela’s quinceñera, her fifteenth birthday celebration.Rather than buy the items locally in Oregon, Aracela and her parents sent money to her aunt in Mexico so she could have a little extra cash to supplement her meager teacher’s salary,[1] and so that she could be a part of this important family celebration despite the distance from her niece. The day she was kidnapped, Aracela’s aunt had just cashed her check.
“We believe she was murdered because people thought she was rich . . . It’s like when you go back to Mexico after being in the U.S. They think you have money and they kidnap you for ransom. That’s why I don’t want to go back,” Aracela says.
Aracela does not want to be kidnapped. She does not want to be beaten or raped or shot. Her fear is palpable; it has a heartbeat.
Not only that, Aracela’s home is Central Oregon. She arrived here from Mexico as an infant, and only returned once to visit her grandparents at age three.
“I don’t really remember much of the crossing, but sometimes I have flashbacks,” she says.
A train ride, potato chips and coke, and a “temporary dad” are almost all she has left from that day. “I came as a child of another person who was a legal resident. I got on a train with a guy who told me he was my “temp” dad, that I should call him “Dad” for a day.I was separated from my mother and father. When we got to the other side, my mom was kneeling on the ground with her arms stretched out. I ran to her.”
Aracela’s separation from her mother was short with a happy ending. Her mother’s other separations have been neither short nor happy.
Isabel Cruz grew up among the pineapple and coconuts of a coastal community in central Mexico. Her uncle, a teacher, took in a young boy named Tomás to work in the fields and attend school. He had lived in an impoverished inland town of naked hills, no streets, and mud houses where eleven brothers and sisters slept on mats in the dirt. Tomás met Isabel when she was only twelve, but it would be several years before their lives would take the same path. He married, had two children, and later separated from his first wife. On a visit to his former teacher’s home, he discovered Isabel again. She was no longer a young girl but a beautiful woman. They began a new life together and soon had a baby, Aracela.
Yet, even on the relatively rich coast of Central Mexico, there was not enough work for the new family--no future. Although Isabel loved Sunday dinners and soccer games with her mother, sister, and brothers, she decided she had to think of herself and her children.She and Tomás heard there were jobs in the North. They decided to come to the U.S.
Tomás had been in the Mexican military. This allowed him to get a special visa to enter the country legally.Isabel was not so fortunate.She had to contact a coyote, crawl through the desert, jump a fence, and swim across a river.
Soon, most of the members of Tomás’ family came north as well, scattering themselves throughout Central Oregon. The two children from his previous marriage accompanied their aunts and uncles. Sadly for Isabel, her family remained in Mexico. At this point, she cannot risk going back to see them.
“When I was in the third grade, my grandmother had cancer and was asking for my mom,” Aracela says. “My mom bought a plane ticket and flew down there. She was gone for a month—the longest month ever—and then returned on a fake visa.Two years later her mother died and she couldn’t go to the funeral. Within another year and a half, her dad died. She was just devastated—and now she’s lost her sister, her best friend.
“Some people say that immigrants are here to cause problems. But my parents are here to work
full-time. They’re here to take care of me and my two younger siblings. Every day they go off to work and we go to school. My brothers and sisters and I don’t know if we will see them again…Every night when they get home we spend time together. They come and tuck us in, and we pray together.”
Aracela has more to pray about that many seventeen year old girls. “Whenever ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is in town we find out. Other people call us. We’re afraid to do anything. We pray to God that they [our parents] won’t be caught and then we go to school or work but nowhere else.”
Fortunately for Aracela, school has proven to be a great place to be. Perhaps because of its small
size, perhaps because of the staff and supportive community, she has not experienced the discrimination that others have, despite having started kindergarten speaking only Spanish. (Now, her English sounds like that of any other American teen—with an extra dose of self-confidence and purpose thrown in.) She has a mentor who has guided her exploration of future educational options and will help her with college applications and essays next year. “The teachers treat the students like one big family,” she says.
Aracela admits that some of her friends in larger schools have been harassed for their accents or skin color. They are no longer the polite and compliant students that many may have been in elementary school. “When you face discrimination day after day, you have to step up and defend yourself, and some kids may lose their politeness. It’s just so hard to fit in and be accepted,” she says.
Discrimination may be responsible for some Latino students’ decisions to drop out of high school. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, in 2008 the dropout rate on the national level among
Latinos was four times that of whites and twice that of African Americans. The Foundation for Educational Choice, an Oregon-based research group, reports that even here, Latino students drop out of high school at twice the rate of white students and at about the same rate as African American students.
But discrimination is not the only cause of the exodus. There can be little doubt that many undocumented students leave because they see the wall ahead.
“Kids ask themselves, ‘Why should I keep trying?’ They can’t find a job or go to college without papers. Others find jobs in the fields, so they leave school to help their family’s finances.”
Aracela’s older sister dropped out at sixteen with a baby on the way, her brother left when he was a sophomore. Yet, Aracela is excelling. She’s an honor student and won both the Student of the Month award this year and “Best Student” in her math class. She digs through her backpack to find the mechanical pencil her teacher gave her as a reward. Beaming, she says, “He used this pencil all the way through college!”
Aracela hopes to become a nurse-midwife. “I love babies and I really enjoy the medical field. I thought about being a pediatrician, but it just takes too long, so I decided to be a nurse-midwife. Also, the salary is good.”
Other recent graduates have told Aracela that several Oregon schools go out of their way to help undocumented students. One university, though private and expensive, will pay the student’s nursing school tuition—and they don’t ask for social security numbers--if a student is willing to spend a couple of years working in a low-income community.
Aracela attributes her success to both her mother and father, yet for very different reasons. “I struggled my freshman year because I didn’t have my father’s support. He thought I’d just follow in the footsteps of my siblings. But my mom supported me and now I’m setting a new standard for my younger brother and sister . . . I wanted to prove to my dad that not all of us are the same. I’m stubborn—like my dad,” Aracela adds with a laugh.
Like many ambitious Latino youth and their families, Aracela hopes the Dream Act will pass.[2] She is also seeking legal status by applying for a U-visa with the help of Catholic Charities. This visa can take months or years to obtain and is only granted to those who have been a victim of or witness to a serious crime.[3]
Meanwhile, she is looking forward to her senior year. “When my dad dropped me off for school this morning, he said to me, ‘So, you’re graduating next year? ‘Yeah,’ I told him. And he just said, ‘Wow!’”
* * *
[1]In 2005, according to the website www.worldsalaries.org/teacher, a public school teacher’s salary in Mexico was approximately $651 a month.
[2]The Dream Act, currently under debate in Congress, would give documented and undocumented immigrant youth who have been in this country for at least five years and arrived before the age of 16, and who enter college or the military within one year of getting a high school diploma or GED, conditional residency after two additional years. It would also open the door to citizenship upon completion of college or military service.
[3]The U-visa is designed to encourage non-residents, who may fear interaction with law enforcement, to report serious crimes. It offers protection during the prosecution of a case where they have been a victim or witness. They will not be deported and can later apply for permanent residency after the case has been resolved. In the fall of 2013, Aracela expects to receive her permanent residency card based on the granting of a U-visa.
________________________________________________________________________________
Freedom for a Caged Dove: Elena de los Angeles
Her grandparents bought her. Her uncles abused her. Her sister was her mother. And
her father—who knew?
At age ten, Elena was gainfully employed. She hadn’t been in school for a couple of
years, but she cleaned houses in Guadalajara. For some reason, the woman she
called ‘Mother’, but who was really her grandmother, let her keep the money. At night, in the dark, her uncles visited, and left her hurting, scared and alone—with no one and no way to tell. Their threats held her tongue.
Finally, Elena had had all she could take—and all she needed to buy a one-way bus ticket to Tijuana. She left with a single change of clothes in a small sack.
No one came after her, at least not that she knew. “When I got to Tijuana, I had no
money for food, no money for a place to stay. I didn’t eat for five days. I was
really skinny. There were lots of people everywhere. I asked a man in a hotel if I could
sleep on the floor under a table in the entrance. He said, ‘yes,’ but that I had to leave in the morning.
“The other nights I slept on benches in the park, only I didn’t sleep much. Men, even women, wanted to use me. They asked me to their houses, but I figured I was better off outside.”
Elena was eleven, maybe twelve.
After five days of searching for someone to take her across the border, she met a
nice-looking Mexican couple who agreed. But first, they would need to get her all new clothes, not the soiled and tattered ones she was wearing. And earrings. Elena remembers the new earrings.
“Wait here,” they said, “We’ll pick you up…and don’t be nervous. You can’t be nervous
when we get to the border crossing.”
And she wasn’t. “Perhaps they put something in my drink,” she says.
They also gave her an I.D. and sunglasses. She became their daughter, in the backseat of their late-model sedan. .
When they arrived at the front of the long line at the border, the couple handed all
their I.D.’s to the immigration officer.
"Roll down your window,” he said.
She did.
He looked carefully at her I.D. “Take off your sunglasses.” Again, Elena obeyed…calmly. His eyes searched hers, the card, and her eyes again.
“Okay,” he said, already distracted by the long line behind them. “Next.”
Elena couldn’t believe Mexico was in the rearview mirror. “I felt like a caged dove
that had been set free.”
* * *
When the armed agents were no longer in sight, her rescuers explained to
Elena what was going to happen next. She had a job. A young Mexican couple who
worked at a hotel in L.A. needed a babysitter for their eight-day-old child. For all practical purposes, the girl without a mother would now be one.
When they dropped her off, money exchanged hands and they drove away. Elena realized she didn’t even know the couple’s names, but she would never forget their great kindness.
Her new employers were also kind. They gave her room and board until the five
hundred dollars they’d paid for her delivery was paid off—and then gave her a small salary as well. They told her she was free to leave whenever she wanted. They helped her sign up for English classes at night, and in 1986, four years after her arrival, they helped her fill out paperwork so she could remain in the U.S. as a legal resident. It was the year of the Reagan amnesty program.
Elena was very lucky, or maybe it was the angels. After all, her name was Elena de los Ángeles. And it wouldn’t be the last time one would appear.
Elena decided to leave the family when she turned eighteen. Unfortunately, Immigration
and Naturalization Services didn’t receive her change of address. She missed her
final interview. Sometime during that period, she also lost her copies of all the paperwork and didn’t grasp their importance. With no one looking after her anymore, her second-grade education and minimal English skills were inadequate for the complicated process of becoming a legal resident.
In the year after she left the young family, Elena “went crazy.”
“It was like losing myself, but not a bad loss. I didn’t get into drugs or alcohol. I worked in a hotel during the day and cleaned offices in the evenings. But I partied a lot with the other girls. We danced all night. It was ‘clean craziness’.”
After her boyfriend, who she admitted drank too much, got killed in a bar fight, Elena
moved on. She landed in Santa Cruz and soon met Martín, twenty years her senior. He had studied the Bible in Mexico, had wanted to be a preacher, and…he could knit. He told her he had learned to knit so that he could make things for his children. But by the time Elena found Martín, he was convinced his destiny didn’t include any. He was wrong. With Elena, he found a new destiny. They married and had a son and two daughters.
Martín had come to the U.S. with a sister and a work visa that eventually allowed him
to apply for and receive a green card. Martín was a legal resident. However, those with a green card cannot sponsor their spouses—only citizens can.
Though Elena had been able to obtain a legal social security card for work before her papers went astray—either because the procedure was different than now or because of a mistake, Elena never knew—this left her even more vulnerable. She was traceable. She presented her social security card to her employers and she paid taxes, but she could not become a permanent legal resident.
Being here undocumented felt like a partial return to the cage. “I always felt very
afraid. When La Migra was in town, I feared going out on the streets. I was terrified that someone would ask for my I.D. When we moved to Bend, we saw the immigration bus every Tuesday and I wondered when it would be me.” The ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) bus picks up detainees at the Deschutes County jail each week and takes them to Tacoma for deportation proceedings.
In the years since her marriage, Elena has tried a number of times to complete her
paperwork and become a legal resident. After her near miss in 1986, she tried again in 1998. She was denied. Then she paid a notary in Madras eight hundred dollars—a fortune for Elena and her family. When he came back empty-handed and wanting more money, she shared her tears, rage, and despair with friends. One asked, “Do you know Martha? She goes to church and she helps people.”
Martha the angel.
Martha hired an immigration attorney in Salem. Martha paid the fees. But the attempt
failed; Elena was denied the opportunity to re-apply under her previous application begun during the Reagan years. The attorney returned the money.
Elena would now need to depend upon her husband in order to apply for a green card.
Martín needed to become a U.S. citizen so that his wife, as a direct relative, could apply again. Legal permanent residents, holders of a green card who have been in the country for an additional five years without any criminal charges, are eligible. Citizens can sponsor their spouses. This was their last hope.
Martha tutored both Elena and Martín for eighteen months. The citizenship test has a
hundred potential questions and would-be citizens must answer up to ten, chosen at random. The practice tests are multiple-choice, but the answers must be memorized for the real exam, “What are two ways that US citizens can participate in democracy? Who is the current chief justice of the Supreme Court? What two things does the Declaration of Independence affirm for all people?” Not hard to imagine a high school junior in a U.S. history class failing. Along with the correct answers, Elena and Martín had to learn lots of
new vocabulary.
On the day of the test, Martha drove Martín to Portland. She wore the scarf that he had knitted for her, “I think you can probably trust a man who can knit,” she said. “He made me a winter scarf the first Christmas that I knew them. He noticed the color of my coat and made the scarf to match.” Martha put it on the morning of Martín’s citizenship exam. “I have worn it a lot, especially when I am going out into a difficult situation—it is my security blanket.”
Martha and Martín spent two additional hours reviewing the questions one more time at
the Portland library before he went in—all alone—to take his test; to determine their future. He passed. In 2010, Martín became a U.S. citizen, and this country was no longer prestado, borrowed.
Martín’s citizenship opened the door for Elena. She applied soon after his swearing in,
but at the end of 2010, she was denied again. How could this happen? Her lawyer met privately with immigration officials. After this meeting, the attorney admitted that he did not fully understand, but that Elena had probably been mistaken for another woman with the same name. That woman had entered the U.S. illegally via Juarez or El Paso. Elena had never been to either. She would have to re-apply, and pay the U.S. Homeland Security fees, again. The agency does not refund fees, even if they made a mistake.
Elena submitted her application, paid the fees, and was given a date for her final
interview in mid-December 2011. All looked good. Then she received her first-ever deportation notice. She couldn’t sleep. She told her kids, “If I have to go, I have to go. If they don’t accept you, they don’t accept you.”
Frantic calls to the immigration lawyer. His secretary assured her it couldn’t be true.
Elena waited for hours to hear back. Carrying a cell phone was forbidden on her jobsite, but she got special permission from her boss so that she could know her fate as soon as her lawyer could check once again with Homeland Security. Meanwhile, Elena could think only of her family and the looming threat of returning to a country she hadn’t seen in over thirty-five years. “I had no money. I was going to have to leave alone,” she says.
After a call to Martha to find out why she hadn’t heard, Elena’s phone finally rang. It was the secretary. “Don’t worry. Eric [her lawyer] will explain everything to you. There won’t be any deportation.” Paperwork had crossed in the mail. Homeland Security began her deportation believing that she would not re-apply. Her new application, and a call by her attorney, stopped the process.
In December 2011, Elena went for her interview. Her hands shook as she entered the green immigration building. She was afraid they would do something to her…afraid that
she would never come out again.
When she finally stepped before the judge, he was sitting behind a huge pile of
papers—all the papers she had sent in through the years. He barraged her with a hailstorm of questions, “Where were you born? Where do you live? Why did you come here? How long have you been here? Where have you worked?” He seemed to be checking the consistency of her answers with those she’d filed.
After only ten minutes, she was told she could expect her card in two weeks. Twenty-five years, ten minutes, and two weeks. Unbelievable.
A card came, but it was soon followed by a letter that said it was only temporary and not valid for work. A second arrived, but the expiration date was wrong. Finally, in early January 2012, she opened a letter to find her permanent, correct, legal residency card . . . good until 2021.
“I feel very happy. I can be out on the street without the fear that they’re going to pick me up and deport me. It was an angel that helped us. It was Martha. If we hadn’t met her, we’d still be in the same situation.”
Elena de los Ángeles. Elena of the Angels. A caged dove free at last.
Copyright Sue Nell Phillips, 2012
It's July 7, 2009 at eight o’clock in the evening.
Fifteen-year-old Aracela Dominguez is working on math homework on the dining room table of her Central Oregon home when she hears disbelief, anguish, and horror shake the usually solid voice of her mother.From the other end of the line on the Pacific coast of Mexico, her uncle delivers the news that they’ve all anticipated, yet no one wanted to hear. A man out walking his dog has discovered the partially buried body of her aunt, her mother’s only sister, after his black lab started chewing on something in the bushes.
After seeing their flyers all around the city and hearing pleas for her return on the radio, the coroner called the family for the fourth time to come and identify yet another middle-aged woman.This time, it did not take long for Aracela’s uncle to recognize his sister’s bruised body and face, despite the three bullet holes in her temple.
Aracela will soon be a senior at a nearby high school. After the last bell had rung in June of 2011, she met with two volunteers of the Latino Community Association to speak of growing up undocumented in our community.
Aracela’s aunt was not a drug dealer, human trafficker, or thief. She was a school teacher who had volunteered to make party favors, napkin holders, and gifts to honor the padrinos, the godparents, at Aracela’s quinceñera, her fifteenth birthday celebration.Rather than buy the items locally in Oregon, Aracela and her parents sent money to her aunt in Mexico so she could have a little extra cash to supplement her meager teacher’s salary,[1] and so that she could be a part of this important family celebration despite the distance from her niece. The day she was kidnapped, Aracela’s aunt had just cashed her check.
“We believe she was murdered because people thought she was rich . . . It’s like when you go back to Mexico after being in the U.S. They think you have money and they kidnap you for ransom. That’s why I don’t want to go back,” Aracela says.
Aracela does not want to be kidnapped. She does not want to be beaten or raped or shot. Her fear is palpable; it has a heartbeat.
Not only that, Aracela’s home is Central Oregon. She arrived here from Mexico as an infant, and only returned once to visit her grandparents at age three.
“I don’t really remember much of the crossing, but sometimes I have flashbacks,” she says.
A train ride, potato chips and coke, and a “temporary dad” are almost all she has left from that day. “I came as a child of another person who was a legal resident. I got on a train with a guy who told me he was my “temp” dad, that I should call him “Dad” for a day.I was separated from my mother and father. When we got to the other side, my mom was kneeling on the ground with her arms stretched out. I ran to her.”
Aracela’s separation from her mother was short with a happy ending. Her mother’s other separations have been neither short nor happy.
Isabel Cruz grew up among the pineapple and coconuts of a coastal community in central Mexico. Her uncle, a teacher, took in a young boy named Tomás to work in the fields and attend school. He had lived in an impoverished inland town of naked hills, no streets, and mud houses where eleven brothers and sisters slept on mats in the dirt. Tomás met Isabel when she was only twelve, but it would be several years before their lives would take the same path. He married, had two children, and later separated from his first wife. On a visit to his former teacher’s home, he discovered Isabel again. She was no longer a young girl but a beautiful woman. They began a new life together and soon had a baby, Aracela.
Yet, even on the relatively rich coast of Central Mexico, there was not enough work for the new family--no future. Although Isabel loved Sunday dinners and soccer games with her mother, sister, and brothers, she decided she had to think of herself and her children.She and Tomás heard there were jobs in the North. They decided to come to the U.S.
Tomás had been in the Mexican military. This allowed him to get a special visa to enter the country legally.Isabel was not so fortunate.She had to contact a coyote, crawl through the desert, jump a fence, and swim across a river.
Soon, most of the members of Tomás’ family came north as well, scattering themselves throughout Central Oregon. The two children from his previous marriage accompanied their aunts and uncles. Sadly for Isabel, her family remained in Mexico. At this point, she cannot risk going back to see them.
“When I was in the third grade, my grandmother had cancer and was asking for my mom,” Aracela says. “My mom bought a plane ticket and flew down there. She was gone for a month—the longest month ever—and then returned on a fake visa.Two years later her mother died and she couldn’t go to the funeral. Within another year and a half, her dad died. She was just devastated—and now she’s lost her sister, her best friend.
“Some people say that immigrants are here to cause problems. But my parents are here to work
full-time. They’re here to take care of me and my two younger siblings. Every day they go off to work and we go to school. My brothers and sisters and I don’t know if we will see them again…Every night when they get home we spend time together. They come and tuck us in, and we pray together.”
Aracela has more to pray about that many seventeen year old girls. “Whenever ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is in town we find out. Other people call us. We’re afraid to do anything. We pray to God that they [our parents] won’t be caught and then we go to school or work but nowhere else.”
Fortunately for Aracela, school has proven to be a great place to be. Perhaps because of its small
size, perhaps because of the staff and supportive community, she has not experienced the discrimination that others have, despite having started kindergarten speaking only Spanish. (Now, her English sounds like that of any other American teen—with an extra dose of self-confidence and purpose thrown in.) She has a mentor who has guided her exploration of future educational options and will help her with college applications and essays next year. “The teachers treat the students like one big family,” she says.
Aracela admits that some of her friends in larger schools have been harassed for their accents or skin color. They are no longer the polite and compliant students that many may have been in elementary school. “When you face discrimination day after day, you have to step up and defend yourself, and some kids may lose their politeness. It’s just so hard to fit in and be accepted,” she says.
Discrimination may be responsible for some Latino students’ decisions to drop out of high school. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, in 2008 the dropout rate on the national level among
Latinos was four times that of whites and twice that of African Americans. The Foundation for Educational Choice, an Oregon-based research group, reports that even here, Latino students drop out of high school at twice the rate of white students and at about the same rate as African American students.
But discrimination is not the only cause of the exodus. There can be little doubt that many undocumented students leave because they see the wall ahead.
“Kids ask themselves, ‘Why should I keep trying?’ They can’t find a job or go to college without papers. Others find jobs in the fields, so they leave school to help their family’s finances.”
Aracela’s older sister dropped out at sixteen with a baby on the way, her brother left when he was a sophomore. Yet, Aracela is excelling. She’s an honor student and won both the Student of the Month award this year and “Best Student” in her math class. She digs through her backpack to find the mechanical pencil her teacher gave her as a reward. Beaming, she says, “He used this pencil all the way through college!”
Aracela hopes to become a nurse-midwife. “I love babies and I really enjoy the medical field. I thought about being a pediatrician, but it just takes too long, so I decided to be a nurse-midwife. Also, the salary is good.”
Other recent graduates have told Aracela that several Oregon schools go out of their way to help undocumented students. One university, though private and expensive, will pay the student’s nursing school tuition—and they don’t ask for social security numbers--if a student is willing to spend a couple of years working in a low-income community.
Aracela attributes her success to both her mother and father, yet for very different reasons. “I struggled my freshman year because I didn’t have my father’s support. He thought I’d just follow in the footsteps of my siblings. But my mom supported me and now I’m setting a new standard for my younger brother and sister . . . I wanted to prove to my dad that not all of us are the same. I’m stubborn—like my dad,” Aracela adds with a laugh.
Like many ambitious Latino youth and their families, Aracela hopes the Dream Act will pass.[2] She is also seeking legal status by applying for a U-visa with the help of Catholic Charities. This visa can take months or years to obtain and is only granted to those who have been a victim of or witness to a serious crime.[3]
Meanwhile, she is looking forward to her senior year. “When my dad dropped me off for school this morning, he said to me, ‘So, you’re graduating next year? ‘Yeah,’ I told him. And he just said, ‘Wow!’”
* * *
[1]In 2005, according to the website www.worldsalaries.org/teacher, a public school teacher’s salary in Mexico was approximately $651 a month.
[2]The Dream Act, currently under debate in Congress, would give documented and undocumented immigrant youth who have been in this country for at least five years and arrived before the age of 16, and who enter college or the military within one year of getting a high school diploma or GED, conditional residency after two additional years. It would also open the door to citizenship upon completion of college or military service.
[3]The U-visa is designed to encourage non-residents, who may fear interaction with law enforcement, to report serious crimes. It offers protection during the prosecution of a case where they have been a victim or witness. They will not be deported and can later apply for permanent residency after the case has been resolved. In the fall of 2013, Aracela expects to receive her permanent residency card based on the granting of a U-visa.
________________________________________________________________________________
Freedom for a Caged Dove: Elena de los Angeles
Her grandparents bought her. Her uncles abused her. Her sister was her mother. And
her father—who knew?
At age ten, Elena was gainfully employed. She hadn’t been in school for a couple of
years, but she cleaned houses in Guadalajara. For some reason, the woman she
called ‘Mother’, but who was really her grandmother, let her keep the money. At night, in the dark, her uncles visited, and left her hurting, scared and alone—with no one and no way to tell. Their threats held her tongue.
Finally, Elena had had all she could take—and all she needed to buy a one-way bus ticket to Tijuana. She left with a single change of clothes in a small sack.
No one came after her, at least not that she knew. “When I got to Tijuana, I had no
money for food, no money for a place to stay. I didn’t eat for five days. I was
really skinny. There were lots of people everywhere. I asked a man in a hotel if I could
sleep on the floor under a table in the entrance. He said, ‘yes,’ but that I had to leave in the morning.
“The other nights I slept on benches in the park, only I didn’t sleep much. Men, even women, wanted to use me. They asked me to their houses, but I figured I was better off outside.”
Elena was eleven, maybe twelve.
After five days of searching for someone to take her across the border, she met a
nice-looking Mexican couple who agreed. But first, they would need to get her all new clothes, not the soiled and tattered ones she was wearing. And earrings. Elena remembers the new earrings.
“Wait here,” they said, “We’ll pick you up…and don’t be nervous. You can’t be nervous
when we get to the border crossing.”
And she wasn’t. “Perhaps they put something in my drink,” she says.
They also gave her an I.D. and sunglasses. She became their daughter, in the backseat of their late-model sedan. .
When they arrived at the front of the long line at the border, the couple handed all
their I.D.’s to the immigration officer.
"Roll down your window,” he said.
She did.
He looked carefully at her I.D. “Take off your sunglasses.” Again, Elena obeyed…calmly. His eyes searched hers, the card, and her eyes again.
“Okay,” he said, already distracted by the long line behind them. “Next.”
Elena couldn’t believe Mexico was in the rearview mirror. “I felt like a caged dove
that had been set free.”
* * *
When the armed agents were no longer in sight, her rescuers explained to
Elena what was going to happen next. She had a job. A young Mexican couple who
worked at a hotel in L.A. needed a babysitter for their eight-day-old child. For all practical purposes, the girl without a mother would now be one.
When they dropped her off, money exchanged hands and they drove away. Elena realized she didn’t even know the couple’s names, but she would never forget their great kindness.
Her new employers were also kind. They gave her room and board until the five
hundred dollars they’d paid for her delivery was paid off—and then gave her a small salary as well. They told her she was free to leave whenever she wanted. They helped her sign up for English classes at night, and in 1986, four years after her arrival, they helped her fill out paperwork so she could remain in the U.S. as a legal resident. It was the year of the Reagan amnesty program.
Elena was very lucky, or maybe it was the angels. After all, her name was Elena de los Ángeles. And it wouldn’t be the last time one would appear.
Elena decided to leave the family when she turned eighteen. Unfortunately, Immigration
and Naturalization Services didn’t receive her change of address. She missed her
final interview. Sometime during that period, she also lost her copies of all the paperwork and didn’t grasp their importance. With no one looking after her anymore, her second-grade education and minimal English skills were inadequate for the complicated process of becoming a legal resident.
In the year after she left the young family, Elena “went crazy.”
“It was like losing myself, but not a bad loss. I didn’t get into drugs or alcohol. I worked in a hotel during the day and cleaned offices in the evenings. But I partied a lot with the other girls. We danced all night. It was ‘clean craziness’.”
After her boyfriend, who she admitted drank too much, got killed in a bar fight, Elena
moved on. She landed in Santa Cruz and soon met Martín, twenty years her senior. He had studied the Bible in Mexico, had wanted to be a preacher, and…he could knit. He told her he had learned to knit so that he could make things for his children. But by the time Elena found Martín, he was convinced his destiny didn’t include any. He was wrong. With Elena, he found a new destiny. They married and had a son and two daughters.
Martín had come to the U.S. with a sister and a work visa that eventually allowed him
to apply for and receive a green card. Martín was a legal resident. However, those with a green card cannot sponsor their spouses—only citizens can.
Though Elena had been able to obtain a legal social security card for work before her papers went astray—either because the procedure was different than now or because of a mistake, Elena never knew—this left her even more vulnerable. She was traceable. She presented her social security card to her employers and she paid taxes, but she could not become a permanent legal resident.
Being here undocumented felt like a partial return to the cage. “I always felt very
afraid. When La Migra was in town, I feared going out on the streets. I was terrified that someone would ask for my I.D. When we moved to Bend, we saw the immigration bus every Tuesday and I wondered when it would be me.” The ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) bus picks up detainees at the Deschutes County jail each week and takes them to Tacoma for deportation proceedings.
In the years since her marriage, Elena has tried a number of times to complete her
paperwork and become a legal resident. After her near miss in 1986, she tried again in 1998. She was denied. Then she paid a notary in Madras eight hundred dollars—a fortune for Elena and her family. When he came back empty-handed and wanting more money, she shared her tears, rage, and despair with friends. One asked, “Do you know Martha? She goes to church and she helps people.”
Martha the angel.
Martha hired an immigration attorney in Salem. Martha paid the fees. But the attempt
failed; Elena was denied the opportunity to re-apply under her previous application begun during the Reagan years. The attorney returned the money.
Elena would now need to depend upon her husband in order to apply for a green card.
Martín needed to become a U.S. citizen so that his wife, as a direct relative, could apply again. Legal permanent residents, holders of a green card who have been in the country for an additional five years without any criminal charges, are eligible. Citizens can sponsor their spouses. This was their last hope.
Martha tutored both Elena and Martín for eighteen months. The citizenship test has a
hundred potential questions and would-be citizens must answer up to ten, chosen at random. The practice tests are multiple-choice, but the answers must be memorized for the real exam, “What are two ways that US citizens can participate in democracy? Who is the current chief justice of the Supreme Court? What two things does the Declaration of Independence affirm for all people?” Not hard to imagine a high school junior in a U.S. history class failing. Along with the correct answers, Elena and Martín had to learn lots of
new vocabulary.
On the day of the test, Martha drove Martín to Portland. She wore the scarf that he had knitted for her, “I think you can probably trust a man who can knit,” she said. “He made me a winter scarf the first Christmas that I knew them. He noticed the color of my coat and made the scarf to match.” Martha put it on the morning of Martín’s citizenship exam. “I have worn it a lot, especially when I am going out into a difficult situation—it is my security blanket.”
Martha and Martín spent two additional hours reviewing the questions one more time at
the Portland library before he went in—all alone—to take his test; to determine their future. He passed. In 2010, Martín became a U.S. citizen, and this country was no longer prestado, borrowed.
Martín’s citizenship opened the door for Elena. She applied soon after his swearing in,
but at the end of 2010, she was denied again. How could this happen? Her lawyer met privately with immigration officials. After this meeting, the attorney admitted that he did not fully understand, but that Elena had probably been mistaken for another woman with the same name. That woman had entered the U.S. illegally via Juarez or El Paso. Elena had never been to either. She would have to re-apply, and pay the U.S. Homeland Security fees, again. The agency does not refund fees, even if they made a mistake.
Elena submitted her application, paid the fees, and was given a date for her final
interview in mid-December 2011. All looked good. Then she received her first-ever deportation notice. She couldn’t sleep. She told her kids, “If I have to go, I have to go. If they don’t accept you, they don’t accept you.”
Frantic calls to the immigration lawyer. His secretary assured her it couldn’t be true.
Elena waited for hours to hear back. Carrying a cell phone was forbidden on her jobsite, but she got special permission from her boss so that she could know her fate as soon as her lawyer could check once again with Homeland Security. Meanwhile, Elena could think only of her family and the looming threat of returning to a country she hadn’t seen in over thirty-five years. “I had no money. I was going to have to leave alone,” she says.
After a call to Martha to find out why she hadn’t heard, Elena’s phone finally rang. It was the secretary. “Don’t worry. Eric [her lawyer] will explain everything to you. There won’t be any deportation.” Paperwork had crossed in the mail. Homeland Security began her deportation believing that she would not re-apply. Her new application, and a call by her attorney, stopped the process.
In December 2011, Elena went for her interview. Her hands shook as she entered the green immigration building. She was afraid they would do something to her…afraid that
she would never come out again.
When she finally stepped before the judge, he was sitting behind a huge pile of
papers—all the papers she had sent in through the years. He barraged her with a hailstorm of questions, “Where were you born? Where do you live? Why did you come here? How long have you been here? Where have you worked?” He seemed to be checking the consistency of her answers with those she’d filed.
After only ten minutes, she was told she could expect her card in two weeks. Twenty-five years, ten minutes, and two weeks. Unbelievable.
A card came, but it was soon followed by a letter that said it was only temporary and not valid for work. A second arrived, but the expiration date was wrong. Finally, in early January 2012, she opened a letter to find her permanent, correct, legal residency card . . . good until 2021.
“I feel very happy. I can be out on the street without the fear that they’re going to pick me up and deport me. It was an angel that helped us. It was Martha. If we hadn’t met her, we’d still be in the same situation.”
Elena de los Ángeles. Elena of the Angels. A caged dove free at last.
Copyright Sue Nell Phillips, 2012