Being a Liberal Arts major working on a Spanish Minor, I thought it would be a great idea to try and work as a Teacher Aide with the San Diego City Schools. At Sherman I was assigned to Ms. Cazares’ 5th Grade bilingual class. It was my first exposure to the year-round school format, which I thought, and many of us have since learned, was a bad idea for all. But there that I met David, Pablo and Blanca and the rest of the students from Barrio Logan. This area near and beneath the Coronado Bay Bridge is where you’d find great murals and the rich Hispanic culture of Southeast San Diego.
But it was also a dangerous area, with gangs and crack houses surrounding the school. It was an oasis of sorts, where the kids and teachers were left alone, the only place where one could park a car on the street and nothing would happen.
“La Migra!” David would yell to his friends as a green and white Ford Bronco cruised slowly past the fence. The kickball game would stop and the children would look. I’d never seen the children react with quiet observation to the phalanx of cars stopped in front of a house. Teachers would have to keep the groups from running to the fence corner. Instead of English the kids would break into Spanish and I’d understand enough to pick up the profane street slang describing the scene and their feelings. Those in the serene neighborhoods of Coronado and La Jolla thought nothing. The manicured yards and cleaned houses occurred as if by magic, only to claim frustration when Juan or Maria, David’s parents, stopped coming for no reason. “So undependable,” they would lament.
Little did I know that several years later I’d be sitting in before an Immigration Judge representing I.N.S., the same “La Migra” as folks like David’s parents asked for “relief” from being deported. I’d recall the sarcastic comments of some colleagues who’d rail against “bleeding heart liberal” immigration judges so eager to grant the petitions. Yes, they worked illegally in the fields. Yes, they lied to get a Social Security card for the I-9. Yes, they lied about their identity to get the jobs in the vineyards up in Napa Valley and in the farms of Salinas. So they lied to feed you? But they worked hard. In the meantime they gave birth to David and Blanca. They bought or rented small homes in Barrio Logan, from slumlords. They came to the schools and participated in activities. Some young women who crossed through Nogales and Imperial Beach found “good American men” who started abusing them since they had no papers. “Deport them, send them back!” some would say, “they take jobs from American citizens.”
I’ve mentioned the poet Guillermo Gomez-Pena, where he’d ask in a poem, “What if you were called Waspanos? Waspitos? Or Waspbacks?” And if they were “Tu” and “Yo fuera you?” And now Homeland Security, the new version of La Migra, is here in “Federalized” Saipan. Now they define us? No longer in green. Consolidated blue here. From exotic places like Blain, WA and beyond. And imagine their humor like the CBP agent from Georgia who greeted us as the U.S.-Canadian Border, exclaiming when looking at our passports, “Hot Dog! Northern Marinara Islands!” Never quite heard that one before, being in the same sentence as Ragu Sauce.
So who are our Davids and Blancas here? In a year or two we’ll find out, when their parents will be asking to have their removal “cancelled.” Because they’ve worked for 20 years and their bodies are broken from all the hard labor. Old. No one wants them now. “Temporary” and “guests” but not permanent. With children in the military. Grandchildren. Attending NMC. Living in the small barangays of Chalan Kanoa and Susupe. Why do they have to ask? Should we not now expect Them to be protected for their service and not be forgotten? El Jefe Cohen admitted it was “politically difficult” to give Them legal status in D.C. And so we left Them out in the cold here in the tropics. We didn’t do so well ourselves here either, saying “You have to leave if you want to come back.” So you can’t get rights, “Nothing personal nai.” And so they have to fight La Migra and we watch them posture and debate with each other about “Floating Benchmarks” and “Umbrellas.” No wonder why their children would not see themselves as Americans. Is that the American Dream or nightmare? And they might wonder who is “they” and who are “we?” in our/their community today in the playgrounds of our schools here today.
