Street Roots • April 28-May 4, 2017
DREAMERS, from page 4
doors in order to help them out.”
In 2014, Oregon voters widely rejected
Ballot Measure 88, which would have given
his undocumented parents the ability to
drive legally by obtaining driver’s cards.
“M y parents, if they make one mistake,
it will cost them,” he said. His father’s job
in construction takes him to various job
sites around the region, and public
transportation isn’t always a viable option.
“You can’t just not work,” he said, “because
you have a family, so it puts you in a really
tricky situation.”
He also worries his father’s past
mistakes could get him deported; he has a
history of D U IIs. If that happens, Manuel
said, supporting the family would fall on his
and his mother’s shoulders. Now a stay-at-
home mom, she would likely get a job
working in the fields, he said.
His father was also recently involved in a
car accident.
“Now he is trying to figure out that, and
how he can pay his fees without having to
be directly involved with court,” Manuel
said, “because if he goes to court, he can
risk being detained. I think that’s the same
for a lot of people in our community. They
want to go to court, and they want to fix
things and they want to get things straight,
so they’d rather pay double fees than go in
and fix it personally.”
In high school, Manuel took a chemistry
class from a teacher who helped him
discover his passion for the subject. While
his friends couldn’t understand why he
liked chemistry so much, he thought he
might want to pursue it as a career.
Manuel applied for scholarships available
through a private liberal arts college in
Salem and was awarded one based on
merit. While Dreamers cannot get federal
financial aid, he was able to get additional
need-based funds through the school’s
financial aid program.
Now he’s in his first year at Willamette
University, where he said he’ll likely major
in biochemistry.
The scholarship and financial aid weren’t
enough to cover all the costs, so he fills in
the gaps with money he earns working as a
cook in a local restaurant.
He said college was a culture shock for
him after attending M cKay High School.
“Salem has this de facto segregation
where you notice the communities and how
they come together in different areas,” he
said.
At the university, he said, he’s been
meeting with other Dreamers and a few
“trusted professors” to figure out a way the
school can support DACA recipients if they
or their family members get deported.
When he isn’t working or attending
classes, he said, he likes to volunteer.
“I believe it is important to give back to
your community and be involved,” he said.
“I actually work with the Community
Service Learning office on my campus.
But he also likes to relax and listen to
music or watch “Black Mirror” on Netflix.
Right now he’s “really into Blanca Rosa
G il,” he said, but he also likes Modest
Mouse and Vampire Weekend.
He said that during the Obama years,
while he heard a lot about deportations, he
didn’t feel like it would happen to him.
“But now it’s the feeling that it can
happen to anyone, whenever,” he said.
“There is more fear, more precautions you
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have to take, and less time you want to go
out and work, and to the grocery, and out
to wherever because you know if you go
out you are risking yourself.
“It can be terrifying sometimes.”
His three younger siblings are all U .S.
citizens, and he said he’s not sure where
they would go if his parents were deported.
“I could get deported tomorrow; that’s a
reality. But would I rather focus on that or
focus on education and the hope that I
might be able to provide for my
community, and might be able to do
something with my education? I’d rather
focus on that than get down,” he said.
“If I did get deported, I really don’t know
what would happen,” he said. He has about
$1,000 in emergency savings. “It would only
get me a hotel for a week, maybe,” he said.
atima has a brief memory of the night
before her family left their home in the
small town of Aguililla, Michoacán.
She remembers that her mother said to
her, “I need you to please be strong
tomorrow and take care of your sister.” Her
sister was about six years older than she
was, but had developmental disabilities.
She replied, “OK, Mom, I can do it!” She
was just 4 years old.
Fátima remembers being terrified as she
was separated from her mother and placed
into a car with her sister and two
strangers. As her sister cried, she
remembered her mother’s words.
As the car crossed the U .S. border in
Nogales, Ariz., the sisters pretended to be
different children.
“Your memory sometimes tricks you,
but I have nightmares where I wake up and
I’m in a car and driving the whole night,
not able to sleep,” she said. “It’s always a
red car, there’s a man driving and I can’t
see his face, and everything is black. I look
out the window, and all I see are the stars.”
Her two younger siblings crossed in a
separate car, and her mother crossed
through an underground tunnel with a
coyote, someone who smuggles immigrants.
She and her siblings arrived at the safe
house in Arizona where they met her
father, but her mother wasn’t there. It
would be two months before they learned
she had been caught and placed in
detention.
Fátima still remembers watching each
car as it arrived at the safe house, hoping
to see her mother exit the vehicle.
“The fear of missing her and the worry
- that I always feel,” she said.
In March, the U .S. Department of
Homeland Security announced it was
considering a policy of separating children
from their mothers when they are caught
illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
After Fátima’s mother was released, she
crossed again undetected.
Fátima’s family moved to Modesto,
Calif., but her father was abusive, and he
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drank. Her mother eventually left him,
bringing her children north to Oregon.
Fatima said that once she was in the
U .S ., her mother had to trade in her high
heels and manicured nails and take menial
jobs scrubbing toilets.
She eventually got a job waiting tables at
a family-owned Mexican restaurant. Fatima
worries her mother, now approaching her
50s, won’t be able to take the daily 12-hour
shifts much longer.
“I remember my birthday parties, she
wasn’t there. Going home for Easter, she
wasn’t there. You get used to it over time -
that’s how it is in America if you’re an
immigrant,” Fatima said.
When she was 15, she began working at
the restaurant alongside her mother
because she wanted to help pay household
bills.
“That’s when I realized the situation,”
she said. “When I watched her and realized
how hard she was working - and not just
her, but all our immigrant communities,
how much they work.
“I became really frustrated with the way
we were living. I was like, this is pointless
- we are never going to get anywhere. My
mom’s never going to be able to buy a
house; we’re just paying rent and paying
rent. And I was like, there has to be a way
out,” she said. “She’s just working her
whole life for nothing at the end.”
Over the next 15 years, the Latin
American-born population over 40 in the
U .S . is expected to grow by 82 percent,
according to a paper published in the
spring 2017 edition of the Brookings
Papers on Economic Activity.
There is no safety net waiting for
undocumented immigrants. They cannot
collect Social Security and are not eligible
for Medicaid or Medicare, despite paying
the taxes that fund those programs
throughout their lives.
“A large elderly population of
undocumented immigrants is a policy
challenge that the United States has
hitherto not faced,” stated the Brookings
Papers authors.
Figuring out a way to take care of their
aging parents is a burden felt by many
Dreamers.
In Salem, Fatima watched as many of
her Latino classmates went straight from
high school into full-time jobs so they could
help support their families, she said.
“They don’t see an opportunity for
them,” she said. “Their families are barely
surviving, so to think about an education is
completely out of their mind. So those that
do make it, it’s very rare.”
But Fatima was determined to break the
cycle. She began volunteering with the
Boys and Girls Club, recently speaking on
the organization’s behalf at a conference in
Las Vegas.
She applied for scholarship after
scholarship until she was awarded what she
needed to attend Portland State University,
where she’s now in her first year studying
social work and political science.
She wants to use her education to give
back to her community and to have the
means to provide for her mother.
One day she might open a nonprofit that
helps domestic violence victims, she said.
In the meantime, she has an internship at
Causa, where her supervisor, Cristina
Marquez, said she’s been an “incredible
community leader” who’s “fearless in
Page 5
sharing her story.”
In other ways, however, Fatima is the
typical American teenager. She likes
getting her coffee at Starbucks and eating
hamburgers. Outside of school, she plays
soccer and volleyball, and she said she
loves listening to Bruno Mars and Beyonce
- she really likes Beyonce.
She said there are only 80 Dreamers
enrolled at P SU - a school of more than
27,000 students.
“The rest, where are they?” she asked
rhetorically. “They’re working. They are
providing for their families. They are
scared; they don’t want to come out. I’m
given the platform, so I’m willing to speak
out for them.”
oseluis’ mother brought him to Oregon
from Tijuana to visit their extended
mily when he was 3.
“We came as tourists, like most people
do, and just overstayed our visa,” he said.
His mother was planning to return to
Mexico, but she fell in love with Oregon’s
green trees and abundant nature and
i
decided to stay.
“I don’t know if you’ve been to Mexico,
but it’s very barren,” he said. “In Tijuana,
there are loose dogs everywhere, and
random mountains that are just dirt. Even
now, every time we are driving around, she
just stares out the window and is like, ‘wow
this is amazing.’”
Like Fatima, he worries about his
mother’s situation as she ages. He said he
and his brothers would like to buy her a
house one day.
“She’s been cleaning houses since we
got here, and now she just works labor
jobs,” he said. “She’s not made for those
jobs - but it’s all that she has because of
her status.”
His mother had a better job in Mexico,
working in a government office. But she
never returned home because she wanted
to see her kids flourish in America,
Joseluis said.
“She was sacrificing her youth to raise
us into men who can one day be successful.
Because of the way Mexico is, it’s very
difficult to do something without getting
into corrupt politics. It’s pretty dangerous
in Tijuana right now, because of all the
cartels.”
Growing up, Joseluis said, he didn’t
really think about the risk of deportation.
“I was in high school. I was still a kid,”
he said, “I was thinking about not wanting
to go to class tomorrow.”
He played football in middle school and
ran track briefly in high school. But he said
it was too expensive for him to continue.
Instead he joined the student government,
began mentoring freshman students and
took lead roles in service clubs.
He said getting involved opened his eyes
to many needs in his community, such as
See DREAMERS, page 7