Teresa’s Journal
May 27, 2017
I told my mama that I am pregnant and have come home to bear my child. I assure her that I am excited about my baby, and that makes her excited too. She has met Ryan, but she asks no questions about where he is, for which I am grateful.
But there are problems here at home. I do not know the details, and mama refuses to discuss them with me. I am the oldest! I should know. How else can I help my family? How else can I support my mama and papa?
May 30, 2017
It has taken two days for me to ferret out what the problem is. My abuleo, my grandfather, has been arrested by ICE! They claim his papers are forged, that he is not a citizen. That he was born in some small town outside Morelia, not in Toppenish as he has always said. They have released him on bail, pending a hearing. The trucking company ownership is in jeopardy. Everyone, and I mean, everyone works for the company. My father and my cousins drive for it, my aunt is the bookkeeper. My mother manages the office. Everyone’s income depends upon the company.
June 5, 2017
Oh, mi Dios! ICE raided the trucking company today during a staff meeting! They have arrested my father. I was not there; my mother insists that I stay out of it. I am pregnant, she says, as if at four months I am at risk. Still, I am sick most mornings, and so I do not fight very hard. But now? My father! And they won’t release him, our attorney says, because he was arrested when he was in his teens and returned to Mexico. So, he has a record, and the pendejos will lock him up in a camp near Seattle until his deportation hearing.
I pester my mother until she tells me the story.
My grandfather came to the United States with his own parents when he was very young, following the harvest. When he was 20, in the early 1980s, he didn’t go back to Mexico after the harvest season ended. He stayed, working where he could. He bought papers. They were good ones, and those costs thousands of dollars. Then he met my grandmother. They married. Raised a family.
But he already had a family back in Morelia. (Do I even want to ask if there was ever an official divorce? No, I will not ask. This whole system of illegal/legal immigration is so destructive in the West. What would farmers here do for harvest without Mexican laborers? Americans don’t even know how to harvest the crops anymore. Ryan and I took a class about immigration. It was so revealing. Every student should take it.) At any rate, his oldest son, my father, decided at 16 to come north and be with his father, my abuelo. He was caught at the border and sent back into Mexico. This is the criminal record that ICE is using to keep my father locked up. When he was 24, he did as his father had done. He came north legally on a work permit, following the harvest. He didn’t go back. Abuelo had papers ready for him.
My mother is grim. My younger brothers are furious. I worry they will do something foolish.
June 28, 2017
Oh, my lord. We now know why ICE raided us. My uncle — my mother’s sister’s husband — informed on the family. He received money for it, but more? He wants the company. He showed up today at the staff meeting and demanded to be instated as president.
He is a white man. My aunt is mortified. She has moved out. Their children are taking sides. The rest of the family is united against him.
But he insists that if the company is to survive (he is a vice president) that it must have a legal American as its CEO.
My grandfather just sat back and let him rant, my mother said. She still won’t let me go to the meetings. I am no longer suffering morning sickness, but she says I must not be seen there. I do not understand why.
And when the pendejo was done, my grandfather handed him the incorporation papers. Turns out mi abuela has always been the owner of the company! Abuelo works for her. Mama is co-owner, has been since she married my father. She was told it was tradition, and it was a wedding gift from mi abuelo. The same when my father’s younger brother married. And it is gifted to the wife!
Abuelo laughs at the traitor. Laughs and laughs. He will get nothing. Nothing! My uncle and my cousins, they escort him out. He is forbidden from returning. He lost his job. He will lose everything.
August 22, 2017
My mother wakes me up in the middle of the night and orders me to get dressed. They have received word ICE has a warrant for my arrest. They will come in the morning to serve it, and I must not be here when they arrive.
My arrest! I cannot take this in. My mother is impatient. She makes me pack a small suitcase. She gives me an address, a billfold of cash, and ID that I have never seen before, but it has my picture on it. I am to go to a college friend of hers who lives in Idaho, to stay until I have my baby whom I plan to give up for adoption.
I will not give my baby up for adoption! I protest.
My mother rolls her eyes. It is a story, she says. It does not have to be true, just a story so neighbors will not be suspicious.
Why? Why am I doing this? It is all a mistake, I say, I will explain to ICE that it is a mistake.
My mother hugs me tight. She does not let go. She whispers in my ear, oh mi vida, but it is true. You are the daughter of my
