November 10, 2019
Rafael is two years old today. He’s so bright! He takes after his father, I think. He chatters at everyone, nonsense words, but he likes to meet people and talks to them. He is learning Spanish so fast, but I worry that he isn’t learning English. I talk to him in English solamente, but my mother speaks Spanish mostly, and so do the other children he plays with. Even I speak mostly Spanish these days! But he must learn both.
We have a party for him. Everyone is there. My brothers, my cousins, my grandparents. Only my father is missing. But we celebrate because life must go on. And Rafael is another generation. It will be different for him. I will fight to make it so.
September 22, 2020
Every appeal has been exhausted. I do not qualify for DACA, because they are only accepting renewals, not new applications. I try not to be bitter at my family. They could not have seen this coming. No one did. This is the country we love, the country we feed. How could we know our neighbors would turn on us? That even family would become enemies? Trump has made immigrants targets. Everything bad is our fault. If you are Latino, it is dangerous to go out at night. Men in pickups will drive by wearing camouflage and holding their rifles and shout ugly things at Mexican Americans, even though some have been here legally for generations. My grandfather says it reminds him of the drug cartels on the streets in Morelia. He is afraid. My mother is afraid. My brothers and cousins are angry. I am both afraid and angry. What is our country coming to?
The hate divides communities. My aunt who is married to the white man? One of her daughters has been saying that my grandfather should have to go back to Mexico, same with my father. She does not care that they might be killed. She is Mexican American, and she says these things. My mother says she does it to please her father. But I could not do that. She says women like me are a burden on taxpayers because we have children we cannot support. I point out I don’t receive any support from the government. But she ignores that. She says Rafael will be allowed to go to school — and that is tax dollars. But Rafael is an American, just as her own children are.
She has become addicted to the hate. That is how I see it. People I went to high school with? Some of them are in those pickups yelling at people. They were not like that then. I don’t think they were. Trump has given people permission to hate. To be cruel. To blame others.
I stay home except to work at night as dispatch. I am useful because I speak both English and Spanish fluently. It eases something inside me to know that I am contributing. And I raise Rafael to be an open, happy boy. I do not want him to fearful. I have pictures of his father, and I show them to him. I tell him stories, made up stories, about Ryan as a boy so that Rafael will not be afraid. Because I know it is only a matter of time.
My attorney tells me that I must surrender to authorities tomorrow. He gives me the time and place. I think he knows I will not be there.
Please, Ryan, if you have ever loved me, keep our son safe. Raise him with love. Make sure he doesn’t forget me, that he knows I love him very much.
Do not look for me. I have heard of a pipeline for people like me. Sojourners Way they call it after the woman who once brought slaves to freedom. They will keep me safe until the government changes again, and I can fix this. Until my country acknowledges me, one who has never known another place, never called another country home.
I love you, Ryan.
Ryan put the last page of the journal down, and he sat there in the empty newsroom with tears running down his face.
Chapter 10
11:30 a.m., Thursday, Eyewitness Newsroom — A paper plate of nachos, the tacky kind of tortilla chips covered in melted generic yellow cheese, slid onto the desk in front of him. Ryan looked up. The lights were still off, but Emily was perched on the chair pulled up to the desk. She took another nacho. But she said nothing, letting him gather his composure.
He took a deep breath and then reached for a nacho. Hot grease and salt. What was there not to like?
“It’s already been one of those days,” he offered up. Emily said nothing, just listened to him. “I read the journal Teresa left me,” he added.
She nodded. “Hard?”
“I’d like you to read it,” he said. “Why didn’t she come to me, Em? I would have married her! In a heartbeat!”
Emily twisted her mouth as she did when she was deciding whether he was ready to hear something.
“Out with it.”
“You would have been a piss-poor husband back then, probably now too, but back then?” she said frankly. “When she left? You were still partying like crazy. You were rarely sober, usually high, and fucking everyone in sight. It wasn’t until the next year you got clean.”
He jerked when she said fucking. She didn’t use that kind of language usually, and she said it so matter-of-factly because there was no other term for it. And she was right. He still was. But he was clean. He thought of the date she left, February 14, 2018 and nodded in agreement.
“So that’s one thing. The other thing? How much do you know about naturalization? The way someone becomes a
