The other cost.

[ilbegone]

The other cost of not enforcing the 1986 immigration law from the start. I see a lot of this in people I know and have met who are in between, and American politicians are responsible for every negative consequence of illegal migration - regardless of what side one stands on and who's personal ox is gored.

I present this neither as a defense of nor attack on anyone, it's the way it is for many.

Two quotes from a personal blog:

10/22/2010

I notice today something that I've been walking back and forth on, but never put my finger on it. This is something that is universal actually, a feeling of disconnect between yourself and your parents. For me, this disconnect becomes much more obvious and wider because I'm first generation everything. Every now and then, I'll talk to my mom about how things use to be back in Mexico. The memories we made there, actually having some sort of normal life there. Considering the way things were going when I was a kid, my mind gets the better of me in thinking what would have happened if we stayed and never left.

Today I kinda spaced out and saw this disconnect between my parents and me. While we share the unconditional love all families have, I feel so disconnected from them at times. I can explain and tell them what I do, but there are levels beyond explaining. My parents life went that way and mine is steadily going this way. Yet, I see that it's in that same disconnect that we are connected. I wouldn't be going where I'm going if it wasn't for them. No matter how big or small a role they played in that. Some of the biggest things in life happen with the falling of a simple leaf. The leaf that didn't fall too far off from the tree.

10/04/2010


I was talking to a friend and I started reminiscing about my childhood in Mexico. Days of future past as I refer to them. In particular, the time I spent at my great grandmothers ranch. I don't know where it is, in what pueblo or region. I just know that we took a bus to get La Huacana, my uncle would pick us up in his cab and we'd be there in no time. I remember care free days of walking to milk a cow. Catching chickens to eat. Fresh tortillas made by hand on a clay furnace. Hills, dirt roads and loving faces for miles.

Part of me romanticizes these memories because they belong to a seven year old child. A child who knows nothing of social identity, retaining his native language, the concept of one group of people being better than another or of what it means to be a Mexican. Those three months were the best I ever had. I woke up with the sun and went to sleep with moon. Adventure was the daily ritual, wondering around the pueblo, swimming in the arroyo as my mom washed clothes on rocks up stream. Chasing pigs around the house and causing mischief every where I went.

It's ironic that I got a taste of eden before being cast out from it. Living in purgatory. Killing myself to live. Being undocumented through no fault or choice of my own. That pueblo that is in my mind and heart is no longer there. The warehouse with filled with corn as far as I could see is gone. The arroyo is dried up. The family and friends I had there are gone as well. All I have left are memories of days of future past. If I had a Mexico to go back to, I would, but the U.S. made it so that I can't. I can't return to what isn't there anymore, not to a memory.

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