My conception of Peace Corps
before departing the US was that I would be falling off the map for 2 years.
This to me meant both not seeing or talking frequently to friends and family
back home for the whole time, and also Host Country Nationals (PC term for the
locals) not knowing much about the United States. I think that I went in with
this belief mainly due to the fact that 90% of my information about Peace Corps
came from my parents, who both served in Africa in the 1980s. Everyone in the
know knows that PC Africa is a different animal, even today. Now, 30 years ago
I can’t even imagine how different it is than what my modern Peace Corps El
Salvador experience has been.
Salvadorans joke that El
Salvador is the 51st state. Every Salvadoran I’ve ever met either
has lived in, or has friends and family members living in the United States.
They are up to date on American politics, culture, and sports (well, soccer
anyway). They intimately know the geography of different states, too. I’ll
never forget the first time I told someone I was from Boston and he asked me
“Where in Boston? I lived in Chelsea for 15 years.” I’m used to getting called
out by Americans for saying “Boston” when what I really mean is “a suburb of
Boston you’ve NEVER heard of so I’m just gonna say the city,” but I never
expected that from an old farm worker who doesn’t speak a word of English and
is missing a good portion of his teeth.
¼ of all Salvadoran people
live outside of El Salvador. There are approximately 8 million Salvadorans in
the world, and about 2 million live abroad. Most of these people live in the
United States, although there are some in Canada and other places. A large
portion of those living abroad is doing so illegally. Salvadorans represent the
second highest Hispanic population in America after Mexicans. All of these
people are coming from a country the size of Massachusetts, which is astounding
to me. Most elderly people have either lived there or have children there and
most young people have the hope that they will live there someday, even though
they realistically acknowledge that they will probably not be given papers and
therefore will have to cross illegally.
While illegal immigration
has been around for ages and has been an issue in the United States for years, before
coming to El Salvador it was not on my radar. Living in suburban Massachusetts I
was never aware of a large illegal immigrant presence and the raging political debates
in Arizona, Texas, and the like seemed alien to me. Now, living in El Salvador,
I have a very unique perspective on illegal immigration that most US citizens
will never have.
Let me be upfront about
this: I strongly dislike illegal immigration and am very much against it. This
is not because I don’t want illegal immigrants taking advantage of our public
services or sucking up all of the job opportunities. Not at all. I am against
illegal immigration because I hate to see what it does to the families of the
immigrants and the nations that they leave behind. Kids are growing up in broken
families. Parents, siblings, and friends are missing. When someone goes to the
US the assumption is that they will never be seen again. Hopefully, this is
because they have successfully crossed the border and will be living there. The
alternative is that they get killed in the crossing, get put in jail, or get
deported.
Mere days after leaving my
site in San Vicente to move to Morazán I found out that my host brothers,
Marvin and Erik (age 18 and 16) had left to cross illegally into the US. They
are now living with their parents (who have been in the US for about 15 years)
in Chelsea, a city right outside of Boston where my mom worked for years. A few
weeks later pictures popped up of them on Facebook on the duckling statues at
the Boston Public Garden…one of my favorite childhood locations. How surreal. Marvin
and Erik’s parents left for the US 15 years ago, when Marvin was 3 and Erik was
1. They left their children for a very legitimate reason – they wanted to make
money to send back home so that their kids could have a better life in El
Salvador. They left them with Blanca, their aunt and my host mom. Blanca raised
them as her own and they grew up considering her to be their mother. They never
had interaction beyond Facebook and occasional phone calls with their parents.
However, in January, the parents decided that they were ready for their sons to
join them in the US. They made the arrangements and mandated that Blanca send
the 2 boys over the border (I’m not sure how they made this happen, but I
imagine with threats of withdrawing remittances). Marvin and Erik were not at
all happy. They did not want to leave the family they had grown up with, their
hometown, and their comfortable, upper middle class life in El Salvador to live
in a poor, cramped neighborhood of a working class city in Massachusetts. Marvin
and Erik made it across the border safely and are now living with their parents
in Chelsea. A cousin of theirs was grabbed at the border and detained in
Chicago for some time before being released to his parents. They both say that
they miss Santa Paula and their family, but the reality is that they will
probably never return to El Salvador unless they are deported or somehow win
papers and can travel back legally. Blanca misses them daily. Her biological son has been in the states for 5 years now, and Marvin and Erik were like her surrogate sons. Now all of her children are living in the US and she will probably never see any of them again.
Now, in Sunsulaca, I am
having another experience with immigration. Tonio is one of my favorite kids in
the neighborhood. He is perpetually happy, walking around town grinning a
gigantic smile and saying hi to everyone. He hangs out and watches me watch
movies in English just to keep me company, asked me to be godmother of his
puppy, and once identified my friend Tricia as my “friend with the orange water
bottle” (instead of going for the more obvious qualities such as her height of
6 feet or her white-blonde hair). He collects marbles, loves to draw, and turned 8 in May.
Tomorrow, he will be heading across the border alone to join his mother in New
York. Tonio’s mom is paying a “coyote” (professional border-crosser) $10,000 to
get her son across to New York. She doesn’t have that much money, so she’s had
to borrow it, from whom I don’t know. Tonio has no interest in leaving El
Salvador and crossing to the United States. He will be leaving his whole family
and making the trip alone with an unknown man. He’ll be forced to walk for
days, go without food and water, and hide from authorities. If he makes it, he’ll
be living with people he doesn’t remember in a place he doesn’t know. He’ll be
cold, he won’t speak the language or know the customs, and he won’t have any
friends to help him out. Tonio’s a good kid and he’ll adapt quickly, but I hate
that he’s being forced to. He’s too young to be experiencing all of this, but
then again I don’t think anyone should ever have to go through what he’s about
to.
In the United States the
illegal immigration debate is generally based around the civil rights of the
immigrants and the effects their presence has on US citizens. Here, it's about the people who are getting left behind, and the broken families that fill this country and the immigrant population of the United States. I just wanted to
write this so you all can have a glimpse of what it’s like down here. I don’t
pretend to have any brilliant, deep ideas or insights about this issue, but I hope
that it gives you a new perspective on immigration.
 |
| my buddy Tonio |
