The Making of a Dream Read online

  DEDICATION

  FOR JOAQUIN AND CIBELLE

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters

  Author’s Note

  CHAPTER 1: IN THE BEGINNING

  CHAPTER 2: SEEDS PLANTED

  CHAPTER 3: A WAKE-UP CRY

  CHAPTER 4: DARK CLOUDS LEAD TO A TRAIL

  CHAPTER 5: A TRAIL OF TEARS AND DREAMS

  CHAPTER 6: ARRIVAL AND AFTERGLOW

  CHAPTER 7: A MARRIAGE, A DEATH, AND A VOTE

  CHAPTER 8: NEW PATHS

  CHAPTER 9: MOUNTING PRESSURE

  CHAPTER 10: AFTER DACA

  CHAPTER 11: THE NEXT BATTLE

  CHAPTER 12: NEW ALLIANCES

  CHAPTER 13: GRADUATION

  CHAPTER 14: HERE TO STAY

  Acknowledgments

  A Note on Language

  Notes

  Index

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  The following is a list of the significant players in this book. It is in no way meant as an exhaustive list of all those who have contributed to the immigration reform effort in the United States, nor even all those who are leading the undocumented immigrant youth movement.

  MAIN CHARACTERS

  HARETH ANDRADE-AYALA, came to the United States from Bolivia at age eight in 2001.

  BETTY AYALA, Hareth’s mother.

  MARIO ANDRADE, Hareth’s father, husband of Betty Ayala.

  ELIANA ANDRADE, Hareth’s aunt and Mario Andrade’s sister.

  HAZIEL ANDRADE-AYALA, Mario and Betty’s second daughter, came to United States with Hareth at three.

  CLAUDIA ANDRADE-AYALA, Mario and Betty’s youngest daughter, the only one born in the United States.

  DARIO GUERRERO MENESES, came to the United States from Mexico with his parents at age two in 1995.

  DARIO GUERRERO SR., Dario’s father.

  ROCIO MENESES, Dario’s mother and wife of Dario Guerrero Sr.

  FERNANDO GUERRERO MENESES, Dario’s younger brother, born in the United States.

  ANDREA GUERRERO MENESES, Dario’s younger sister, born in the United States and the baby of the family.

  ALEX C. BOOTA, Dario’s freshman roommate.

  FELIPE SOUSA-RODRIGUEZ (FELIPE MATOS SOUSA), came to the United States from Brazil at age fourteen in 2001.

  ISABEL SOUSA-RODRIGUEZ, Felipe’s spouse, came to the United States from Colombia at age six.

  FRANCISCA SOUSA MATOS, Felipe’s mother.

  CAROLINA SOUSA, Felipe’s older sister.*

  JUAN RODRIGUEZ SR., Isabel’s father.

  MARIE (GONZALEZ) DEEL, came to the United States from Costa Rica at age five with her parents in 1991.

  MARINA MORALES MORENO, Marie’s mother.

  MARVIN GONZALEZ, Marie’s father, married to Marina Morales Moreno.

  CHAPIN DEEL, Marie’s husband.

  ARACELI DEEL, Marie’s first daughter.

  LORENA DEEL, Marie’s youngest daughter.

  “ALEX” ALDANA, came to the United States from Mexico with his family at age sixteen in 2003.

  LAURA MORALES, Alex’s mother.

  CARLOS ALDANA, Alex’s older brother.

  YOUNG IMMIGRANT LEADERS

  MOHAMMAD ABDOLLAHI, early member of United We Dream, split off to found the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, also with Dream Activist.

  ERIKA ANDIOLA, Our Revolution political director, worked on Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign and for United We Dream, Arizona activist.

  WALTER BARRIENTOS, lead organizer at Make the Road New York and political director for MTRNY Action Fund, early United We Dream leader.

  JULIETA GARIBAY, founding member and United We Dream Texas director.

  JU HONG, former Los Angeles–based leader of the National Asian American and Pacific Islander DACA Collaborative.

  GREISA MARTINEZ, advocacy director for United We Dream, based in Washington, DC.

  CRISTINA JIMÉNEZ MORETA, cofounder, executive director of United We Dream.

  MARIA GABRIELA “GABY” PACHECO, program director at thedream .us, former political director for United We Dream. She walked the “Trail of Dreams” from Miami to Washington with Felipe, based in Miami.

  CARLOS A. ROA JR., immigrant youth activist turned aspiring Chicago architect, also walked the “Trail of Dreams.”

  CARLOS SAAVEDRA, cofounder of United We Dream, Boston activist, went on to work at the immigrant rights group Movimiento Cosecha.

  ASTRID SILVA, cofounder of Nevada-based immigrant advocacy group DREAM Big Vegas, spoke in prime time at Democratic National Convention in 2016.

  TANIA UNZUETA, legal and policy director for Mijente, Chicago-based early immigrant youth leader.

  KEY LAWMAKERS

  Senate

  RICHARD “DICK” DURBIN, D-Illinois

  WILLIAM “BILL” FRIST, R-Tennessee (Senate Majority Leader, 2003–2007)

  LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-South Carolina

  ORRIN HATCH, R-Utah

  EDWARD “TED” KENNEDY, D-Massachusetts

  JOHN McCAIN, R-Arizona

  HARRY REID, D-Nevada, (Senate Majority Leader, 2007–2015)

  JEFF SESSIONS, R-Alabama (current Attorney General of the United States)

  House

  HOWARD BERMAN, D-California

  JOHN BOEHNER, R-Ohio (Speaker of the House, 2011–2015)

  CHRIS CANNON, R-Utah

  LINCOLN DÍAZ-BALART, R-Florida

  MARIO DÍAZ-BALART, R-Florida, younger brother of Lincoln

  LUIS GUTIÉRREZ, D-Illinois

  JAMES “JIM” KOLBE, R-Arizona

  NANCY PELOSI, D-California (Speaker of the House, 2007–2011)

  ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, R-Florida

  ORGANIZATIONS

  AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR AND CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS, AFL-CIO, nation’s largest labor union, with more than 12 million members.

  AMERICANS FOR IMMIGRANT JUSTICE (FLORIDA IMMIGRANT ADVOCACY CENTER, FIAC), immigrant advocacy, litigation, and legal service organization.

  AMERICA’S VOICE, unofficial communications arm of the immigrant rights and reform movement.

  CENTER FOR COMMUNITY CHANGE, CCC, founded in 1968 to carry on the legacy of Robert F. Kennedy and to develop community organization and change.

  COALITION FOR HUMANE IMMIGRANT RIGHTS, CHIRLA, California-based immigrant advocacy group.

  DREAMACTIVIST, originally an online site to connect immigrant youth, later served as a springboard for anti-deportation and other activist campaigns.

  FLORIDA IMMIGRANT COALITION, FLIC, statewide alliance of more than sixty-five immigrant advocacy groups, created by Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center.

  MAKE THE ROAD NEW YORK, seeks to strengthen Latino and working-class communities through organizing and policy innovation, education, and survival services.

  MIJENTE, a national “Latinx” and “Chicanx” civil rights group founded in 2015 that focuses on issues facing low-income communities, including, but not limited to, immigration.

  MINUTEMAN PROJECT, founded in 2004, sought to independently monitor the border in response to what it viewed as lack of action by the Department of Homeland Security.

  MOVIEMIENTO COSECHA, decentralized immigrant rights group founded in 2015, focused on peaceful, “non-cooperation” techniques like work-stoppages to highlight national reliance on immigrant labor.

  NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM, national immigration policy group that in recent years has focused on reaching out to business, law enforcement, and religious groups.

  NATIONAL IMMIGRATION LAW CENTER, NILC, d
efends the rights of immigrants with low incomes.

  NATIONAL YOUTH IMMIGRANT ALLIANCE, NIYA, immigrant youth-led organization that splintered off from United We Dream and reached its peak in 2012–2013 with mass actions at the border.

  SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION, SEIU, represents some 2 million service workers.

  STUDENTS WORKING FOR EQUAL RIGHTS, SWER, Florida immigrant youth-led social justice group supported by FLIC.

  UNIDOSUS (NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA, NCLR), one of the largest Latino advocacy groups in the United States.

  UNITED WE DREAM, UWD, largest immigrant youth-led network in the nation, with affiliates in twenty-six states.

  ADVOCATES

  JOSH BERNSTEIN, attorney for SEIU, formerly NILC.

  DEEPAK BHARGAVA, head of the CCC.

  IRA KURZBAN, Miami immigration attorney, authored one of the nation’s top immigration law sourcebooks.

  CHERYL LITTLE, founded Americans for Immigrant Justice, formerly FIAC.

  JOSE LUIS MARANTES, worked at FLIC, the CCC, and UWD, early mentor to Felipe.

  CECILIA MUÑOZ, NCLR policy advocate, later served as adviser to former president Barack Obama.

  ALI NOORANI, head of the National Immigration Forum.

  ESTHER OLAVARRIA, worked at FIAC, later served as legislative aide to Senator Ted Kennedy and as policy adviser for DHS.

  MARIA RODRIGUEZ, head of FLIC.

  ANGELICA SALAS, head of CHIRLA.

  FRANK SHARRY, head of America’s Voice, previously led the National Immigration Forum.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I spent nearly a decade interviewing some of the main characters in this book, particularly Felipe and Isabel Sousa-Rodriguez. I spent the last five years regularly interviewing most of the others, fact-checking all of their accounts with those who know them, and with available public and private records and recordings, as well as speaking to dozens more sources named and unnamed. Any direct and unsourced quotes in this book come from these interviews. In some cases, I’ve used italics to depict the main characters’ thoughts or to depict dialogue when I was unable to confirm the exact language with a primary or secondary source. All secondary sources, including the articles I wrote for the Associated Press, are attributed.

  1

  IN THE BEGINNING

  Sign posted during an undocumented “coming out” event at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 2013.

  It would only be a few weeks.

  That’s what Hareth Andrade-Ayala’s parents told her when they planned the trip to Washington, DC. Eight-year-old Hareth and her little sister would travel from La Paz, Bolivia, with their grandmother and grandfather. Their parents would join the girls later.

  Hareth’s grandparents had lived with the family as long as she could remember, always game for her bits of theater, jokes, and dances, all the stuff her parents were too tired to sit through. She’d traveled to visit relatives with them before. This would be another one of those adventures.

  The night before they left, Hareth’s mother tucked her elder daughter’s favorite books into the suitcase. Betty Ayala had bought the books on layaway with money from her accountant work at city hall. One book was filled with jokes, another with tongue twisters. The last book was titled Why Is This So?

  Betty paused on that one. “¿Por qué es así?” was one of Hareth’s favorite phrases. Already it was tough for Betty to answer all her daughter’s questions. Her own mind twirled around the biggest “whys”: Why leave? Why risk everything?

  Hareth’s father, Mario Andrade, had a few classes left before he finished his architecture degree at the university and was already helping build a multiple-story commercial building in La Paz. Betty, who had left her job at the municipality after Hareth’s younger sister Haziel was born, kept the books for Mario’s projects. Compared with many in Bolivia, they were doing okay.

  At first the idea really was just a vacation. Mario’s parents regularly visited his sister, Eliana, who’d moved to the United States in 1994, had obtained citizenship, and now lived in Maryland. They could take the girls with them this time, let Hareth and Haziel practice their English. Mario and Betty applied for their daughters’ visas. The request was easily granted.

  But even then, Betty was forming a backup plan. Famous for its jagged Andes and Quechua people in bowler hats and flounced skirts, Bolivia also held the distinction of being South America’s poorest country. Social unrest had been creeping like a stubborn vine across the mountains in recent years, and now it was spreading its tendrils from the remote hills down to the streets.

  The government’s efforts to eradicate coca farming in the late 1980s and 1990s, with help from the US government, had left thousands of small farmers desperate and without any alternative sources of income. Then came the water wars. In 2000, mass protests swept Cochabamba, the nation’s third largest city, after the government gave a private international consortium control of its water service.1 Bolivians were outraged that a foreign company had come to control what they viewed as a basic public good. When price hikes quickly followed,2 it was too much. The protests multiplied and the unrest spread,3 leading to food shortages in other cities.

  By the spring of 2001, the unrest found its way to Betty and Mario in La Paz. Activists began demonstrating in the streets against similar water privatization. Thousands of miners planted themselves in the heart of the city, demanding the government help revive their industry. They set off explosions at a courthouse and marched toward the Congress.4

  Mario and Betty lay awake at night. If they waited until total chaos hit, they would be among thousands seeking to escape. They could try to get a US residency visa by entering the American government lottery, which allotted each nation a set number of visas annually, but fewer than a hundred such visas were usually granted to Bolivians each year.5 They could ask Eliana to sponsor Mario on a sibling visa, but that would likely take at least a decade. No, they would apply for tourist visas just like their daughters. They would send Hareth and three-year-old Haziel ahead. They would stay behind, sell their belongings, and pack up the house. In a month or so, they would join their daughters. And if things went well, they would stay and eventually seek permanent US residency. It was a risk giving up Mario’s budding professional career, saying a permanent good-bye to many friends and family, and likely having to wait years to receive legal permanent immigration status in the United States, but those were risks they were willing to take. Waiting to see if things got worse was scarier.

  “Be good,” Hareth’s parents told her at the airport. They would see each other soon. Hareth frowned, puzzled by her mother’s serious expression. Of course they would see each other soon. At security, Betty stopped and buried her face in the girls’ hair. Mario pulled them in to his broad chest, his hands big enough to clasp each daughter’s head as he gently bestowed kisses on them.

  They let go, and Hareth held tight to her grandmother’s hand, while her grandfather carried Haziel in his arms. Then the excitement of a plane ride wrapped around her and skipped her feet down the airport corridor. On that August day, as Hareth pressed her small face against the plane window, her heart thumped against her ribs. Her grandmother gave her a spoonful of cold medicine to help her sleep through the seven-hour flight, and Hareth nestled against her grandfather. The plane lifted off over the rust-colored homes, stacked against one another on the hillsides of La Paz. Behind them, the snowcapped Andes offered a silent good-bye.

  They landed first in Miami. A summer storm had delayed their next flight, and they would have to spend the night there before the final leg of their journey to Maryland where “La Tía Eli,” as Hareth called her, lived, so they set off in search of a nearby hotel. Hareth’s grandmother took the girls to the bathroom.

  It was only a few moments before Hareth looked around and didn’t see her sister. “Haziel?” she called. “Haziel?!!!” One minute Haziel was there. The next, she had vanished. Hareth’s breath caught in her throat.
<
br />   Hareth couldn’t speak English, nor could her grandparents, but they had landed in Miami, where that wasn’t a prerequisite. They scanned the faces of the travelers striding past them, wondering whom they could approach for help. Her grandparents hesitated.

  Hareth did not. She approached a man in uniform. Please, she said, looking up at him. We’ve lost my sister. Can you help? They went from one official to another. Hareth and her grandmother were in tears. How could she have disappeared so quickly? Their minds jumped to the possibilities: a little girl lost in a vast airport, or worse. They searched up and down the cavernous corridors until at last they found Haziel, happily playing with airport security guards, who had found her.

  As they boarded their flight the next day, Hareth clutched her sister’s hand tightly in hers. More unsettling than Haziel’s disappearance was her grandparents’ reaction—how uncertain they’d seemed in the midst of the emergency. Hareth silently swore she would never again lose Haziel. She would take charge of her family from now on.

  It was a relief to see their aunt waiting for them at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. On the way to her house, the girls spotted a McDonald’s. They knew little about this new country, but they recognized the golden arches. “McDonald’s!” they screamed. Eliana dutifully pulled into the parking lot. Inside the restaurant, Hareth demanded her aunt translate every menu option, every detail of the kids’ meal, before making her selection. But her throat closed when she tasted the hamburger with its strange pickles and onions. All she really wanted was the plastic toy. Afterward, the girls marveled at the restaurant bathrooms, which didn’t even smell.

  At Eliana’s, they settled into a routine. Hareth and Haziel shared a room with their aunt, and they moved from Maryland to Virginia, where Eliana enrolled Hareth in an elementary school. The school was near the dry cleaner’s where Eliana worked in Washington’s wealthy Woodley Park neighborhood, up the street from the National Zoo. Hareth practiced her English watching Sesame Street and Full House at home or at the cleaners while her aunt sorted suits and silk blouses. Occasionally they watched Spanish-language news together, but mostly Hareth paid little attention to the political debates quietly brewing over what the country should do about immigrants like her. She missed her parents, but her grandparents and her aunt assured her that they would come soon.