The Making of a Dream Page 4

  The family had their first hearing in December 2003, driving two and a half hours to Kansas City, the nearest immigration court. Theirs was the only case on the docket that day, and Ben had told them the judge wouldn’t even be there but would instead talk to them via teleconference. They would likely get a postponement and would have more time to map out their case. When they arrived, Marina was shocked to see a group of immigrants sitting in chairs, handcuffed. They didn’t look like criminals to Marina. But now she wondered whether that was how others saw her. Then, to their surprise, the judge walked into the courtroom and quickly made things clear: they had no claim to stay in the United States and now were officially in deportation proceedings. But the judge did agree to allow Marie to finish out her school year. The family walked out hearts in hand. Together they vowed to appeal the decision.

  At night, Marie tried to put it all together, going over the events of the last year and a half. She had known they weren’t citizens, but she’d always assumed they were in some sort of protected gray area. If only she hadn’t been so set on getting her driver’s license, maybe no red flags would have been set off. Stupid, stupid! she thought. But maybe she’d never know what had triggered the anonymous call about her father and the media leak. It was so bewildering. Through it all, one thought came back to Marie: I should have protected him.

  2

  SEEDS PLANTED

  Marie Gonzalez speaks at a DREAM Act rally, on the Capitol grounds in Washington, DC, April 20, 2004. (COURTESY OF JOSHUA BERNSTEIN)

  Hareth stopped counting the days till her parents would come as the protective shell in which she had arrived in the United States began to crack. In 2003, Hareth’s grandfather became ill. When he died, her grandmother returned to Bolivia to grieve. Then Eliana lost the lease on an apartment, and for a few months they moved in with other relatives until they could once more find a place to live. School remained the constant. One year, Hareth’s teacher had the class memorize the Gettysburg Address. Hareth loved the drama of the speech. She imagined herself one day standing before a crowd, issuing declarations that would make people stop and listen. At night she lay in bed, rolling the words over her tongue:

  Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

  Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

  Her parents still called every night. But sometimes she would avoid the phone. The sound of her mother’s voice over the line cut into her chest like the glass shards scattered outside their apartment. There was too much to fill in about daily life, too many questions to answer. She didn’t even try to explain about the Gettysburg Address—the power of Lincoln’s simple words: a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

  But Betty couldn’t wait much longer. She was pregnant. She hadn’t planned to have another baby, not while her other two were so far away. And now she was terrified that if she waited too long, she wouldn’t be able to travel at all. Friends suggested that if they couldn’t get visas from Bolivia, maybe they needed to arrive from somewhere else, a wealthier country, like Argentina, where they would face less scrutiny. In June 2004, with Betty nearly eight months pregnant, they decided once more to try to reach the United States. They planned to split up. Mario tested the path first. He traveled to Buenos Aires and spent a few days with a cousin. From Argentina, he used an altered passport with his brother’s information to reach the United States. He was terrified walking past the security in Buenos Aires. Don’t let anyone see. They are watching, watching from the windows, from places you don’t even see, he reminded himself. Breathe. Everyone is watching. He hated feeling like a criminal with something to hide. He smiled broadly at the agents as he passed. No one flagged him. As he leaned back into his seat on the plane, Mario thought about what he was leaving behind: the weight of his degree, his reputation, his friends, his extended family. He knew it would not be easy. No one would hand them anything. They would have to start over. He forced himself to push aside those worries, refusing to allow himself to imagine failure. Instead, he thought only about his daughters’ big black eyes and small round faces. As he stepped off the plane at Washington Dulles International Airport, outside Washington, he prayed the men in military gear with sniffer dogs wouldn’t stop him.

  No one told Hareth or Haziel he was coming, just in case he didn’t make it. The girls scampered through the airport, excited to see whichever distant relative had arrived. Hareth, already a tween and two heads taller than when she’d left home three years before, was stunned to hear her father call her name. She froze, barely recognizing him. But Haziel knew him from recent pictures and ran to greet Mario.

  “Papi!”

  That night the girls slept on either side of their father, huddled all together.

  Mario wanted to learn everything about his daughters’ lives. That first week he borrowed Eliana’s car and dropped Hareth off at her school. As he pulled up along the narrow, hilly street, another parent opened the door of a parked SUV, and smacked into Eliana’s car. Mario froze. Unbelievable, he thought. Already an accident. Now he would be blamed. And what would he tell Eliana? The other parent got out as a school traffic officer approached, and Mario took a deep breath, shifting into park. Hareth wondered if she should intervene, as she had with her grandparents when they had lost Haziel.

  Mario calmed Hareth. He would handle it.

  Hareth leaned back in the car, relieved.

  The other driver approached Mario’s side and stuck out his hand. He hadn’t been looking. It was his fault. He was sorry. By now the officer had reached them and waved the two men along, directing them to take their kids inside first and exchange information later. Mario exhaled as he dropped Hareth at the school gate. He would have to be much more careful driving in the United States. The last thing he needed was to be on the radar of the police and have them ask about his plans in the country. As he had on the plane, Mario once more swept those fears to the back of his mind. Landing too long on those what-ifs could drive a person crazy.

  A month later, Betty made the same trip. The stress had kept her from gaining much weight during her pregnancy. She wore a baggy sweatshirt and sweatpants so no one would notice her swollen belly. She worried officials might think she was too pregnant to travel or, worse, that they would stop her out of fear she was trying to have an anchor baby. But she was determined that nothing would stand in the way of reuniting with the babies she already had. Much to her surprise, no one in Customs asked about her pregnancy.

  This time Hareth was prepared. As they waited at the airport, she scanned the gate, searching for her mother. Finally Betty appeared, smaller than she remembered, more fragile. Hareth burst away from her sister and father and tore to the spot where her mother stood. In an instant, she was in Betty’s arms, her face enveloped in her mother’s thick black hair, her chin fitting perfectly into the crook of her neck, the warm melody of Betty’s voice dancing softly in her ears.

  I’m here now. I’m here.

  With the family back together, Betty began sleeping through the night again for the first time in years. During her last months of pregnancy, she quickly put on the weight she’d never gained in Bolivia. Mario had already begun to put his architectural background to use in the construction boom, as the Washington Beltway corridor expanded out through Virginia and Maryland. Now he stepped up his efforts and began specializing in electrical jobs where he could make more money. Betty began to pick up English from neighbors as she waited for the baby to arrive.

  Claudia was born in August. They couldn’t find a Virginia hospital willing to take them without insurance, but in Washington, DC, they did. A hospital administrator patiently explained to Betty about the city-run Women, Infants, and Children program, funded by the federal government, which would provide supplemental milk and othe
r basic food for Claudia until she was five. Three months later, Betty took an overnight job caring for an elderly woman so she could be home with the girls in the afternoon. She worked five nights a week and barely slept. Betty moved Hareth to the neighborhood school, where Hareth found herself back in English-learner classes. Much to her chagrin, the school had deemed her reading insufficient for the general track. Hareth was furious over the switch and the remedial lessons. Once again it felt as though she were restarting her life. Worse, her parents did not seem to know even the most basic rules. They had no idea how to be the kind of “American” parents Hareth was used to watching on TV or eating dinner with at friends’ houses. Betty and Mario hadn’t had a big television in Bolivia, and there wasn’t much to watch, so it didn’t occur to them to take Hareth’s TV privileges away if she didn’t listen to them. They didn’t do “time-outs” in Bolivia. And they didn’t know what to do about the constant phone calls Hareth received. How could a kid talk so much to friends she’d seen only an hour or two before and would see again less than twenty-four hours later?

  Betty was shocked at her daughter’s liberal use of American slang. ¡Que lenga! What a mouth! She pushed Hareth to study more, to transition as quickly as possible. Go read! Betty ordered her daughter, remembering how much Hareth loved books as a small child. But Hareth didn’t want to go read, and no one was going to tell her what to do. She’d been on her own for three years, and she knew how to take care of herself. And besides, she wasn’t used to speaking so much Spanish again. How long would it take for her parents to learn English anyway?

  In fits and starts the Andrades began to rebuild their family. Eliana found a new place, so the Andrades had the two-bedroom apartment to themselves. Hareth picked Haziel up from the bus stop after school and cared for her sister while doing her homework in the afternoons. Betty made dinner before going to her night shift job, or Hareth did, and Mario ate with the girls. Eventually, their grandmother returned to help, and Eliana still chipped in. They attended Baptist church on Sunday. The apartment was full. Sometimes it seemed like there were too many parents now, but secretly Hareth didn’t mind. If she arrived later than she said she would, she lost telephone privileges. If she sassed her parents, she lost TV privileges. Hareth soon transferred back into the general classes at her new school. On the weekends, she and her mother cleaned house, swapping stories from work and classes, Hareth practicing her Spanish, Betty her English, as they fell into a new rhythm.

  DISCUSSIONS ABOUT BROAD IMMIGRATION reform became less frequent in the United States in the years immediately following September 11 but never really went away, even as the country marched into war with Iraq. They couldn’t because undocumented immigrants were so interwoven into the fabric of America that their presence sneaked in even to discussions of military strategy and troops in Iraq. The second US casualty in the war turned out to be a young man from Guatemala who had crossed the California border illegally. An orphan who had fled his own war-torn country, Lance Corporal Jose Gutierrez1 had lied about his age so he would appear to be a minor and could more easily stay in the United States, where he eventually enlisted in the marines to fight on behalf of his adopted country.

  By the time Mario and Betty arrived, Congress had passed enough border security legislation that the immigrant rights movement began to stand up and dust itself off. And in 2003, two bills began making their way through the Senate that would help immigrants rather than merely penalize them. One, backed by the Senate’s longtime liberal champion, Massachusetts’s Ted Kennedy, aimed to provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented farmworkers. The other was the DREAM Act, Republican Orrin Hatch and Democrat Dick Durbin’s effort to provide a path to citizenship for those who had come to the country as children. In the House, Republican Chris Cannon and Democrat Howard Berman again offered a similar proposal. Under the bill, anyone aged twenty-one and under who had arrived before his or her sixteenth birthday, had no criminal record, and had lived in the United States for five years could attend college, the military, or a trade school and generally get on track for legal permanent residency.

  Immigrant advocates knew they needed outside help, and they saw an opening. In 2003, a seismic shift in US labor politics was under way that would help reframe the entire immigration debate and breathe new life into the movement. Since their inception, labor unions had been wary of immigrants taking American jobs and providing a cheaper, more docile alternative to the titans of industry. American Federation of Labor president Samuel Gompers had written back in the 1920s that the US labor movement, “does not declare that America is for Americans alone, but it does insist that there should be and must be some restriction of immigration that will prevent disintegration of American economic standards.”2

  Yet union numbers were plummeting, and states were increasingly passing union-busting regulations. Union leaders needed the new immigrants to build back their movements’ numbers and hoped legalizing them would reduce unfair competition from those willing to take less because they were afraid to argue for more. Welcoming these new members wouldn’t stop the march toward automation or even the outsourcing of jobs overseas, but it might level the playing field at home. The AFL-CIO had endorsed a path to citizenship for those in the country illegally for the first time in its 2000 national platform, but the policy shift hadn’t trickled down to the rank-and-file members.

  Now, immigrant advocates, together with union leaders, sought ways to make more visible the connection between union members’ working conditions and those of immigrants. Josh’s group, the National Immigration Law Center, along with the National Immigration Forum in Washington, DC, headed by immigrant advocate Frank Sharry, came up with the idea for a caravan of buses full of immigrant tomato pickers, hotel maids, and construction workers to travel from California to the nation’s capital, teaming up along the way with union members from across the country. They called it the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, harkening back to the civil rights–era bus rides that sought to end segregation across the South.

  Reverend James Lawson Jr., who participated in the 1961 freedom ride from Montgomery, Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi, spoke in Los Angeles as thousands gathered for the kickoff in late September. The Service Employees International Union, whose workers often included immigrants, helped fund and promote the effort.* Garment workers in Southern California came out to support them as well, as did other big players, like the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, known as CHIRLA, and the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium, NAKASEC.

  A brash Spanish-language radio host, Renán Almendárez Coello, known as “El Cucuy de la Mañana,” spoke at the Los Angeles kickoff. Only blocks away from where they gathered, immigrant garment workers labored long hours, at times without drinking water, toilet paper, or air-conditioning, and little if any overtime, he shouted to the crowd.3 Some 900 immigrants and advocates made their way across the country, drawing their biggest crowd of 100,000 at a New York City rally. The caravan didn’t immediately move the needle in Congress, not with comprehensive reform and not for the DREAM Act. But it became a coming-out of sorts for the immigrant rights movement, which had been so demoralized by the 1996 immigration and welfare laws, and then by the nation’s emphasis on national security following 9/11. Immigrant advocates inhaled a renewed sense of urgency, even as their efforts brought new and more critical scrutiny.*

  The DREAM Act’s supporters felt the momentum. Josh looked for young students to bring to Washington and testify before Congress. It wasn’t hard to find the kids, but few wanted to call attention to their plight lest they trigger an immigration raid. The bill went to markup in the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Immigration in October, and Alabama Republican senator Jeff Sessions was among the few committee members to flat-out oppose it. During one marathon late-night committee hearing, Sessions, who would become the US attorney general under President Donald Trump, offered roughly two-dozen amendments designed to kill t
he bill. He didn’t succeed. The DREAM Act staggered on, and eventually it sailed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee with strong support.

  Josh found a young Haitian woman, Majan Jean, from Connecticut, whose family had lost its asylum case and who was willing to speak out because she was already facing deportation. Eventually, lawmakers from Connecticut would help Majan get a reprieve through a private bill.

  Marie’s lawyer, Ben Mook, had been researching her case, looking for similar congressional help. Like Majan, Marie and her family were already in deportation proceedings. Unlike Majan, Marie’s representatives didn’t appear interested in helping her. The two senators from Missouri had refused to introduce a private bill on her behalf, as Durbin had done for Tereza Lee and others. (It likely didn’t help that they were both conservative Republicans, while her father had worked for a Democrat.) One lawmaker did try to help get her into the military, only to realize she couldn’t qualify because she was undocumented. Ben came across a press release with Josh’s name on it. He got in touch. Josh was elated. Marie’s case might fit perfectly. Josh called her in early 2004. Marie had little left to lose. This was their opportunity, he told her.

  Marie was terrified. Speak in front of a group of adults in Washington? Lawmakers? Talk about her family’s situation? No way.

  People were living in fear. You could be their voice, he argued.

  Josh’s quiet insistence instilled a confidence Marie hadn’t felt in months. She could actually do something instead of waiting in dread. She flew to Washington that spring, using her school ID, terrified she would be detained at any minute. Staffers from the nonprofit Center for Community Change picked her up at the airport. The group, which had been founded in 1968 to honor the memory of Robert F. Kennedy’s work on civil rights, would soon prove instrumental. Before she knew it, Marie was at the offices of an NPR affiliate, doing her first major interview. Her voice trembled. She wondered why anyone would want to listen to her. As the interviewer focused on Marie and other students like her, a hard knot tightened in her stomach. Don’t forget my parents, she wanted, but was afraid, to say.