Marisol and the American Dream, Janet Jarman

Janet Jarman

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Marisol and the American Dream

I’m a photojournalist based in Mexico, and I focus on social issues, like the topic of migration. As a child growing up in the South of the United States, I witnessed many contradictions and social divisions, and this really upset me. I began exploring my city with a camera, to try to understand these divisions. I began to see photojournalism as an instrument, a powerful one, in order to participate in society’s complex social issues, through the creation of images.

Cross-border migration, from a journalistic standpoint, became a topic of deep concern. Working in Florida at the beginning of the nineties, I met hundreds of migrants. I was concerned. I worried that the media portrayed them as statistics or categories, not as individuals making an effort to improve their lifestyles while building vibrant communities. I wanted to learn more about their lives, and about how their lives changed over time once they arrived in the United States.

And thanks to a meeting with a young Mexican girl, twenty years ago, I was able to document a part of the puzzle of migration.

Marisol and I met in the municipal garbage dump in the city of Tamaulipas in 1996. She was eight years old. It was a scorching hot day in August. Surrounded by thousands of flies, standing in the middle of burning garbage, I met Marisol and her mother Eloisa. They had found dead animals in that garbage dump. One day, they found a human cadaver and a fetus in a jar. They invited me to stay with them. Eloisa told me, desperately, that she wanted a different life for her family.

Some months later I returned to see how they were doing, but they had left. The father, a legal agricultural worker in the United States, had decided to move his family to Florida to find a job harvesting strawberries. I located them and arrived the first day of school for Marisol in the United States. They were all together, finally. The children had more space to play, but they complained that their house was infested with rats, and that it was too small for a family of twelve members.

Eloisa felt alone in Florida, and she wanted to return to Mexico, but her husband refused. So, instead of moving back, they moved to Texas, where she had siblings. At first view, it seemed that everything was okay, but behind closed doors, Marisol and her siblings had to face the terrible divorce of their parents.

Each time, it became harder to continue my access to their home and take pictures, due to tensions in the family. I finished my story with an image of Cristina, Marisol’s sister, which I believed that represented two young girls who wished to become friends in spite of the border between them. Cristina told me afterwards, “That is Mary, her family doesn’t allow her to play in our garden, because we are Mexicans”.

A year later, a German magazine asked me to look for Marisol to talk about her experience as a migrant, and I found her again.

Marisol had many dreams about her future in the United States and wished to become a doctor, a computer specialist, or a teacher. She was determined to finish high school. But, sometime later, a bank evicted Eloisa and her daughters from the only place they knew as their home. Their American Dream was falling apart.

Marisol continued moving forward, trying to make sense of her teenage world. When she was sixteen, all of a sudden, her attitude changed towards me. Marisol asked me not to take any more pictures of her. I was sad that the story had to end for the second time.

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Janet Jarman

136 Not knowing what had happened to Marisol tormented me for two years. Finally, I decided to get on a plane to go look for her in the state of Texas.

I thought that she was going to reject me, but instead she said, “Why did you take so long to find me?” And, surprised, I found her with a two-year old child, named Carlos. Marisol hadn’t wanted me to know about her pregnancy. At fifteen years of age, she had started going out with a young migrant named Andrés.

Like many migrants I have met, Andrés wasn’t looking for the American Dream, but for the Mexican Dream: to go back to his roots in Mexico, to live with his family, and to have a proper life. First, he had to save money, to be able to build his home in Mexico.

In 2007, Andrés tried to carry out his Mexican Dream. He sent Marisol to his town, so that his parents might get to know his child, their grandchild. Marisol didn’t eat for three weeks. The ladies of the town thought that she was pregnant again, and they were right.

A few months later, after her return to the United States, she gave birth to a little girl named Anahí.

Two years later, Andrés tried to move his family back to Mexico. He inaugurated his arrival by inviting the entire town to the baptism ceremony of his two children. It was the first time in seven years that he had returned home. Marisol dreamed of going back to Texas. She wasn’t sure of remaining forever in that small town. Andrés begged her to stay, but to no avail. Finally, they decided to leave, and they had a third child in the United States. Marisol wasn’t able to finish high school because she had three children. Therefore, she decided to work at the truck wash with Andrés.

Although the acids that they used burned her skin, she liked earning money, which gave her some independence. They were able to lease a trailer with three bedrooms, and they were able to or-

ganize nice birthday parties every so often. Sometimes they went to the movies, but, generally speaking, they just watched movies at the home of Sandra, her sister.

Taking her children to Mexico every summer became a ritual for Marisol. Carlos loved his grandparents and said that he preferred to live in Mexico than in the United States, but Marisol felt bored in the town of Andrés. She told me: “The last thing I want is for a man to give me a bunch of seeds and then tell me to go plant them!” Marisol was confused about her identity and where she belonged.

In August of 2012, Marisol called me in tears. She and Andrés had decided to divorce, and things became very troubled. Andrés called the police to take away the children, and Marisol was desperate to recover them. Her lawyers demanded 5,000 dollars as a down payment, before taking on her case. Marisol spent all her savings, and asked for a loan from her brother to pay the lawyers’ fees.

In spite of her divorce, she still had to work at the truck wash, and they had to work together. Andrés finally decided to return the children to their mother. I met with Andrés after the court hearing, and I saw that he was destroyed; his dreams had been broken. Marisol seemed somewhat at ease, but troubled to start a new life at twenty-four years of age.

Fortunately, after one year, they were able to reconcile, and Andrés returned home. Their work situation improved, and they were capable of buying their own home. Marisol’s boss gave her a lot of responsibilities, and the children began doing well at school.

One day, Carlos received an award for being first place in his class, and everyone in the family went to have fun and celebrate at the Six Flags Park.

And the story continues. I visit the family a couple of times a year, or as often as I can, and I will continue documenting their experiences as migrants.

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Janet Jarman

138 In conclusion, Marisol gave me a gift because she allowed me to document her life over a long period of time. She allowed me to tell a story on an important topic in a different way. By focusing a micro-lens on one family, I was able to illustrate a macro issue, migration, and all of its complexity. It is not black and white, but very grey. Migration is not an attractive topic for much of the media. Perhaps that is why this topic has been so misunderstood, and the facts are easily manipulated.

Many opinion leaders in the United States portray undocumented migrants as a threat to their society, and they try to adopt policies at the expense of those who cannot defend themselves. Throughout history, those types of leaders have always tried to dehumanize the “other”, because it

makes it easier to attack them without feeling guilty. To promote hate becomes more difficult when one sees the faces of these people, and that is one of my goals for this project: to humanize and put a face on the anonymous migrant. I do not have all the answers. I’m not a politician. I’m not an activist. I’m a narrator of stories adding one point of view to this debate.

Marisol’s experience is not the experience of all migrants. I hope that by showing her reality to a broader audience this story might contribute in some way to changing the conversation about Latino migration to the United States, from an impersonal debate to one that focuses on real human stories.

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