The writer (center) with immigrants Wilfredo (L), who received his green card, and Y.M., who has applied for hers PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WRITER
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Delia laughed. When I was still in Mexico, my brother devised a plan. He was already in the U.S. and stood in a parking lot next to the Rio Grande. He waved dog biscuits at Chanel, and Chanel ran across the dry gully, from Mexico into his arms in the U.S. When I got across, he handed me my dog. ICE got angry and stopped me from boarding that bus.
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An Education On the Mexican border, a Triangle resident learns from immigrants hoping to settle in the United States BY TITO CRAIGE backtalk@indyweek.com
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ir, I have to ask for help. Could you print my I-94 so I can prove I entered legally?
At the door of Annunciation House here in El Paso, I see a very pregnant woman with pink nails, frilly running shoes, and a pink parka. In rapid-fire Cuban Spanish, she is asking me for a copy of the I-94, the Arrival/Departure document from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. She says she needs the paper since it is the only document to prove she entered the U.S. legally. I ask this woman—her name is Delia—why she walked instead of coming on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bus that delivers hundreds of immigrants every day. She says ICE refused to let her bring her pit bull and she won’t abandon her dog. I tell her that, since she did not arrive on an ICE vehicle, I cannot admit her but that I’ll call a volunteer to print her I-94. While waiting for the I-94, we prop our elbows on steel railings and Delia tells me how she fled Cuba by taking a boat to Guyana on the northeastern coast of South America. Then she and her husband embarked on a two-year odyssey that ended in El Paso. 12
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I worked my way across 15 countries by painting nails. Fifteen! My husband is a barber and cuts hair, so we saved a lot of money. Pesos. Quetzals. Do you realize that almost everyone wants their nails painted or hair cut? And colored, too. We had so much time that we planned our Miami nail salon and barber shop. My husband almost got killed, though. In Mexico, he met some narco-traffickers who wanted a personal barber. My husband agreed but kept offering cuts to others, too. When the narcos told him to serve them only, my husband said, ‘Fuck off!’ They broke his nose, so we fled, hitchhiking to the Texas border. “Did ICE let you enter?” I asked. We got a “lawful entry” so we can be in the U.S. But then I had a problem because ICE did not like my pit bull, Chanel. I think Chanel smells wonderful, but ICE kicked us off the bus. I had to walk hours from the bridge to here. “How did you get the dog,” I asked, “if ICE was detaining you?”
he more I talked with Delia, the more I was convinced that the U.S. should welcome her and her husband. Her journey was hard, but she has remained optimistic, tough, persistent, funny, and kind. She reminds me of my great grandfather, another optimist. He fled European wars only to encounter debt peonage and anti-Semitism. Like Delia, he persisted. The immigrants’ road is rough. Many of us happily employ immigrants but our system rarely offers legal status or citizenship. Some immigrants have been murdered, including my great grandfather, who, in 1910, was shot in the back by a man who hated Jews. During his short life, Ernst Kohlberg was an entrepreneur par excellence. After three years in debt peonage, he bought his freedom. His gold mining ventures in Mexico failed, but he bought two hotels, started a bank, and built cigar factories in El Paso and Philadelphia. Millions of Americans smoked his Selectos that, of course, were filled with the finest Cuban tobaccos. His creative energy was legendary, and it is no surprise that he is featured in The Wonderful Country, a novel by Tom Lea. Today, he is remembered with a plaque in the synagogue he founded, Temple Mount Sinai, and in the Hotel Paso del Norte, where his portrait hangs next to one of Pancho Villa. He built a palatial home that was completed just before his death. Nowadays, curious descendants like me visit the University of Texas in El Paso to see archived letters Kohlberg wrote about how a cowboy town morphed into a modern city. I used to think the U.S. should block most of today’s immigrants. Thanks to seven years of teaching ESL classes, interviews in El Paso, and visits to detention facilities, I have changed my mind. This was not a sudden development. Rather, my views broadened over several years and were deeply enhanced by my time at Annunciation House. I see that immigrants are idealistic, tenacious, and courteous. They have qualities I would seek in an employee or neighbor. Companies throughout the U.S. are desperate for workers. Instead of vilifying immigrants, why not pass laws that provide work visas and paths to citizenship for the millions who cut lawns, clean hospitals, build roads, operate food trucks, and construct homes? In El Paso, there are “help wanted” signs everywhere, and in Juarez, a mile away, there are Mexicans and Central Americans ready to work but unable to cross. Many immigrants have the traits that we want in an employee: willingness to work hard, dependability, punctuality, and determination. Do we really need a southern border? If we allow goods to cross freely, why not labor? What about the law of supply and demand? Why not welcome those who
