I have been attempting to push myself back into this topic, once again making myself close to the immigration issues in this country as well as taking interest in the U.S.-Mexico border relations. I have logged into my blog page several times and sat staring at it, never knowing exactly what to say or even how to say it, everything bouncing around in my mind and no way to put these thoughts into the words I wanted to, so I would simply log back out. Every time I did this I knew I was running away from the one thing that I was most passionate about, hiding because I didn't think my voice was enough to matter. I was also hiding because I was scared of who might figure my story out, the story that only five people in my entire family know, my Mother, Father, Sister, Nana (grandmother), and Nina (godmother) know. I was scared the others would see these things I wrote and look at me differently, they wouldn't understand or worse they would judge me and they would judge my husband.
But recently I saw an amazing film by Jose Antonio Vargas that inspired me. The film Documented is Jose's story as an undocumented immigrant in the United States, he came out and told the country his story, knowing the potential consequences but taking the risk so that his voice could make a difference. This film helped me to see that these stories, no matter how fearful we may be to tell them, do make a difference, they inspire and move people, they take an issue that may seem black and white and fill it with color and life so that our humanity can be recognized. So, here is my story:
We started dating just after I turned seventeen, our second date was his seventeenth birthday party (yes, I'm older). He was different from the boys at my school, he was different from anything I had known really, seemingly a bit of the bad boy type, all punk rock and cool. It wasn't long until I was falling completely head over heels for the boy, he was sweet and bought me cute things like a stuffed animal frog because he knew it was my favorite. But as things started to get a bit more serious I guess he felt the need to be completely honest with me about who he was. One day as we stood on my porch he looked at me sorta tearfully and told me he didn't have any papers, that he wasn't here legally. I was not as thrown off by this as one might imagine to be and I simply looked into his eyes and said, "Don't worry we'll figure it out." and I kissed him goodnight. As I went into my house the magnitude of it all began to hit, this was going to change everything, and by everything, I mean EVERYTHING. My whole life as I had imagined it was being shaken, I knew I was in love with this boy, and I knew this school year I was going to be applying to colleges. All I could think was if I left San Diego he would never be able to come see me, he wouldn't even be able to go to LA without having to risk the checkpoint. Would I tell my parents, should I tell them, no, definitely not. Not that they had strong feelings about the issue or anything, but I knew they would just worry and I didn't want to make anything weird.
So we went on with life, we tried to keep things normal and stay out of any kind of trouble. The only colleges I applied to were the two state ones in San Diego, I could live at home and get scholarships, and I knew I couldn't leave home and never see him. I went to UCSD, he worked with his dad in an auto body shop, he had a fake Mexican License which scared me to death but driving was the one thing that kept people off his back and kept the questions away. He couldn't go to school, no money and there wasn't really any of that DREAM stuff at the time. He couldn't get any other job because he had nothing but an expired Visa from when we was a baby. We couldn't go anywhere, we couldn't even see an R rated film because he had no ID. Nearly everything he couldn't do, I couldn't do and we lived in constant fear of police or border patrol. He liked to test his limits, driving up to the LA checkpoint and sneakily not switching seats with me so I could drive through it, proving to himself that he wasn't as restricted as he felt. Thank God it was closed that day, I nearly died when he said he passed the last exit before the checkpoint, I felt like I couldn't breathe, if he got caught and they took him away he could never live in this country legally and we would be separated unless I left to Mexico.
We went on like this for a while and eventually my parents found out his situation, that's what we always referred to it as, the situation. One day while we were with my mom in the kitchen she brought it up, said something along the lines of "but, you have all your papers and stuff, right?" we were deer in the headlights, both speechless. I couldn't even formulate words, half fuming that she would even think to talk about this, and half debating if we could trust her or not. My own mother, if I could trust her!? Of course I could trust her, she wasn't someone who would flip a lid based on this information, but that's what this "situation" does to you. It makes you live in constant fear, analyzing the people you can and cannot trust with information that could destroy your entire world, paranoid if you will, as if border patrol is always lurking right around the corner and someone will give you away at any second. And then he said it, "No." and everything stopped. Now they knew, my parents knew, it felt good but also scary. I finally had my mom to open up to, to cry to, to ask for advice and guidance. My parents were wonderful about it, it didn't change how they looked at him at all, they were concerned and fearful but never judgmental.
I knew he was the one dealing with the status problem, not me, but I lived in constant fear for him. It was hard for me to say "I understand." when all he would have to say back is "No, you don't. You have a social security number." but what everyone couldn't see was that I also didn't have a life here if I wanted to be with him, I was just as limited in many regards. Was it equal? No, but it was just as painful, just as scary. If he was sent back to Mexico, so was I, or we would just lose each other forever. Either way I was facing life-changing consequences as well. The fear of him being deported was almost too much to handle, so we decided the best thing to do was to get married. We searched for lawyers and we saved money. I worked while I was going to school, saving my paychecks, he saved his money from working at the shop and he eventually sold his car and bought an engagement ring.
We were twenty years old, planning a huge wedding because I have a huge Mexican family and I was the first grandchild that was getting married. We had our wedding in the Church because even though this wasn't really what I had planned or imagined for my life, I wanted to have the big wedding of my dreams at the time. It also looked the best when petitioning for permanent residency for him (details of that process will have to be a whole other blog post). He had worked on another car and sold it to pay for the wedding, we had already set aside the more than $4,000 it was going to cost us in filing fees and lawyer bills. It ended up costing around ten thousand for the wedding, I had to borrow a few thousand from my Nana, but other than that we did it all on our own really. We were determined to get him the papers he needed because every potential opportunity that had come along, like the DREAM ACT, had fallen through. We had no hope in our government, we knew they were all full of empty promises, we knew that the only way to solve it was to fix it ourselves. I was determined for him to have some sort of future in this country, the only country he knew, the place that was his home for nearly his entire life. 
We were twenty, I was going to be starting my third year of college, I was working part-time, we didn't have enough money to get our own place, but we got married. I am sure everyone thought I was pregnant, that would have been the only logical reason as to why two twenty year old, kids essentially, would get married. When it was obvious I wasn't, I'm not so sure what they thought, that we were just crazy I suppose. But we did it, with the support of my five trusted members of my family and his family, he gained legal residency in 2011 and he was able to go out and get a drink on his twenty first birthday with his ID card. It was all worth it in the end. We both have made huge sacrifices in our lives, we both missed out on a lot and we still suffer the consequences of the situation, we both runaway from the topic, and we both try to ignore the fact that it was the main reason why we got married before we could even purchase a beer. It has been nearly four years, I graduated from UCSD with a communications degree and he was able to get a full time job and we have our own place in this world now. But to this day those same five people are the only ones in my family who know, that's how worried about it we still are, that's how difficult it is to share. If they all knew, I'm not sure what that would mean but I have been too scared to find out. So this is step one, this is me telling you and hoping that it means something, hoping that it may touch you, or inspire you, or just make you stop and think for a moment about our immigration system and the ways it needs to be improved, maybe your voice can join in as well. 
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