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Looking for a Home
A half-million immigrants came into the US across the Mexican border this year in search of work. Some will stay. And one way or another, they will become Americans.
Dec 08, 2005
By Raul Vasquez


Drive along any rural road or highway most months of the year and you’ll make them out just below the horizon: a raft of bobbing heads floating behind a tractor. Or carrying heavy boxes of vegetables they’ve just picked. Get closer. Their backs are bent. Their skin is brown. Even closer. They are men and women. Some young, some in their 50s. They’re not talking, just working. Sweating. Staring down.

Now you’re near enough to see their eyes. Her eyes. Her name is Carmen Angel. She speaks Spanish, but with an accent reminiscent of indigenous Mexican communities that have only recently taken up the national language.

She’s shy at first, but curious at your presence. She smiles when you start taking her picture. She takes her cap off and stands in the truck’s shade. She answers questions freely. “I’m from Mexico’s Federal District,� she replies. “I’m 35 and I have three children, ages 10, 13 and 15. They’re in Mexico with my husband now.�

Angel looks young for having three children. She’s short, about 5 feet tall, and her hair is dark. She has silver fillings in her front teeth, a popular fashion in some Mexican towns.

“I like it here,� she says. “Everything about it. I like the work. It’s no problem for me.�

She says she worked as a cafeteria cook in Mexico. But she wanted to get ahead and make more money so all three of her children could attend private schools. One day she found the courage to tell her husband that she wanted to migrate to the US.

“He didn’t like the idea at first,� she says, smiling. “But I convinced him.

“I make $7.25 an hour now. I live in Soledad, but I’m going to go back to Mexico soon. Life is more tranquil over there. People are more sociable.�

She says finding a job without a work visa is easy in the fields. All you need is a reference from a fellow worker. She’s heard rumors that there’s not enough farm laborers in some fields. And she’s seen on the Spanish-language television news how some Americans don’t want Mexican workers in the country.

“It’s really tough work, laboring under the sun all day,� she responds. “What do they gain by attacking us when they need us?�

Angel can’t take a long break. She returns to the napa cabbage field. Her calloused hands pull her yellow scarf over her mouth and she starts picking the napa heads off the ground and putting them in boxes.

Carmen Angel is one of about 10 million undocumented immigrants in the US, four million of whom are women. Only 15 percent are farmworkers. Half never completed high school. Many, like Angel, return to their native lands to live. But millions of them will stay. For those who stay, the vast majority of their American-born children are bilingual. Most of their children’s children will speak only English.

At what point do we call these people Americans? Are illegal immigrantsâ€â€