For workers, life in U.S. uncertain
Despite fear of raid, immigrants say choice to come here was right

By Jennifer W. Sanchez
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated:09/03/2007 01:20:54 AM MDT

"Here, you never know when your last day is going to be. I could be deported at any time," says. "It's hard because you want to be home, but you know you wouldn't be able to help your family."

They work each day to provide their children with a better future - but never know their own fate.

They build schools, paint offices and trim golf courses for about 10 hours a day, six days a week. They live in crowded apartments with other men who have also left their families behind in countries far away. And without any U.S. documentation to work here, they live cautiously, waiting in fear for immigration agents to come get them at work, home or the grocery store.

"Here, you never know when your last day is going to be. I could be deported at any time," says Armando, an undocumented worker who moved from Mexico to Utah two years ago. "It's hard because you want to be home, but you know you wouldn't be able to help your family."

Many Latino immigrants here say their lives, so disconnected from home, are unpredictable and lonely, mostly filled with tiring work days. They know their time in the United States is limited. Still, they long to be surrounded by loved ones and treated like people again.

There hasn't been a large-scale immigration raid in recent years here, but with so many undocumented immigrants working in the area, they can't help but wonder: When?

Abram, an undocumented worker, left his wife and two daughters in Mexico in 2000 to move to California on a U.S. visa that later expired. He headed to St. George some three years ago because he heard about the better-paying jobs. By making $12 an hour as a commercial painter, he's able to send his family about $1,000 a month.

The only purpose for him being here is to work, so that's what he does. He shares his $675-a-month, two-bedroom apartment with five other men from Mexico and Guatemala. Abram sleeps on a used plaid loveseat sofa and the others sleep on mattresses or pads on the floor.

Large paint buckets serve as chairs. The apartment's white walls are almost bare, except for a picture of the Virgin Mary and a few handmade study posters with words in English and Spanish. There are also pictures of children, wives and loved ones scattered on tables. The main rules: No alcohol, buy your own food and clean up after yourself.

"This is our resting place - it's the place where we don't have to work," Abram says.

Abram usually leaves each day by 7 a.m. and returns to make himself lunch and later dinner. He often opts to work Saturdays, since there isn't much else to do. That leaves Sunday for grocery shopping at one of four Latino markets in town, washing laundry, cleaning and relaxing in front of the TV.

In St. George, there is no wife and children to come home to and eat dinner. No family gatherings with uncles, cousins and friends. And no freedom.

"I continue to work so I won't think about how much I miss them and think about them," Abram says as he paints inside an office building. "I just delight myself in that I'm working for them."

There are no Latino bars or clubs, but there are a few Latino restaurants where folks go to watch soccer over a beer and tacos or El Salvadoran pupusas. Occasionally, there's a Spanish-language concert or dance at the casinos in Mesquite, about a 45-minute drive away.

Dating in the Latino immigrant community is sometimes challenging, mostly because everyone's always working, leaving little time for investing in serious relationships, says 37-year-old Cruz, an undocumented worker and bachelor. Some of the married men with families elsewhere also date because they're looking for company.

Cruz jokes that his love life and social life in St. George are almost nonexistent.

"In the United States, I'm a virgin," he says jokingly.

He misses taking walks around his neighborhood back home with female friends and going to cockfights. Now, he's lucky if he gets the chance to take a date to Chuck-A-Rama buffet on the weekend.

Cruz, who followed his brother to Utah about four years ago, says he eventually wants to return to his hometown of Tlanalapa, Mexico, where he might end up working in a factory, restaurant or construction.

"I didn't want to come. I was fine [in Mexico]. I didn't have any money, but I was happy," he says. "But, my mom wanted me to come, so I wanted to please her."

Most undocumented workers agree that leaving their loved ones behind is the hardest decision they have ever made. Yet, they also believe they made the right choice.

Jose, who moved here two years ago, says he used to make $200 a month sewing clothes in a factory in Mexico. He now makes about $1,800 a month painting houses and offices. As a husband and father of three kids, he says there wasn't much of a choice.

Still, he misses walking his children to school, taking family vacations and celebrating family birthdays. He called his 5-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, in July to wish her a happy birthday and played her the traditional folk song in Spanish, "Las Mañanitas," over the phone.

"She keeps asking me to come home," Jose says. "I tell her, 'When we finish building our house [in Mexico], I'll come home.' "

The weeks sometimes feel longer when you don't have any idea when you're going home, the workers say.

After six years in the United States, Abram returned home for about a year. He returned to St. George in March, but he's already dreading not being home in November.

That's when his oldest daughter, Brenda, is turning 15, and the family is already planning her quince años - similar to a Sweet 16 celebration. He won't be going though, because he can't afford to pay for the event and a coyote - a smuggler (about $3,500) - to bring him back.

"I'd rather give my daughter a big party," he says. "But, I won't be there to walk her down the aisle. I won't be with her."

For Abram and other undocumented workers, the fear of an immigration raid is one of the hardest parts of living here.

Most of the time, they say they try to stay under the community radar by staying home and not going to unfamiliar places. They feel safer at their apartment, but rumors are always circulating among the undocumented community that "la migra" is coming.

Deportation, they say, would be bittersweet - they would be reunited with their families but leave behind the good-paying jobs to support them.

Armando is already packing and mailing his belongings - including a laptop computer, video camera and fishing poles - back to Mexico in case he gets picked up.

It is a fear, he says, that never goes away.

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