Thread: ONE NATION, TWO WORLDS

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/side2/3501997.html

Feb. 21, 2006, 6:16PM

ONE NATION, TWO WORLDS

Immigrants struggle with illegitimacy
Illegal status not always an issue, but stigma still felt


By ELENA VEGA AND TONY FREEMANTLE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Their dream was a small piece of land in Mexico City, a place to build a modest house, a refuge from the inner-city barrio where they made their living selling used handbags on the street.

Their plans included Houston, but only as a temporary step. Francisco would come here for a year, make some money and return to Mexico City.

They never thought that eight years later they would be living in a small, neat apartment in southeast Houston, or that one of their children would be a U.S. citizen, or that having a share of the American Dream within their grasp could be so seductive, and so elusive.
They certainly never imagined they would be lawbreakers, that as undocumented immigrants they would live with an ever-present and pervasive fear of being rounded up by immigration authorities and deported.

But this is where Francisco and Liliana find themselves.

It's not something they are proud of or enjoy. It's also a source of great sadness, because fear of recrossing the border makes it a virtually insurmountable barrier between them and their loved ones at home.

They think often about going back. But here they earn more money than they ever could in Mexico City. Here their three daughters will learn English and get a better education. Here they have a car and they are working to buy a house. Here, life is moving forward.

"We get to a point that we are neither from there nor from here," Liliana said. "If I would have in Mexico everything I have here, I would like to go back. Here is like being in a golden cage — one is a prisoner, but it is much more comfortable. If I will have all these comforts in Mexico, I would be the happiest woman in the world."

Millions of immigrants come to the United States illegally precisely because they cannot have in their native lands the "comforts" that are readily available here. And more often than not, the vast majority are able to stay because for a number of complex and controversial reasons, the nation's immigration laws are simply not enforced.

Francisco and Liliana are fearful of being caught. But they know that as long as they work hard, pay their taxes and don't commit any crimes, no one will bother them. It's not exactly a hidden life, and yet it is one clouded with the shadow of illegitimacy.

Their first years were spent simply trying to survive. They stayed with friends or relatives in Houston. Francisco worked his way from a dead-end job making plastic sacks at a factory owned by a Chinese businessman, to a steady, relatively well-paid position installing air-conditioning systems for a large local company.

After Liliana joined him, she concentrated on finding schooling for their two daughters and stayed at home, rarely venturing out.

They heard of a sprawling apartment complex on the southeast side where a substantial share of the population is undocumented. The neat, pleasant complex is virtually tailor-made for undocumented workers. There is an active community center that dispenses advice on how to navigate life as an undocumented immigrant and teaches them English. There is an office from which residents can wire money home, a school across the street and a nearby clinic.

Liliana and Francisco moved into a small, comfortable ground-floor unit where they have since lived and modestly prospered.

Expectation followed prosperity. Eight years after Francisco slipped across the border alone with the full intention of making a quick buck and then slipping back, the couple's dreams now are about a small piece of land and a modest house in America.


Stranded by necessity
Adriana bought her house in east Houston in 2002, four years after she arrived here from Mexico on a tourist visa that she let expire.

She, too, never really intended to stay. Her father was an architect in Mexico City. She was studying economics at the prestigious Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey.

But her parents retired to her father's ranch, where"things didn't work out," and they lost all their money and went into debt. Suddenly, Adriana had to drop out of college and find a paying job.

In Mexico City, she found a low-paying one in the accounting department of a company. She lived with relatives. By the time she paid for transportation and food, there was little left, not even enough to resume her education at the public university in the city.

Maybe in America she could earn enough money to go back to school.

Things started out pretty well in Houston. She found work with a painting company, which sent her to Austin to supervise a project they had there. She led a Spartan life in a small apartment with nothing but a bed, a TV, and some pots and pans, saving as much money as possible.

"I never even got a car back then," she said. "I didn't try to get a license, because I wanted to go back. So why would I want all that?"

But then came a fateful call from her parents. Her brother, a schizophrenic, had relapsed and was very sick. Her parents couldn't afford to put him in a private hospital. None of them wanted him in a public psychiatric institution. She had no choice but to empty her savings account so her brother could get proper care.

"Everything that I had saved until then was suddenly gone," she said. "I had to start all over again. I thank God that I was here and able to do something for them."

The painting job in Austin dried up. Adriana moved back to Houston and moved in with a friend in a seedy part of Denver Harbor, on the city's east side. She found work nearby, serving drunks from a taco stand at night outside a cantina. She didn't last long. A stint in a restaurant followed, then one in a music store

She was going nowhere but now needed a car to get there. She bought one; her boyfriend totaled it. She had no insurance.

All the while, her determination never wavered. Going back to college, whether it be in Houston or Mexico, was her salvation, her only hope. Education was security. She would not be a victim.

"I see a lot of Chicanos here that have made a disaster out of their lives," she said. "The problem with most immigrants is that they come over here because they don't have nothing to eat and once they cover that need, they don't know what else to do with their lives."


Buying some security
For the newly arrived illegal immigrant, being "undocumented," to use the official euphemism, is little more than an inconvenience. Technically, no one may hire someone who does not have a Social Security card, or a valid visa expressly allowing them to be employed. That has not prevented 96 percent of undocumented men in this country from finding work.

Some employers do ask for a Social Security number, and most undocumented workers have no trouble finding one to give.

Within months of his arrival in Houston, Francisco had been directed to a flea market on Airline, where he bought a Social Security card and a resident alien card — the so-called, coveted "green card" — for a mere $50. Normally the documents are bought from people in the crowd who walk around quietly muttering "micas" — IDs.

He also managed to get a driver's license. Not having documents, or at least not having authentic ones, was basically a non-issue for the first few years. Having the fake ones wasn't essential, but they helped, if only to make life somewhat less nerve-wracking.

"With all of that I knew that I was going to be able to move a little bit better, but I still didn't feel that safe," Francisco said. "I felt safer because I had the license, and I was able to get car insurance after that, and I felt safer regarding the police."

Now that they are trying to sink deeper roots, however, the lack of documents has become an impediment to moving forward, to consolidating.

So they think of ways to legalize themselves. Liliana and Francisco are not legally married. They talk, jokingly, of Francisco marrying a woman they have heard of, a U.S. citizen who charges $5,000 for the service.

They know of another who charges less but demands conjugal rights with her "husband" while the paperwork is completed. Liliana is not too enthusiastic about that proposition.

They always pay their taxes. Not only is it the right thing to do, but doing so could help them become legal.

"We do the income taxes every year," Liliana said. "We have been told that if we want to be legal, whenever an amnesty comes or something like that, this is going to show that we are not a burden."

Their main obstacles to buying a house are a credit history, which they don't have, and enough money saved for a down payment.

Recently, they attempted to buy a computer on credit. The salesman said he needed a Social Security number to complete the transaction.

"Can I use the flea market social security?" Francisco asked. No, said the salesman. "Can I use my 2-year-old daughter's Social Security?" Francisco asked. No, said the salesman.

They left without the computer.

To save money for a down payment on a house, Liliana recently got a job for the first time, earning minimum wage sorting used clothing for export at a warehouse on Telephone, known to the workers as garra. It was run by a Romanian who treated the five women who worked there well. But it was tedious work, for long hours and little pay. For Liliana, it was a big adjustment.

"The first day I was almost crying, thinking, 'I don't want to wake up in the second day,' " she said. "But then I would remember 'the money, the money,' and I would wake up and I would go. It felt great when they gave me my first check."

Liliana quit after only five or six weeks.

Would being legal really make that much tangible difference in their lives? It is a question Francisco and Liliana wrestle with constantly. It is becoming increasingly easier for undocumented immigrants to claim a slice of American life without documents. They can get loans for cars and houses. They can open bank accounts.

What they can't do is erase the stigma and rid themselves of the nagging feeling that the lack of papers is what holds them back.

Liliana is a sunny person with a keen wit and not an unkind word for anyone. It was mildly surprising then, when she reluctantly told of how she felt one day being downtown and seeing homeless, jobless men on the sidewalk.

"I want to say to them, 'Give me your Social Security card. You're not using it,' " she said.


A home of their own
Adriana Romero's fortunes were changing for the better. She met a man, also an undocumented immigrant, a painter, and they started living together even though he had a wife in Mexico.

In 2002 they had a daughter, Angelica.

Her partner would not talk about his life here, and didn't want his name used. Adriana said he found such discussions difficult and was afraid he would lose his customers if they knew he was illegal. But, she said, he was fed up with working for others for hourly wages and he wanted to start his own painting company with her as a partner.

"He was always saying that he wanted for us to get out of the hole where we were," Adriana said. "The company was his idea, and I supported it 100 percent."

They made a good team. Within six months they had saved enough for a down payment on a house, and bought themselves cars and a van for the business. Today they have seven full-time employees and three large clients that provide steady business.

Their illegal status didn't make it significantly more complicated to set up their business. All they needed was an individual tax identification number — readily available to the undocumented through the Internal Revenue Service — a $5,000 deposit for a taxpayer's account and a shingle.

Adriana's partner had lucked out with the fake Social Security number he was using. It was clean, it didn't belong to anyone else, so he was able to build an impressive credit history.

They needed the help of Adriana's partner's brother, a legal resident by marriage, to buy their house because at the time they had not built up enough credit. Recently, they were thinking of refinancing it and putting it in their own names.

That probably won't happen. Adriana's relationship with her partner soured last summer. She wants to split up, which means she would once again have to start from scratch.

"Everything is under his name," she said. "I have nothing. That was a failure for me because I put all the eggs in a bag that had a hole."

Her focus has turned to completing her education. She is enrolled at Houston Community College, which granted her a full scholarship to study English, and then she would like to earn a bachelor's degree in economics at the University of Houston.

Once again she is looking for a job, this time for one that will allow her to go to college and look after Angelica, a 3-year-old, at the same time. She applied for a job distributing newspapers, which would allow her to work at night, but it didn't work out.

Cleaning houses would give her the same flexibility, she thinks. She also found a program called Work Source that has allowed her to get cheaper day care for her daughter.

In the fall of 2004, her frustration was palpable. After all her accomplishments and struggles, she found herself without anything yet again. She was still staying in the house with her partner. They were planning on selling it and splitting the money. But she worried she would have no say in the matter since she was not his wife and the house was not in her name, and being illegal, she had no recourse.

Yet she remained determined, and proud of what she had been able to do.

"I think I have been able to do many more things than a lot of people that have papers,"she said. "Get a scholarship. Get aid for the care of my daughter. I only need a job."


Overcoming barriers
Like Adriana, Liliana and Francisco understand the importance of learning English if they want their prospects to improve.

"One day a woman told me that we were not in Mexico, that we were in the U.S. and we have to speak English, because here in the U.S. there are still Americans left," she said. "I felt bad. I felt bad. But then I thought that she was right."

They enrolled in English classes offered at the YMCA-run community center at their apartment complex.

Having their three daughters learn English also is a priority.

Their eldest, Ivonne, who is 14, already knows the language fairly well but is shy about speaking it, and it is seldom heard in the apartment.

Education for the girls was one of the main reasons Liliana and Francisco decided to have a go at building a life in Houston.

Many of the apartment's children attend a Houston Independent School District elementary right across the street, which is where Ivonne was enrolled when she was 7, shortly after arriving.

But after two years, the girl had learned "zero English," and the couple decided to move her to another school in the middle of fifth grade.

"Ivonne obviously was not very happy," Liliana said. "She was crying all the time. It was hard for her, but it was then that she learned English."

Not being able to speak English also has caused ongoing frustration for Francisco.

The fact that he is an undocumented immigrant hasn't helped, he believes.

In July 2003 Francisco was involved in an auto accident that was not his fault, but which caused heavy damage to his car.

The driver who hit him was insured, but Francisco has not been able to collect the $2,000 it cost him to fix the car. A year later he was still trying to get his money, but every time he called the company, he was told there is no one there who speaks Spanish.

Because their youngest daughter, Daniela, was born in Houston, and thus is a citizen, her medical costs are covered by Medicaid.

But Liliana is not happy with the clinic across the street from the apartment complex where she takes the girl, nor does she fully trust the doctor.

She recently took Daniela to the clinic because she had empacho, or indigestion.

Not satisfied with the doctor's examination, and wary of the drugs she prescribed, Liliana decided to treat her in the traditional way, with aceite de resino (resin oil). The girl was cured.

For herself, Francisco, Ivonne and Gabriela, the family relies on the Harris County Hospital District's Gold Card for medical needs.

For every office visit they pay $5 and every emergency room visit $25.

It takes them awhile to get an appointment, but they are nevertheless grateful to at least have that.


Unwelcome sacrifices
Late last summer, Adriana Romero took a chance. Her desire for her daughter to see Mexico and meet her relatives trumped caution; she crossed the border.

She is petite and fair-skinned, and was unchallenged when the visit was over and she walked across the U.S.-Mexico border back into the U.S.

At a checkpoint on the way to Houston, she was asked if she was a U.S. citizen. She lied. She said yes. She was allowed to pass.

More than the dead-end jobs, more than the swindler who took her and her partner for $3,000 with a bogus offer to get them green cards, more than the fear of being apprehended, what Adriana hates most about being illegal is having to lie.

"I had never lied before," she said. "I had never broken any law. I came from a Catholic family. Lying was not good for me. But that was the only way I could reach my goal."

The need to stop living the lie, she said, is what led her to trust the man who said he knew someone at La Migra (immigration) and that for $3,000 he could get her and her partner a pair of genuine permanent resident cards. They never saw the cards.

"The need for something gets you to believe in the things that you want to believe," she said. "It is the hope. I was so stupid, and it is just that I always try to believe in people's good will."

She particularly hates lying to the colleges she is talking with. Harris County Community College offers classes in computer basics, something that could help her get a better paying job while she is at college. But she would have to use a fake Social Security number to apply.

"Schools always teach you about honesty, those are important values for a school," she said. "That is why I want to be true with them. I came to that school saying that I had no papers, that I had no Social Security."

Living an illegal life also is not a very good example to set for her daughter, she says. But it is here that her American child will have the best chance to succeed, not in Mexico. So illegal or not, even if she has to lie to do it, this is where she will stay.

"That is the most important thing for me, my daughter's education, both in the moral and academic aspect," she said. "I want to provide her not with material things, but with tools that will help her succeed."


Starting over, again
After an uneventful winter and spring, Adriana finally left her partner in June and moved into a rented house with a cousin.

She answered an ad for a job in El Día and found work at a company owned by a Chinese businessman near U.S. 290 and Texas 6 that exported plastics to Mexico.

It was, she said, a "cool" job and the pay was relatively good — about $11 per hour. But her employer wanted her to work until 7 p.m., and she was supposed to pick her daughter up from day care a half-hour earlier. Also, she said the job would eventually have required her to travel to Mexico City, not an easy thing to do for an undocumented immigrant.

Reluctantly, she quit, and decided the best solution was to once again start up her own business, this time a housecleaning service. It is still in its infancy and is not yet formally registered, but she is pulling in an average of about $16 per hour.

"I need the right amount of clients so I can still go to school, work and look after my daughter," she said. "In the future I will register the business, pay taxes and all that stuff."

She also is making some extra money working as an assistant to her former partner, with whom she remains friendly.

"Before I was the owner of the business, and now I am the secretary."

Leaving the house they bought was difficult, she said, and she still misses it. But she is not looking back. Besides, the house she is renting is "pretty" and convenient.

"I am happy," she said. "It is well-located, everything is around here. My school, the houses I clean, everything is around here. I can do a lot of things."

I know those stories that are meant to make me feel all warm and fuzzy, but it didn't happen. Just makes me more determined to get them out of here.

Boo-Hoo. Go back to where you came from, you are not welcome here!