My mother texted me earlier in the week, telling me she had something special. She doesn’t text incorrectly per say, but as English is her second language (and emoji quickly becoming her third) she has a bit of a twist on her texting vernacular. I usually describe it as a thirteen-year-old girl finally switching from a free flip phone to an iPhone, who is now over excited with the fact they finally have emojis. That mixed in with my mom’s imperfect sentence structure that often comes from an immigrant brings makes texting her a real journey.
She isn’t old, just 47 and she had me right when she came from Costa Rica to the United States in Oregon of all places. Florida suits her well, the suntan she has blends in her laugh lines that gently spread across her face, and she is probably the only person I know that actually is laughing behind every “lol” she sends. My mom’s text was something closer to “Hi my boy, I have something special” with a handful of colorful hearts thrown in for good measure.
That’s most of her messages, so I was expecting anything from a Gameboy with Animal Crossing to a five dollar Subway gift card that she won at church, but it was something else, something bigger. She had her residency card. After 28 years in the US, she couldn’t be thrown out. I couldn’t be happier. “Now you have to deal with this old lady for ten more years” she sent me. More than enough time to see Trump leave was my first thought.
Donald Trump has been the president for fourteen months, as of now. Roughly five thousand oh-dear-god-the-country-is-imploding emotional years, by my conversion chart. He ran on a platform of entertainment, bigotry, and grandiose promises to the sheltered quiet racist who lives down your street, or maybe even in your house.
Even if the Trump supporter isn’t a fully formed racist, his platform found that black ball of fear within them and nursed it, and showed it that there is a place for it in the political world today. If immigration was on the back of their mind, well it’s easier to vote for the guy who will throw them out rather than the person who wants to form comprehensive structures for those in need to find a place in this country. What I’m getting at is being around white people who didn’t actively hate Trump became a sort of spy noire, are they racist or are they just avoiding talking about politics as they always have?
Where this found me was in the active spy role, as I am hispanic, the son of an immigrant, but completely and totally white passing. My name and skin tone would never make one think I am hispanic, let alone my speech pattern. Regretfully I sound like every other critical white boy English major, fighting the assumption that I am dreadfully pretentious at every turn. I heard people talk about Trump and immigrants in a way that they never would have if they knew I was hispanic, and the people they wanted to throw out included my own mother.
This all came together about two years ago, when Trump was running and it felt like a joke, and my mom was having residency issues. I grew more worried with every obstacle Trump, and his supporters, passed all the way to him taking the White House.
I should be honest, I don’t know to what degree of danger my mother was in of being deported, if any. I know she came here legally, and married before I was born. I was born in Oregon, with my next brother a few years later. She had my youngest brother in October of 2000, giving her three anchors to the states. She remarried a citizen, and they have been wed for almost twenty years. She has no tickets, no criminal record. I would like to think she was never in danger, but with Trump, how can anyone feel safe about anything in regards to immigration?
Little can surprise me about what he does, and with news falling wayside to "viral stories" slamming my face in Facebook, I see the headlines "woman gets deported while at work at the hospital" or at least something in that vein. Reason being, while Obama kept the borders tight, Trump's deportation numbers show that he is deporting people who are currently living here. He isn't tightening the borders alone, but kicking out people who have made it far beyond that (that's not even mentioning his stance on DACA). If Trump can be the leader of this country, anything can happen.
News of my mom's struggle came second hand, from my dad. He would complain about driving all over the state for paperwork, paying hundreds of dollars in legal work, how silly all of it all was while we talked on the phone. I was happy to hear him complain, because even with all of our differences, I knew he was a man to get things in order, and get things done. I hated hearing him complain about the cost, because I felt how hard it was on him financially (also I still owe him 300 bucks for an emergency tooth pulling, sorry dad). When she texted me the picture of her residency card, I felt relief. They had done it, and got all the paperwork finished.
There was another text from my mom, right in between the two. "We still have your birthday my boy" with a few gift box emojis at the end. I am going to be thirty sooner than I care to admit, and my mom lives just a few too many toll booths away to where I don't make the drive very often (also yes I don't have the cash to shell out the 300 I owe dad) but my birthday was recently, and my mom is hell bent on making me cupcakes. She misses me in the way a hispanic mom misses her first born boy, I know. If I were to drive over there now, she would jump off the couch and out to my car, running the long curved driveway to come in for a hug.
My whiteness clashes with how comfortably she is settling into her role as the only latin woman at her small southern church. She watches the babies, and I am certain she wants a grandchild of her own. Honestly if I can't afford dental insurance I sure can't afford a child, so she will have to keep waiting.
She lost her mother a few months back, and she couldn't go home to see things through, because she didn't have her residency card; she was afraid she couldn't get back in the country. She can now, but it feels too late. I am not scared of much, but the amount of pain she held in after that loss shakes me whenever it comes to mind, and the distance makes it worse. She was worlds away, losing her mother and leaving her sick father alone to himself.
Even though it was hard, I am glad she stayed here, and I am proud of her residency. I don't want to write "My mother was not allowed entry to her home due to a funeral for her mother." She is safe now, and I am getting my passport this year. I want to see her home, my grandfather. Maybe it will feel safer. Anything can happen, after all.
