The journey to the United States, land of opportunity.

It was 1975,  the United States had just admitted defeated in Vietnam and communism had just spread to other parts in South East Asia.  Elsewhere in the world a young woman of 22 years studying accounting lived in a small little country in Central America, El Salvador.  The summer of that same year, she and other classmates from the University of El Salvador walked the main streets of the city to lead a peaceful protest on human rights against the dictatorship that ruled the country.  Other students from other high schools joined the march, so did teachers and professors and people from the community and reached 1000+ strong.

Tanks and other military vehicles soon showed up blocking the path of the protesters with hundreds of soldiers wielding high caliber weapons.  The soldiers picked up their weapons and waited further instructions, after a few moments the order came “SHOOT THEM ALL!!”  Tear gas was launched and the sound of machine guns firing off against the crowd was heard blocks away. Several people in front of the march dropped like flies, others shouted in agony as limbs were literally torn apart.  “It was chaos everywhere, I ran for cover and hid under a car and couldn’t see anything, all you could hear was the sound of the M16’s firing and the screams of pain”  she recounts details of the story of that day, “I wasn’t sure if I was I going to make it, but I had a 3 year old son I had to get to, so I had to find a way to get out” she also adds.    Once the smoke cleared, pools of blood everywhere, several bodies laid motionless.  All in all over 50 people were killed, many people never seen again, probably captured and murdered elsewhere.  ** This event was known as the “Student Massacre of  July 30th of 1975.”

She had to make a choice, stay and face uncertainty and possibly get killed OR pursue a better future for her and her little boy.  She made up her mind, travel north to the land of the free and leave everything behind.  She asked a friend at work who knew someone that knew someone who could get them into the United States, the thought had never crossed her mind before but since things were getting messy she asked again.  She only had saved enough money to make the journey for herself, she had the tough choice of leaving her little boy with grandma and promised to return when she was able to save enough money.  With tears in her eyes, she kissed her boy one final time and gave him one big hug knowing that a dangerous voyage awaited her.  She traveled through Mexico with other people heading to the same place, “In those times there wasn’t any problems with MS13 (Marasalvatruchas), you could easily travel between Central America and Mexico” she tells me if the journey was rough. A few weeks later, going through the US Border undetected, she had arrived at her destination, Houston.  “I didn’t know any English so it was very hard to get a job, unlike now where everyone speaks Spanish, if you didn’t know English you couldn’t really interact with people” she tells how hard it was for her in the very beginning knowing no English.  She got a job as a live in maid, cleaning houses for $10 a week, everything she earned she saved it for knowing that she had to return for her son.  Civil war broke out in El Salvador, massacres like the one she experienced in 1975 were becoming every day news, things were getting pretty ugly. She had finally saved enough money after 3 years to go back to El Salvador and get her son, this time she returned by plane and came back with visas to enter legally. She found a new life, she also had fallen in love with a man from Matamoros, Mexico and had a second child.  The civil war destroyed pretty much all of El Salvador, over 80,000 people killed, 8,000 missing and about 1 million people displaced or looked for refuge in other countries.  Without her leaving for a better opportunity, her first born would of likely wound up as a child soldier recruited by army to face the guerrillas and most importantly this blog would be non-existent as her second child actually happens to be me.  You probably have guessed it by now, that lady happens to be no other than my wonderful mother.

It’s kind of hard imagining what life would be like if I was born in another country, such as El Salvador,  Mexico or any other Latin American country.  When you’re born here, you have so many opportunities that are not presented anywhere else.  You have food stamps, medicaid, housing,  TANF (cash assistance for needy families), etc..   If you finish high school and want to go to college but can’t afford it, you can get financial aid and no interest student loans along with other types of grants that are out there.  You get social security and are eligible for medicare.  Any job you get, you can be ensured that you’ll get paid the minimum of $7.25/hour, so if you work full time that is about $250 after taxes, in Mexico the minimum wage is anywhere between 70pesos – 120pesos ($5USD – 8USD) per day.  In Mexico, not all High Schools are free and if you don’t come from a “moderate” family, chances are you are not going to keep on studying.  In certain areas of Mexico, there are no roads, no electricity, people still showering using water pumped from the ground, outhouses are common and realistically what kind of quality of life can you have?  The common phrase I hear often from people that are born here in the United States is “Well if they want to come to the USA they can do it legally, otherwise they are breaking the law and should get deported” Well, these people really have no idea what it’s like like to live in another country where sometimes you can’t do things legally because there are really no jobs and no way out, the only way out is to come to the United States.  Many years ago I happened to work as a refugee coordinator that places refugees in English classes, my job was basically to talk to all the different organizations that bring refugees in and determine their English level and setup classes for them.  I met people from Cuba, Colombia,  Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, Angola, Ivory Coast, Bosnia, Russia, Myanmar, Vietnam, China and some other places.  Most of these people fled their country to avoid getting persecuted for believing anything other than Jesus, others escaped being slaughtered by the thousands for being from a different ethnic tribe, and others imprisoned for being political activists for going against oppressing governments.

So before you criticize immigrants who enter our country with papers or by illegal means, put yourself in other people’s shoes and think of what other people have to go through in life.  No human should be considered illegal and we all deserve a chance in the pursuit of happiness.   I’m not really a religious fanatic but for those that read the bible I’ll leave a scripture for you to think about.
“Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” Romans 15:7