MC Quixote

Soy Pocha Part 23

Only Mexicans could come up with such masochistic terms like Chingada and Pocho. If you can't be an hijo de chingada because you're up Norte in the USA, then you might qualify to be called a Pocho. Pocho describes a sort of a hybrid misfit; where you can't be completely Mexican or American.

I first heard Pocho when I went back to DF to visit my mom. I was hanging out with my cousin Alejandra and she got on me for saying that I liked all the diversity in the U.S. And it's true, when I go to Mexico, I do miss some of the things that I've taken for granted in the U.S. Where I live in Salt Lake, I'm around people from all over the world. So many different cultures, languages, religions, types of music, food, clothes, etc. that I start to feel like Mexico is limited in that way, let me explain.

At my high school we have a lot of refugees because Salt Lake is a refugee relocation city. I think it has something to do with the Mormons but maybe there are other reasons.

I always thought it would be best to relocate people based on geography and climate. I came to this when I started to ask refugees what they thought of Salt Lake and it seems like my refugee friends who like it here say things like, "The mountains are like back home." or "The weather is "similar to where I'm from."

Others that seem to have problems with Salt Lake say they miss the ocean, or they can't stand the snow and the cold; it's not always the case but it seems like it has a big influence. It seems like these environmental factors either remind one of home or remind one of something they had at home but don't have here. I see a lot of homesickness with all outsiders here in Utah.

I have a lot in common with the refugees, so I hang out with them at school and we're tight. I've gotten to know some of the Somalis, Bosnians, Nepalese, Sudanese, Karen, Iranians, Congolese, Iraqis, Rwandans, and Afghanis to name a few.

These refugees get papers and a chance to become citizens, so I guess these groups are political refugees. They've been through horrible situations because of war, ethnic cleansing, religious beliefs, political affiliations, genocide, and other so-called political reasons. These groups have the one good fortune of being in political favor with the U.S.

Now, there are the other refugees who are here too: economic refugees, climate refugees, refugees fleeing violence, corruption, family disputes, dead-end refugees. What do I mean by that? Well, in many places in the world there is only so far you can go without things like educational opportunities and you just survive day-to-day in extreme poverty. I call them "Hope Refugees".

The difference with these refugees is that they have little or no chance of coming here legally. Most people don't know how hard it is to come to the U.S. legally if you're in a bad situation and want to just get to a better place.

I know because my dad has tried for over five years to come to the U.S. and he's been denied every time. The reasons? First off, my family doesn't have enough money sitting in a bank account in Mexico. It's a sad thing too because we used to have more money, but my grandmother's health problems have drained all the savings that we used to have. Also, I think Dad has suffered a lot of economic prejudice in Mexico because he's deaf. He's been taken advantage of quite a bit, and it seems to have gotten worse as the economy has declined since NAFTA.

It's kind of ironic because if you have money, life in Mexico is pretty good (if you're living outside of the huge Narco / Government sector of the economy). With money in Mexico you've got better sun, tighter community, deeper culture, better food, great music, beaches, and just plain more liveliness. So, most of the people I know who want to come to the U.S. are people who don't want leave Mexico at all; they just don't have any money, and if that's the case, you can't enter the U.S. legally.

Like I said, my dad has been trying for the past five years to come to the U.S. legally and in the process of trying the legal route he's been extorted, assaulted, and ripped off at every turn.

Then, when he thought he was going to get a visa, he waited at the U.S. Consulate in Juárez for like three days, and in the end, he was denied a visa because he didn't have enough money in his his bank account. This was because the U.S. had just upped the amount of money you needed to show in your bank account from $3,000 per person traveling to $4,000.

After five years of trying the legal route; we decided as a family that it was worth the risk for Dad and me to head up to Utah anyway. It was a scary call, and the last thing any of us wanted to do was to take unnecessary risks or break any laws. But at this point my grandmother's health was in serious jeopardy because of our family's financial situation. Because we were nearing the point of running out of money to cover the cost of Grandma's diabetes medicines and treatment, we all decided it was worth the risk to travel to Salt Lake City by land.

It wasn't the way any of us wanted to make the trip with Dad entering undocumented. I had my birth certificate from Oregon and I was now of age to drive in Mexico. So the plan was I would simply drive through and meet my dad at a designated point in the South of Texas.

Dad would have to take the bigger risk of crossing with a coyote. It costs anywhere from two to five-thousand U.S. dollars and it's never a guarantee that you'll make it. If the border patrols don't get you, bandits, other crossers, the weather, animals, or injury might stop you. You might not make it to the U.S. and you might not make it back to Mexico alive because there's a good possibility you'll die trying. An awareness of this concerned us all, let alone the fact that Dad could be at more risk because of his deafness. But we were in a desperate situation.

The worst border crossing stories I've encountered are the pregnant women who die with their unborn children. What level of desperation would lead a pregnant woman to take such a risk? I saw a picture in a Mexican newspaper of a dead pregnant woman who had died trying to cross. The image of her dehydrated body lying under a desert bush for shelter will never leave me. It's like something you see and then you have to pay a price for seeing it.

After witnessing that level of human deprivation do you think I'm going to be quiet about the broken immigration system in the U.S.? It's not just broken, it's a holocaust. How many have died in that fiery desert? As of today, the numbers are estimated that over 6,000 have died since the year 2000. Now, if you factor in the Narco side of this border war, it turns out to be over 150,000 lost lives. We need to do something now!