Shedding Layers

I've been wanting to write this story for sometime now. Some mixture of fear, incompetence and sorrow holds me back. The details and are so vivid in my head, but I’m encumbered when it comes to conveying the sentiment. At once I imagine all the stylistic tools I might use to paint the picture and engage my readers, and then I'm paralyzed, bombarded by the irony of privilege I have to share a story that is not mine. I’m ill equipped to be the messenger; afraid to put pen to paper of the fumbled, failed system I live and vote in. 

I'll start by saying I am not close with Flor. While I am close with a lot of people, a lot of people that are brown, a lot of people that are immigrants in this country, I am not close with Flor.  In fact, I am Flor’s boss, and it suffices to say that her list of grievances with me is by no means brief.  Flor and I have had our differences on everything from the value of punctuality, to proper planting time in Colorado climate, to the definition of Racism, with a capital R. Nonetheless, there is one thing Flor and I both recognize all too well -  that I am her white, documented, privileged to be bilingual, privileged to be educated, privileged to be middle class American woman who went to graduate school and got a degree that says - at least in this society - that I can be a boss.  Despite all this, when crisis came knocking at her door, as it so often does to immigrants these days, I think I was an obvious albeit reluctant choice for Flor's first phone call.

Over the last couple years I’ve struggled with what it means to recognize my white privilege. And I’m aware that simply recognizing my white privilege is probably not enough, and that my "struggle" with my white privilege is the least of our worries, nor the focus of this article. And, since some dumbass hotel-owner daddy’s boy was just voted in as president, I’ve struggled to understand what it means to use my white privilege. 

I guess writing this is one attempt at navigating those privileges. I hope people read it. I hope white people read it. I hope documented citizens read it who only hear stories of "illegals" on TV. It's my small stake in the ground, but I hope sharing the story can enlighten a topic that's often left in the dark. 

It was one of those classic Colorado Spring days where the weather can't make up its mind; you start the morning wrapped in gloves and hats and puffy jackets, then find yourself frantically shedding layers once the mid-morning sun hits. Flor and I shared responsibilities at a community food market where I was rummaging through some donated seed packets, huffing and puffing at what seemed the biggest problem I would have that day - an over-zealous amount of donated flower seed packets to our food program...where we grow, well, vegetables.

Flor’s name popped up on my phone. "Second biggest problem of the day," I thought. Flor is late, again."  Reluctantly, I answer, primed to field today's excuse. 

Screaming. Static. Did she drop the phone? Is the baby okay? "I can’t hear you Flor." 

“Se lo llevaron.”  They have taken him.

A few months ago I went to Flor’s baby shower. Mexican baby showers are, among other things, a hell of a lot more fun than American ones.  I sipped champurrado as I watched Flor’s partner Jose, with all other males in attendance (Mexican showers happen to include the guys too!), strap a Kleenex box to his backside and begin twerking relentlessy to Reggaeton, putting up a fair fight to win the championship of twerk-the-ping-pong-out-of-box-fastest.  Basically, the best booty shake wins.  After scarfing down homemade Mole a little later, I got a shot at a championship of my own - wrapping Flor’s belly with toilet paper, with little baby Karlita growing inside.

When Flor called me that morning she and baby Karlita, now four months strong, had just practiced their wave goodbye to Jose as he left for work.  Sadly, Karlita wouldn’t see her Daddy for another four months.  As he walked to his car that morning for work Jose met the fate of something more than 11 million immigrants in the U.S. face as a daily fear.  Two men jumped out of an unmarked car, tackled Jose in front of his family, and dragged him into the backseat before speeding away, leaving behind the cacophony of confused screams I was now hearing on the other end of the phone. 

No reading of rights, No request for identification, No notification to the family.

The months that followed were tiring, bitter and heartbreaking. Flor lost her best friend and partner. Karlita, her brother and sister lost a father. Our community lost a volunteer. A construction company lost one of their hardest workers. And ICE checked one more box on their list. 

And me? On top of an unexpected deepening relationship with someone I would forever be connected, I gained an aptitude for seeing our feeble, dysfunctional, inhumane immigration system for what it is. And just maybe, I learned a little about what it means to use my white privilege.

Jose’s case, sadly, is somewhat of a poster child of immigration in the US. But while his case may be typical, Jose has nothing in common with the abstract image of "bad hombres" our feckless President likes to tout. And here is the point I really want to make: Jose is not a rapist, nor a murderer, nor an abuser of drugs or alcohol. He doesn’t have tattoos on his face or form part of some gang or drive a truck loaded with cocaine hidden in the rafters. He's not even a believer in the use of swear words. 

Jose is a father of three with a spic and span record, a sweet and simple smile. Jose works multiple jobs building the infrastructure the Colorado economy is booming on, paying taxes along the way, volunteering in his free time. He drops his kids off at school on Tuesday mornings and cheers the Broncos on Sunday afternoons. So what was he doing getting tackled on his front lawn that morning?

Seven years ago Jose rolled a stop sign a couple blocks from his house. When he was unable to show a proper driver’s license - undocumented immigrants don't have social security cards, which means you can't get a driver's license in some states - he was arrested on site. After a look at the color of his skin, the cops suspected he may be in the country without citizenship or travel documentation, and when he couldn’t verify otherwise, he was passed off to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement - the infamous  ICE. 

At the time, under the Obama administration, Jose was not considered a priority for deportation thanks to a spotless record and reputation in the community. So, Jose paid a bond and promised to show up for infrequent court dates, check in with an immigration officer, and maintain a clear criminal record. This is how millions - eleven million - of immigrants are currently living - under an endless, diffuse fog of uncertainty and consideration as somewhat "criminal."

Watch your step. You could lose it all at any time.

Through a chain of panicked calls with pro-bono lawyers lending sparse consultation, Flor and I finally figured out what triggered the morning's debaucle.  Jose’s ex-wife, the original signatory to his bond,  didn’t want her name associated with the case any longer. When she pulled the plug, no one told Jose, and now the bounty of the bond had to be recovered. Hence,  the two men in the unmarked car outside Jose’s house - bounty hunters. 

From my crash course in immigration law that morning, the most plausible next step I could string together was to post a new bond. "Simple" I was told.  It turns out scraping together $7,000 and a new signatory in one afternoon is in fact pretty simple when you’re part of a deep community like Flor and Jose's. A mere handful of hours after that screaming call in the morning, I was holding Flor in one hand and a cashier’s check in the other as we sped through rush hour traffic to reach the Department of Homeland Security before it closed for the weekend.

I lied to Flor. As I held her hand in the car, I told her it would work. The lawyers I spoke with are top notch, I told her. They help people with this stuff all the time. We have the money, we have the signatory, we're going to get there. I actually believed what I was saying. I had a trust in the system. Of course I did. 

I watched her stare out the window, tears rolling down her cheeks, her mind toggling between  worst case scenarios and maternal obligations. Aunt Patty was sent to pick up the older kids from school; she’d figure out what to tell them later.

Homeland Security is everything I thought it would be. A dense concrete jungle in the plains East of Denver. Metal roofs scorched from the sun; high walled fences lined with barbed wire; an oversized American flag the only adornment for miles, hanging lifeless in the sky. Up to now, I hadn’t fully realized why I was asked to join the ride. I was bilingual, maybe I could help translate. I was Flor’s boss, maybe she trusted me. 

But the moment Flor handed me a piece of paper with Jose’s full name and Alien Number on it, I got it.  Flor - and all of her immigrant community accomplices and supports - was powerless. She couldn’t even walk in the doors of that drab building. She and Jose, the father of her children, were now separated by a literal and figurative wall, 20 feet high, and she wasn’t even allowed to ask if he was on the other side. 

Flor was entrusting me with a piece of paper, the size of a bookmark, that could determine the next phase of her life. I glanced in the rearview mirror at our friend Antonio who was driving. He only offered a raised eyebrow, like "What were you expecting Kristina?"

I do my best to steer clear of stereotypes, but honestly the security guard was a trope for ICE Gone Wild. Bald, muscular, and towering at least a foot over me, Mr. Captain America laughed in my face when I presented myself. First, we had the wrong bond amount, off by about $50. Second, we had no legal representation. Third, I called Jose by his second name, Jose, instead of his first name, Alejandro. This somehow furthered Captain America’s suspicion of me as ignorant and Jose as criminal. I realized how having four names -  Alejandro Jose Miranda Ramirez - instead of the standard American three, can determine your worth in a critical moment. 

I literally have no fucking idea what I’m doing,  Sir Captain America. 

“Listen,” he tells me, “I get it." Captain America finally broke down a bit, told me he respected me for trying to help someone out. He said he couldn't share anything about Alejandro/Jose’s case specifically... (You don’t say?) ... "But I can tell you that if he's in here, he is a Bad Guy.” (Don’t you mean bad hombre?)

He chided me for watching things on TV and assuming the cops are the bad guys, fantasizing about things I don't understand, thinking ICE is just out there raiding houses and tearing families apart. I thought, isn't that literally  what happened this morning? 

"We’re just doing our job," he told me. "We’re taking bad people off the streets that don’t belong here.”

Captain America was not the person to waste my time on. He drank the kool-aid. To him they’re all the same – brown men with too many names and suspiciously clean backgrounds. Or maybe he just needed a paycheck. Either way, Captain America wasn’t contemplating any systemic inequities he may have been perpetuating. And it’s not his fault, he didn’t make the rules. 

I listened respectfully, asked lots of questions. I think I behaved myself. But all my questions led nowhere. I weaved my way through a maze of deficient soldiers in the system too proud to admit they didn’t actually know how it all worked. 

Despite our efforts, there could be no new bond set, certainly not that afternoon. Alejandro/Jose was in line for deportation. Got a problem? Hop in the cue with 1,000 other immigrants trying to see the judge. In the meantime, know that the father of your children, your partner, your co-worker, your taxpaying Broncos fan will sit tight in a detention center cell resembling a prison. Indefinitely.

The weeks that followed were a hurricane of confusing phone calls, translating – in more ways than one – the legal system barring Jose from his family and his life. Flor navigated the challenges of motherhood, rising rents on a suddenly single income, and therapeutic support for her 14 year-old daughter freaking out. Amidst all that, she  tracked down Jose’s past employers who were now reneging on IOUs - assumed deportation is a great excuse for forgetting a paycheck. Her limited income was used to buy essentials the detention center refused to provide - toothpaste and deodorant to name a few.  And whatever was left went into the attorney piggy bank to try to get a lawyer supremely motivated to get Jose in front of a judge. She had it all thought out to Backup Plans B, C, and D, only to have the hurricane whirl up again and toss her plans to the wind.

I wish this story was unique, and I wish I had never heard it before. Unfortunately for us all, it's happening every day. Flor learned her exceptional crisis navigation skills when her father was deported just a few years ago. A police officer became suspicion of her undocumented father, stalked him for months,  parked  outside their house for hours at a time. The scare tactics eventually worked and Flor's father,  tired of living in fear, stepped out of the house to give himself up. He was handcuffed immediately, and no one even flinched when he was arrested without cause by an officer operating outside his jurisdiction. Flor’s mother was also handcuffed during the debacle, to a fence, citing her "hysterical rowdiness" as justification.

One of the most admirable things about Flor is her ability to sail gracefully through these things. She is an expert in resilience. She is a woman who has overcome a long list of societal challenges to be where she is. Leaving a violent city rid of opportunity, seeking growth and opportunity on the other side of an unknown border, surviving an abusive relationship, charging ahead as a single mother to provide for her children, and most recently, leaning on her natural gumption to become a Promotora and help her community grow food. A few months ago Flor was promoted to a management position at our organization, including a raise that allowed her to quit her two side jobs. She’s set to receive her GED later this month along with a Level 6 English proficiency certificate.

I guess the thing that baffles me is that I can imagine myself here. I have petty exes who withheld information to spite me. I’ve driven without a license, and rolled more than a few stop signs. I’ve faced the sometimes beautiful, always enigmatic social service systems that are supposed to help us out of hardships. And, I guess, I've found myself strong enough to take a risk or two.

But the problem is, I also can’t imagine myself here. I can’t imagine being brave enough to cross an entire countryside and a treacherous border, alone on foot and on trains, through drug lords and human traffickers, fueled only by the conviction that things didn’t have to be this way, that there could be more and better. I can’t imagine getting up everyday to live and work in a world where I was constantly told I didn’t belong and I wasn’t welcome. I can’t imagine being stripped of the opportunity to go to school, and of the teachers who told me I could grow up to be whatever I want. I can’t imagine swallowing my pride enough to get my GED and learn a new language and culture in my forties. I can’t imagine being a mother through it all. 

And the real problem is, I can’t imagine it because I don’t have to. And neither did my mother or her mother before her.

The last year has been a torment of uncertainty for Flor and her family. Sparing the details,  Jose was finally released from detention and back to his home after four months. He currently sits on yet another equivocal waiting list until the next court date, that just keeps coming. As I write these final words Flor and her family are back at the drawing table for Plans E, F and G as they anticipate a final order of deportation in June of this year. 

I still can't see how this punishment of endless life on pause is supposed to cure our ills as a country.

While its taken me a while to put pen to paper, telling this story has helped me find myself back at that morning, frantically shedding layers as the Spring sun comes in the window. I'm shedding layers of the immigration system, too. The structurally unsound institutions keep churning, Captain America keeps flexing his uninformed muscles, and the judges list grows longer every day. At the same time, we keep losing community members, friends, volunteers, architects, fathers, Bronco fans. And here I am, still encumbered by sharing a story that's not mine to tell, but navigating what it might mean to use my privilege to elevate a point that needs to be made. Like I said, I was a reluctant but obvious choice for Flor that morning. I admire her for many things, but perhaps this is the most laudable: her expectation of me - to understand my privilege, to use it, and to tell the stories that matter, because I can.