My Undocumented Neighbor

• This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

I was checking my mail, when she passed by and gave my sidewalk patch a disapproving look.  “You should pull up those weeds.  They’re going to invade my side.” I give her an apologetic smile and say, “I know, I know.”

I’m used to her grouchiness.  One day she is mad at me, and the next day, she comes over with a bowl of albóndiga soup.  “How’s your mom, after all?”

Her eyes light up, “She’s good.  They sent her home!”

“Where is she again?”

“Michoacan! I told her, Mamá, you have to wait until I come and visit you to die.”

“When is the last time you were there?”

“Seven years ago.”

“That’s a long time ago.  How often do you visit?”

“In twenty-five years, I’ve only been there 4 times. You know, with the kids being small and my husband working, it wasn’t easy going back and forth. I was able to go seven years ago, and my kids tell me to go and visit, but if I do, I don’t think I’ll ever come back.”

“I understand.  Life here isn’t the same. I’m sure you live with nostalgia for the lifestyle there. I’m sure it would be wonderful for you to retire there.”

“Oh. I wouldn’t come back because it is so hard to cross the border now without documents.”

“¿En serio Doña Magdalena? ¿No tienes documentos? ¿Pero desde cuando estás aquí?”

“I’ve been here 25 years.”

I was floored.  I’ve known Doña Magdalena for 15 years.  She is an active member of our chamber of commerce and our neighborhood council.  She has two children who are homeowners in the neighborhood. I had no idea she was undocumented.    

It turns out she didn’t get into the amnesty program of the 1980s, but remained in the country.  Her children, who are now college graduates and homeowners, crossed the border with her as toddlers, and were able to obtain their documents through immigration legislation enacted during the Obama administration.  They have had their documents for five years now. 

We stood at my chain link fence, as the sun was setting over our ever-gentrifying barrio, her sharing about being undocumented and probably not seeing her mother before she passes away, and what that means to her.  She shared how conflicted she was, feeling like she had to choose between her own children here, and her own mother.  Who needed her more?  And she had to make her decision based on the fact that she knew she could never manage to get back across the border without her papers this time around. 

We were officially at dusk when she looked back at my sidewalk patch and said, “Pull up those weeds m’ija.  Don’t make more work for me, on my side.” 

“Ok. Doña Magdalena.  I will. “

I still haven’t done it. 

Inside the Schoolhouse: Hallowed Ground #3

I am with my kindergarteners

for 6 hours a day. 

Most of them have been on this planet,

for about 60 months. 

I am sensitive

to the transition,

from daycare, or home, or preschool,

small class size, low student to teacher ratio,

shorter days,

more self-directed activities,

to being in kindergarten.

To being in a room,

where 70% of the room,

is occupied by desks and chairs.

This is where they spend,

95% of their time. 

And during that 95%,

they are listening to me,

working at their desk,

following directions,

probably daydreaming,

trying to listen,

doing their best,

to learn how to hold a pencil,

shape their letters between the lines,

remember all there is to remember,

about what to do with the book in

their hands,

or the paper in front of them,

or the math story I just asked them to solve. 

They are earnest,

defying their wild and curious nature,

and being loyal,

to me and my teaching,

and they are doing their best,

to grow up,

at five years-old.

But today,

they weren’t having it. 

I could not get them to settle down,

so I said,

“Alright, we’re going out to play.”

We went down to the yard.

Towering trees bordering the playground,

chaparral hillside in the background,

soft Los Angeles, January breeze

carrying the monarch that was fluttering

around us. 

The children were unleashed,

on the concrete pavement. 

Suddenly, they were puppies and kitties,

crawling on all fours, pretending to purr and cuddle.

The boys became ninjas, wielding imaginary

swords, jumping at each other,

and crouching like tigers.

The tether ball game,

whose rules they don’t know,

was a gathering place,

for swinging the ball,

and ten kids falling over each other,

to try and catch it. 

Two girls were telling a secret,

in the shade of the pepper tree,

while a group of boys and girls,

were teasing each other and squealing,

in that old-fashioned game of tag. 

Others were hiding from zombies,

while a line of girls were calling out like sheep,

to a few girls on the other side of the yard,

and with some invisible cue,

they all started to run,

at the same time,

in different directions,

screaming from the top of their lungs. 

I don’t disparage, the mostly academic work,

that I dedicate my life to everyday.

I am a mother, of children who attend public school,

with the same curriculum and the same limited physical play,

that makes up my own students’ day.  

I am not interested in paying some inordinate amount of money,

for my kids to spend most of their day playing,

instead of doing academic work. 

I am interested in public policy that honors

children’s need to play and imagine. 

But I’m honestly not working on that.

So I’ll just mind my own,

public school teacher business. 

Sometimes, when I’m encouraging my students

to engage and pay attention,

I tell them that home, is where they can be wild,

and themselves, and do all of their shenanigans.

School is where they need to collect themselves,

pull themselves together, and control themselves.

But this afternoon,

with the warm winter sun shining on us,

and with our laughter and joy,

riding on the wind,

I couldn’t help but think,

that I’d like to say to them,

“School is where you can be wild,

and yourself, and we welcome,

all of your shenanigans.”

Let the children play…

Dejen que jueguen los niños...

Chicana Manifesto - Part I

The term “Chicana” saved my life.  The child of an immigrant, Mexicana, who was a single mother, I grew up in Los Angeles, in severe poverty, marinating in gang violence, surrounded by people who were abusing substances, and suffering from severe emotional and physical neglect.  When my mother, who I adore and who passed away when I was twenty years old, was intoxicated, she would scream, crouched in the corner of our Silverlake apartment, “Soy 100% Azteca!” I didn’t know who the Aztecs were, and I didn’t want anything to do with anything, that made my mother holler its name, when she was drunk. 

In middle school, my brother was incarcerated, my mother was at her worst in her drinking, we were evicted from our Silverlake apartment and neighborhood, which I had known my whole life, and we moved to South Los Angeles.  When I enrolled in Mt. Vernon Jr. High, I had to think quickly about how I was going to navigate the black and brown sea that was before me.  Never having considered my cultural or linguistic background, and therefore feeling no allegiance to the Latinos, and figuring that the Black kids were way stronger than the brown kids, I ditched the Latinos and joined the Black crowd.  I changed my name to “Angel”, attempted to talk like the Black kids, and I declared that I was Spanish and Black.  I don’t know how my peers bought that I was half-Black, and they didn't at all consider the improbability of my ghetto ass being a Spaniard, I was quickly accepted into their circle. 

The years that followed, my emotional life became more and more precarious.  Homelessness, alcoholism, hunger, and a complete deterioration of my home life, made me incredibly depressed and more than anything, it made me feel, nameless.  I was a nobody. All I had were my best friends from Hollywood High School, and everything else meant nothing. 

My older brother enrolled at Los Angeles Community College and he took a Chicano studies course.  I will say, that in the midst of the madness of my personal life, I WAS a reader.  I read everything that I could get my hands on, that helped me create meaning in life.  I eventually transferred to Marshall High School, for getting in a fight at Hollywood High, and I would ditch my classes at Marshall so that I could read in the school library.  Spraying perfume on the carbon copy of an old library pass, every day, I’d rewrite a new date on the pass, and skip a class to just go and sit in the library and read.  When my brother brought home his Chicano Studies books, I had no problem devouring the books.  Learning about the Aztecs, the pyramids in Mexico and the great civilizations, made me feel that I had something to be proud of.  Reading about the Chicano movement and the East LA blowouts connected the rage that I held so deep inside from all of my childhood experiences, to something palpable that I could direct my anger toward. I adopted social justice as my motto, and my work around issues of social justice is history.  From the moment that I laid my hands on those books, I became somebody.  I was, a Chicana. 

To be continued...

Sunday Morning

There once was a Chicana,
who was convinced by the Millers, 
to make coffee in a french press, 
of which she did, and became obsessed. 

She poured her coffee, 
into her Moomin cups, 
the national icon she learned about, 
when she joined a delegation of teachers, 
to Helsinki, Finland, 
to meet with key officials 
in the Ministry of Education, 
and tour schools, 
to interview teachers and students. 

She takes her coffee, 
to her desk, 
where she writes an email, 
to the parents of a student, 
in her classroom, 
to tell them how much their 
child has improved, 
and where she thinks the next steps are, 
in their efforts to support the student.  

It is just an ordinary Sunday morning, 
in Northeast Los Angeles, 
in the home, 
of a Chicana poet, 
who is a public school teacher. 

Dedication on KRLA

When I was 22,

a best friend was murdered. 

On the one year anniversary of his death,

I called KRLA and the DJ, Huggy Boy, answered.

He coached me on recording my dedication. 

I started,

“This message is for Alex.

I’m sorry you were taken from us…”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Huggy Boy interrupted me.

“When we record your message,

make no reference to death or jail.

You can say, “I miss you,” or something

along those lines. 

Otherwise, everyone hears that and

says that Mexicans are just running around

committing crime and killing each other.

So let’s try recording again.”

Slowly, stunned, I spoke,
"This message is for Alex.
I miss you and I wish you were here." 

Manufactured Poverty

Before I begin. I MUST confess that I am one to two years behind TV shows and music.  In the future, I may reference songs and TV shows that are years old, and you might wonder why I am on the late train. It doesn’t matter.  I see and hear things, when I see and hear things, and I’ll reference them. I already know, I’m a late bird.  Forgive me.  BTW – I just got hooked onto D’Angelo’s album Black Messiah, and well, it is changing my life, one year later. 

In the opening scene of the pilot of the HBO series, Girls, (which you can see here) a mother and father inform their daughter that they are terminating their financial support of her.  She has graduated from college and has been working for free as an intern for two years.  They tell her that she needs to get a paid job and their continued support of her, is just delaying that.  She goes on to have a meltdown. 

This scene made me think about my life as a first generation professional, who is only 20 years out of a childhood of debilitating poverty, substance abuse and violence, and the privileged life of my own children.  They are not privileged in the San Marino/Old Pasadena wealth way, or the sheltered suburban way, but they are sheltered in terms of not really having to fight for anything, like food, or shelter, or proper attire (not sandals in the winter, unless by choice, like my son chooses to do.) 

Adversity builds character.  Period.  When you have to fight for your life, you dig deeper, and a stronger, more polished you comes out on the other end.  I don’t know if children need to put their brain to work for meeting basic needs, which is what my brothers and I did. That kind of stress can really fuck you up. There are brain studies that show the effects of chronic stress on a developing brain. PTSD, is what I think it is called. 

As a kid, I was often on my own, because my single mother was working full-time. My problem solving skills of navigating the streets, taking care of myself, and being resourceful were light years away from my own ten year old’s coping and survival skills.  The child STILL has not walked down the block alone.  For real. At 10 years old, I had walked with my siblings from Sunset and Lucille in Silverlake, to the IHOP on 6^th and Vermont,  four miles one way, at least once a week.

But back to the opening scene of Girls.  When I was in graduate school, one of the pieces I listened to was written by a colleague, who described what she felt like when her attorney parents told her that they were not going to financially support her, post-college, and the deep resentment she had toward them for not helping her out. 

She was taking out loans for grad school and really had a hard time learning how to support herself.  I couldn’t relate to her.  My mother could barely support me before I was 18, and she was definitely in no position to support me as an adult, in college.  Forget it.  I was buried in college loan debt.  But I was intrigued by this woman’s situation.  What do you do when you don’t have to take care of yourself until you're 22?  How do you learn to hustle? And is that too late to learn how to hustle? 

When I was 18, I had to get a jobby job, I had to figure out how to enroll my ass in school. I had to figure out how to pay for school and books, and then I had to figure out how to budget my money to support myself.  I started that shit at 18, and let me tell you, there was absolutely nowhere for me to fall back on.  If I couldn’t make ends meet, then I lived off of Top Ramen and bean tacos, and that was it.  I didn’t blame anyone for me starving. I didn’t hold it against anyone. I just understood I was assed out. 

But if you have never had to do it, and you know, as the character in the scene says, “I am your only child, it is not like I am financially harming you by your supporting me,” knowing that your parents can actually help you out, but they say, that they think you need to learn how to figure your shit out, I do wonder what that feels like. 

And I wonder what that feels like, because I know my own children will be in that situation, and according to my siblings and in-laws with college aged children, my nieces and nephews are genuinely struggling to get it together as adults, to provide for themselves and problem solve.

We do have college funds for our kids. Honestly, it is not going to cut it when they have to pay tuition.  There will be some money to pay for their school, but I don’t see us cutting a check every semester or quarter to pay for their college education. I’ve asked my friends who pay for their children’s tuition,  “Can’t they just take out loans, like we did?” And I always get a combination of answers that have to do with not wanting their kids to be in debt like they still are, or their not being eligible to take out loans because their family makes too much money. 

Even if we didn’t want to help our boy’s out financially, so that they can learn to fend for themselves, can young people today even afford to take care of themselves, to learn the lesson?  What is the average job paying for kids that are barely out of school?  For me, it didn’t matter what anyone was paying.  I had to take care of myself.  For my children, they actually do have a place to live, they can at least come and have meals here and get the basics, and we probably will be able to help them out financially.  Where will the balance be to help them out, and to help them learn to become financially independent and responsible?

I find the contrast fascinating between my generation’s need to survive and fend for themselves off the bat, and watching my children’s generation struggle with adulthood and all of its responsibilities. What is in store for our them? Can we manufacture their poverty, so that they can develop the resilience and grit that we did? I don’t know, I haven’t been through it yet.  I hope that my boys will learn to appreciate all of their privelage.  I hope that my boys will learn that there are many, many working class young people who have to fight for every opportunity they get.  Mostly, I hope that they have the will to take care of themselves and take responsibility for their lives.  For their sake.