The realities of life can be so fleeting, more so when the accepted reality is a positive one, then it suddenly gives way to a sad and unexpectedly adverse alternative. Maria Munoz (not her real name) had just gotten used to calling herself an American. She is about 5 feet tall and of medium build, her voice is soft but with confidence. When she speaks, she will shift from a firm gaze to lowered eyes. She is very friendly and easy to talk to. It has not been an easy journey for her ever since she arrived in the USA at the tender age of 8. Before an assumption is made that Maria is complaining too much, she will be the first to add that the challenges she has found in Utah, pale in significance when compared to the vagaries she left behind. Worse still, is imagining that she might be heading back to the same place that her parents sacrificed so much to get her out of, but I digress.
“ I was born and raised in the suburbs in Culiacán Rosales, the capital of Sinaloa in Mexico ” (Munoz, 2018). It has been 11 years since she and her parents made the harrowing road trip from Sinaloa to New Mexico, and onwards to Utah. Although she was of tender age, the memories of life in Culiacán Rosales are still fresh in her mind, so is the harrowing journey that her family had endured. As she stated in the interview “ The streets were scary during the day and deadly during the night ”. Her determined eyes showed a flicker of fear as she stated so. At the age of 12, her elder brother was already a member of a gang and rising in its leadership. As a little girl, she always thought of her brother as a hero, a boy who was feared by men. It is only later, when she was old enough to talk about it with her brother, that she realized how scared he had been, and also how much he hated that life in crime. As Maria explained it to me, her brother felt that he needed to be part of the gang in order to protect his family. Did I digress again? Maybe the digression is the most important part of the story.
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Yes, Maria and her family made their way to the USA, in search, not of greener pastures, as she puts it, but rather peace and safety. The moment they landed, Maria and her family had to deal with the vagaries of fitting in, keeping their heads down, and making a living contemporaneously ( Funk & McCombs, 2017) . She and her brother ended up in a local school where they struggled endlessly: “ The language was a problem, so was its phonetics ” (Munoz, 2018). The lessons were also slightly more complicated than the ones they had left behind, but maybe that was only because of the difference in language. The culture was also a major problem, which they had to adjust to. For example, they had come from a mainly Catholic community and suddenly found themselves in a predominantly Protestant community. The journey to a combination of going on with life while still adjusting to it was made that much harder by the bullies. Surprisingly, she holds no grudges, with a smile she admits that she is now friends with them “ most of them are my friends now, they just did not know better ” (Munoz, 2018). This fact, however, did not make the bullying feel any better, but the peace and quiet was a blessing and Maria fell in love with her new home. She was determined to make the best out of herself, so was her brother.
Her parents were hardworking people who were also extremely loving and caring. The efforts to settle and fit into the community, however, created some friction in the family ( Farris & Holman, 2017) . In Culiacán Rosales, the family was the most important component of their lives with as much time as possible being spent at home due to insecurity. Once in Utah, the children seemed to adjust better than their parents as they soon got their own social connections in the locality: “ My parents thought we no longer loved or needed them ” (Munoz, 2018). They managed to get their own home, Maria got into high school while her brother joined a local community college.
It all started as a joke, during the rundown to the 2016 presidential elections. “ Some people started talking about “taking their country back ” she states and looks suddenly apprehensive. According to Maria, first she heard about it, then she heard it herself, as those who were saying it got bolder. She already knew that electoral time comes with some weird ideologies. Everybody said it would pass. The family closed ranks, held their breaths and waited for the wave to pass. It did not. Instead, those who had said they would take their country back won the elections and got bolder in regard to deportation of immigrants (Flores, 2017) . It has been a long time since Maria had last been bullied and she had even forgotten about it, but things seem to be changing. “ Some of my close friends have suddenly become distant, sometimes I get wry looks creating apprehension that worse might or will follow ” (Munoz, 2018). At this time, her eyes brim with tears but she fights them back impatiently
Her greatest fear, however, is neither hearing nor experiencing things but rather finding herself and her now American family making their way back to Culiacán Rosales, to call it home once again. With lots of emotions she says “ I may not look the part to some, but I am an America, this is the only home I know and I hope it shall not be taken away from me” (Munoz, 2018). There are already a number of people whose families have already been deported, a fact that gives impetus to her apprehensions (Flores, 2017) . Maria does not ask people to be nice to her, she does not need preferential treatment or affirmative action, all she asks for is a chance, and if it is granted, she is willing to make her adoptive home proud.
References
Farris, E. M., & Holman, M. R. (2017). All politics is local? County sheriffs and localized policies of Immigration Enforcement. Political Research Quarterly , 70 (1), 142-154.
Flores, C. (2017). Salt Lake school board hears cries to protect immigrant students from deportation. Retrieved from https://kutv.com/news/local/salt-lake-school-board-hears-cries-to-protect-immigrant-students-from-deportation
Funk, M. J., & McCombs, M. (2017). Strangers on a theoretical train: Inter-media agenda setting, community structure, and local news coverage. Journalism Studies , 18 (7), 845-865.
Munoz, M. (2018). Apprehension about Losing my New Found Home [Personal interview]. (2018, September).
