Artifact Five: The Affect Immigration Has On Families

Immigration. It tears families apart. One of the main causes of immigration is in hope to reunite with family members. Sometimes it’s successful but when it’s not it’s even more devastating to families. Outside of the Capitol, the immigration reform isn’t political, it’s personal. No matter what the decision is, it will effect millions of immigrant families.

In an article about how the immigration reform will affect three families, it’s obvious that immigration takes a great toll on families. Everyone in Renata Teodoro family has given up on the United States, but she still has hope. Renata along with the rest of her family was brought to the United States when she was six years old. Twelve years later her mother and brother were deported back to Brazil and they are beginning to loose hope of coming back to the United States. Immigration was what forced her mother and brother to leave her and not be aloud to return for ten years.  Thirteen years would pass before the Teodoro family could share an American home again.  She’s currently at the University of Massachusetts with a major in law and hoping to be able to influence public policy about immigration. The decision about the immigration crisis may be the price of the American dream accruing to Renata.  Renata’s not loosing hope, she believes that one day her family will be together again in the United States.

The immigration reform can cause millions
of families to be separated

In The Distance Between Us, when Reyna’s parents left them in Mexico caused Reyna to long for a happy family even more. In Mexico on mother’s day she gave her aunt her mothers day present instead of her actual mother, because she wasn’t there to accept the gift. Another time in the United States she called her father’s girlfriend mom when once again her mother wasn’t there for her. Immigration was what cause Reyna’s mother to not be there for her. Immigration was what caused the Grande family to slowly be broken apart. It all started when their father left, when shortly after there mother left too and when their mother returned, she wasn’t the same one that left. She was distant, nothing like they remembered her. When suddenly she ran off again the the U.S. with a new boyfriend. When her father finally came back for them, The Man Behind The Glass wasn’t who Reyna thought he would be. He was simply apart of her imagination but only because he left her when she was only two years old. Even later when all of her family was in the United States, they were never the same family that they were in Mexico. The happy complete Grande family would only ever exist in Mexico. The broken sad distraught Grande family would forever exist in The United States. 

Imagine both your parents leaving you before you’re old enough to maintain a memory of them. You only know what they look like from pictures, you only know their personality from stories but you’d never know what they’d smell like or the sound of their voice in your ears. I would go crazy without knowing all that stuff on a personal level. I would become one of the 63,000 kids at the border searching for their parents, wanting answers to questions only they’d know. I know I’d blame immigration for the reason of not having my parents with me, if they never migrated in the first place, they would’ve still been with me. What would you blame? What would you do in this situation? 

Artifact Four: Siblings Raising Siblings

In The Distance Between Us, Reyna’s father left her for the United States when she was two years old and her mother left her when she was four years old. Once both her parents left her she lived with her Abuelita Evilita, her fathers mother, for a few years along with her aunt and cousin. Later on she lived with her Abuelita Chinta, her mothers mother. She was raised by her grandmothers, aunt and older siblings until she was ten years old.

Today in America there are about 2 million children currently living in kinship care, care for by relatives other than their mother and father. The number has been rising over the past twenty years and there are approximately 140,000 cases of siblings raising siblings. This is all according to a recent study by the Urban Institute titled “Children Cared for by Relatives: Who Are They and How Are They Faring?”

Reyna was also raised by her sister Mago. She looked up to Mago like she was her own mother. She looked to her for protection, comfort when she missed her parents, or anything else she may need. When their mother left them, she told Mago to be Reyna and Carlos’s little mother, which she became. When her mother returned Reyna was hesitant to hug her mother, she waited to see what Mago would do. The next time their mother came back, Betty was hesitant too, she acted as if Mago was her mother not her older sister. In an article by Time Magazine, there were many stories have siblings raising siblings. There were two sisters, Janice and Lisa, who were raised by each other not by a mother and father, the same situation with Reyna, Betty and Mago. Although Lisa and Janice are both now adults they have more of a mother/daughter relationship than a sister/sister relationship. Lisa said, “Because we’re so far apart in age, we don’t have the kind of sister relationship most people have. She’ll probably always be a caretaker figure.”

In the article, it also talked about how much the older siblings have to sacrifice to take care of their younger siblings. It could be from not going to college so they could have a job and receive an income; having to give up their dream job, internship, boyfriend/girlfriend; and so much more all in order to care for a sibling, which was never their job to begin with.

It’s already very difficult to raise your own sibling but it’d be a thousand times more difficult to do this in a whole new country. That’s the situation Mago was in with Carlos and Reyna. Although they had their father, he wasn’t much of a fatherly figure. Reyna and Carlos still looked to Mago has their mother and role model. It was hard enough for Reyna to try and learn the new customs of The United States and I can only imagine it was even harder for Mago because she had to learn these things her self and help Carlos and Reyna adapt too. 

The 63,000 minors crossing the border don't have parents with them but they aren't alone. They have their brothers, sisters and friends to rely on. Those kids look to each other to help and support them while they hope and dream about finding their parents in the United States. It's the sibling bond that allows them to keep believing in themselves so one day they'll become legal citizens of the United States. 

I’m not even able to imagine the difficulty of having to raise my younger brother. Whenever I have to watch him for just one night and it’s time from him to go to bed he’d constantly say, “You’re not the boss of me! Don’t tell me what to do! I’m gonna call mom and ask her!” But he doesn’t say it nicely, he screams it at the top of his lungs, which makes me frustrated and I almost immediately give up on trying to get him to go to bed. So anyone that has successfully raised their own sibling, I have so much respect for them.

Artifact Three: Trying To Fit In To A Different Culture

In The Distance Between Us, there were many occasions when Reyna, Carlos or Mago felt like they didn’t belong in the United States. From this, we know that when people move to the United States they’d feel out of place, just like the Grande’s did. But have you ever thought about someone moving to Mexico and feeling out of place? That’s when the story about Naomi, her husband Joshua and there three kids comes into play. They began their family in Spain and lived there for eight years. Joshua then got his job transferred to Mexico City and Naomi didn’t want to go, she admitted she was nervous because Mexico’s culture is so different than Spain’s. But what Mexico was actually like came as a real surprise to her. 

On Reyna’s first day of school in the United States, her teacher taught her that here in the United States, we only use one last name, not two. She felt as if she was betraying her mother that she already lost, but that wasn’t the case. Reyna was just adopting to a new culture and allowing it to effect her life. Like Reyna, Naomi and her family had to adopt to Mexico’s customs. She immediately noticed how different they greet each other. In Mexico the children will always give adults a peck on the cheek has a greeting or salutation even when her children were having playdates. From my personal experience here in the U.S., there’s about a 50% chance that kids will even say hi to the parents and there’s definitely not a kiss on the cheek involved.

Humans being humans just can’t ignore it when we see people that are different than us. My friends have told me when they’ve traveled to Asia, people will be in awe of their blonde hair and be asked for a picture wherever they went. When Naomi’s family first arrived to Mexico, she always noticed people passing by would be squealing. She thought it had something to do with all three of her children having red hair and a friend confirmed she was right! She said people would pinch each other because when Mexicans see a redhead, the first one to pinch a friend gets a wish. This wasn’t a negative reaction to someone being different like Reyna experienced. Kids would call her mean names like “wetback” and when she lived in Mexico her neighbors would snicker at her calling her an orphan. She was also constantly made fun of her name, Reyna Grande, meaning Big Queen; and they laughed saying that she’s no queen. We all know that saying that we were told about a million times in elementary school, “Treat people the way you would like to be treated,” and that’s nothing but the truth.  

One of Naomi's children at school

Naomi would meet parents at her kids’ school and they’d all come together for dinner. She said, “…they stepped right into our lives and invited us into theirs…” Naomi shared that this never happened in Spain which is like a private culture, that you’d have to know someone forever before you would ‘impose’ like that. She loved how in Mexico it’s all about getting together with friends for dinner in the rooftop and laughing and talking all night long. This is a big contrast to Reyna’s experience in the United States. The other kids at her table weren’t nice to her and she never made friends all through elementary school, and she was definitely never invited over to a friends house for dinner. Her father wouldn’t even let her go play after school with other kids in her neighborhood. 

This picture proves that even though they may be different, it
doesn't mean they can't be friends

When Reyna came to the United States, she spoke no English which meant she’d have to learn a whole new language in addition to fitting into a new culture. She had a difficult time with English at first but then her determination kicked in and she became fluent in English! Naomi and her kids didn’t have to learn a whole new language but Naomi noticed how differently people in Mexico would speak compared to those in Spain. In Spain people would say, “Give me a coffee” and in Mexico people would say, “Good morning. How are you doing? Can you please gift me a coffee, if you can?” I know from personal experience that English says some weird things. For example, it seems like now whenever someone tells a story now it’s, “He was like…then I was like…” Since when did we replace the world said with like? Things like this were especially confusing to Reyna. She remember her teacher telling her that in English adjectives come before the noun but when the sentence, “The girl had a pretty difficult time.” She was beyond confused on why it wasn’t the pretty girl. This shows how confusing English can be, especially when we start replacing the word said with like. 

Naomi's children learning and beginning to appreciate
a new culture

Naomi shared that even though everyone was so welcoming, no matter where she went she felt out of place. She said there were such wealth extremes in Mexico: the extremely rich and the extremely poor and she never seemed to fit in. She said it was one of her biggest struggles living in Mexico City. “This constant juxtaposition of excess and need keeps my heart and mind racing, pushing me to evaluate what I own and why I own it; pushing me to ask myself if I find my identity in my belongings or social status; forcing me to dig deeper into what genuine need is, and what we as a family can do to care for people in need.”

Naomi's family is an example of how people don't just migrate from Mexico to the United States, but people do move from other places in the world to Mexico. Eventually the Grande’s learned the customs of the United States the same way Naomi’s family learned Mexico’s customs. Although they both felt extremely out of place at first, they learned how to fit in and appreciate the new life they were given. 

Artifact Two: Immigration Crisis

As you’ve probably heard there’s currently an immigration crisis here in the United States. Since October, about 63,000 unaccompanied minors have crossed the United States border, the number has nearly doubled since last year. The majority of the children are in states where immigrants have traditionally settled like New York, Texas, California and Florida. 

I know I was wondering and I bet you were too, “Why now are there so many more children coming to the United States?” Now I’m able to tell you the answer based on an article I read in The New York Times. The surge of unaccompanied minors crossing the border alone began in 2012. More than three-quarters of the minors are coming from mostly poor and violent towns in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The reason for coming to the United States, varies from child to child but there are some common factors: poverty, violence and family reunification. Honduras has the world’s highest murder rate, meanwhile the children coming from Guatemala are extremely poor. The Department of Homeland Security said another reason is because many minors in the past were reunited with there families and not immediately deported, giving Central Americans the idea that the United States was allowing children to stay. In addition, I was very surprised to find out that less than a quarter of the children are coming from Mexico. 

Where the children are going in the United States

The children can’t be deported immediately because of an anti-trafficking statue, stating that minors from Central America cannot be deported immediately and must be given a court hearing before they can be deported. Once the children are caught, they’ll stay in a shelter for approximently 35 days. There are about 100 permanent shelters located by the United States/Mexico border but because of the sudden increase in children, three temporary shelters were opened in military bases in California, Oklahoma and Texas. Then the majority of the kids are placed with a family member or sponsor until their court hearing. As you can imagine, it’d take a very long time to have a court hearing for each of the 63,000 children. 

Where the children are coming from in Central America

From The Distance Between Us, Reyna described how difficult it was to cross the border. They failed twice and when Reyna knew if the third time wasn’t successful she wasn’t going to the U.S., if gave her even more determination to cross with success. That’s the type of determination all 63,000 of these kids have, because if they didn’t have that determination, they wouldn’t be here right now.

There were times when Reyna, Carlos and Mago wanted to leave Mexico and go to the United States to find their parents since they didn’t think they were coming back any time soon. If they had left and made it to the United States, they wouldn’t of had any where to go, just like all those kids today, they don’t have anywhere to go but overflowing shelters. 

The Grande’s migrated to escape poverty and in hope to reunify their family, just like thousands of kids are today. However, they were successful in having a decent place to live and becoming legal citizens in the United States. Only the future will know what will happen to all of these kids. Will they be allowed to stay in the United States and start a new life? Or will they have to go back to the horrible life they were trying to escape? If it was your choice, where would you send them?

Artifact One: Mexico's Poverty

What is poverty? Poverty is the state of being extremely poor. There are people living in poverty all across the world, from India to Mexico to South Africa to the United States. Some places, like Mexico, poverty is more extreme than other places like The United States. 

The Census Bureau measures poverty by a families income, not including food stamps or housing subsidies, and by poverty thresholds such as size of the family and ages of the members. If the families total income is less than the poverty threshold, every person in that family is considered to be living in poverty. 

Poverty In Mexico

In Mexico, there are two types of poverty: regular poverty and extreme poverty. Adults and children that live in poverty may go days without eating and always wondering where their next meal will be.  Their houses are made out of scraps of garbage (if they even have a house) and most likely don't have electricity or running water. 

Mexico’s population has a large percentage of young people, currently about 20 million minors. Over half of these children live in poverty and 4 million of them in extreme poverty. In addition, more than 21 million children have little or no access to goods and services. There are also 20 million people in Mexico who live on less than two dollars a day. I know I wouldn't be able to survive on only two dollars a day. Would you be able to? 

Abuelita Chinta's house in comparison to today poverty
stricken houses.

Poverty extends beyond not eating for a day or not having running water. For example, about fourteen percent of Mexican children under the age of five, are stunted in development. This means their development is slowed down dramatically.  This is often a result of malnutrition. A stunted development is a life long issue.  Some kids may never over come that especially because it very unlikely they'll receive a decent education. Without a decent education, they won't get a decent job with a stable income which results in them living in poverty for the rest of their life. If there is a large population with stunted development, the literacy rate will not improve and it will cause Mexico's development to not progress any farther.  

In The Distance Between Us, Reyna, Mago and Carlos all lived in poverty while they were in Mexico. Their Abuelita Chinta's house was a shack. The house was just one large room which had dirt floors, the walls were made of scraps including cardboard and trash. (Picture above.)

Her other grandmother, Abuela Evila, house didn’t have running water. They’d pay to have someone deliver water to her house. Except Mago, Reyna and Carlos weren't allowed to use that water, they had to walk to the well everyday to get water for them to use in order to bathe. 

Their whole life in Mexico, whether it was with their grandmothers or their parents, their food supply was scarce. There were days they'd only eat one meal and other days they wouldn't eat at all. Sometimes their grandmother wouldn’t eat just, so she could make sure the children were fed. Mago, Carlos and Reyna wouldn't get lunch while they were at school.  They didn't have food to bring nor money to pay for a school lunch. Reyna specifically remembered her first day of school smelling the wonderful aroma of enchiladas and her stomach grumbling, because she didn't have anything to eat and no money to buy a lunch. When one of her classmates dropped a mango on the ground, Mago told Reyna to go pick it up for her.  But Reyna refused at least until everyone left.  Then she couldn't resist and she sunk her teeth into what she thought was a delicious mango. Reyna also recalled how Mago would always search for half-eaten fruit or a lollipop on the ground, whenever they had to run errands. 

According to the study in the article, southern Mexican states have the highest child food-insecurity. Today, Guerrero, where the Grande family lived in Mexico, 77.1% of people under the age of eighteen live below the poverty line. While reading this article, it helped me realize how serious Mexico's issue is with poverty and how many million lives it dramatically effects.

Reyna's parents left Mexico to establish a better life in America which included escaping poverty. It meant having running water, electricity, food on the table at every meal, a TV and other house hold appliances like a refrigerator. Still today, a main factor for immigration is escaping poverty in Mexico and hopefully living a poverty free life in America.