Undocumented - illegal immigration in NYC

Illegal Mom

With one foot in New York and one back in Mexico, Glarifina struggles to raise her American children under the threat of deportation.

John Collins Rudolph

It’s the week before Halloween in this south Brooklyn elementary school, and just as in schools all across the country the walls are hung with skeletons and jack o’lanterns, spiderwebs and ghosts. At two forty-five in the afternoon a line of second-graders walk down the hall, laughing and smiling, bundled in bright yellow and orange parkas, their faces half-hidden by colorful scarves.

Yet while on the surface these children look no different than those you would see in any New York City school, many of them will grow up with a troubling secret: their parents are illegal immigrants.
“I want my children to go to school, to finish with honors,” says Glarafina, a cheerful woman of thirty-five, with shoulder-length charcoal-black hair, and a brilliant, ever-present smile. An undocumented mother of two young children, she has been living and working illegally in New York for ten years.

Her daughter is already in kindergarten, and with her American citizenship she is just another one of the city’s 1.1 million school-children.

But every Tuesday morning, in the cafeteria in the basement of the school, her mother studies “survival English” with other undocumented women, learning skills like writing a check and reading a calendar. This morning her teacher, Mary Cassidy, a petite woman with short gray hair, is drilling the women on the days of the week and struggling to explain the difference between soccer and American football.

After the class ended Glarafina remained behind to talk for a while about her life, her journey to America, being undocumented in New York, and her favorite subject- her children.

“I want what every mother wants, the best for them,” she says through a translator. “To study, that they have a good education, that they practice good customs, that they are faithful and religious.” She speaks in musical, rapid-fire Spanish, gesturing in the air when she feels particularly excited, such as when she describes her journey to the United States from Mexico.

At first, she had no intention of leaving her home in Zacapoaxtla, a town of less than 8,000 in Puebla province, on Mexico’s central plateau. “I didn’t have any desire to come over here, but my brother wanted to study at the university and we didn’t have the money. It’s all a matter of economics, because there are good schools in Mexico. It was difficult because of the ”

Once she made up her mind to cross, her family and the families of others migrating to the United States held a special church service. “Everyone there is praying on behalf of the person leaving. We are strong believers, we pray to the Virgin of Guadalupe.”

She would need the spiritual support during the grueling seven-day trek through the mountains and desert between Tijuana and San Diego, where she eventually crossed. With the help of “coyotes”- guides expert in smuggling people into the US- she began the trip in the dead of night on June 18th, 1995.

“They took us to the border and we started walking,” she says matter-of-factly. “There were helicopters overhead, movement everywhere. We had to be still. Sometimes the immigration officers were on horseback.”

Her group of twenty-five traveled continuously, resting for a few hours at a time in a series of caves along the way. “It was a horrible walk. Many hills, thornbushes, very narrow pathways. Latinos on the way over here, on this path, they do die. You are exposed to the elements, snakebites, when it rains people fall and break their legs.”

While her group avoided these misfortunes, one man did pass out along the way. “We left him behind,” she says, her playful eyes suddenly darkened by the recollection. “We put him underneath bushes and trees for shade. We couldn’t sacrifice twenty-four for one.”
The last days of the trek were terrifying. “They didn’t tell us to bring enough food, and we only had a little bit of water,” she says. “The last two days we went without eating at all.”

She credits her faith with carrying her through. “Whenever I thought ‘I can die here,’ I would pray to the Lord to help me, to help me get here. I felt very tense, but I did it in faith in God.”

Diana G., a parent-teacher coordinator who works with dozens of undocumented parents like Glarafina, also emphasized the strong role that faith played in the lives of those who travel great distances and endure such difficulties for the opportunities found in America. “That’s an important aspect- what gets them here, that’s a driving force, is their faith. They know that this is of God for them, to have a better life.”

According to Diana, that faith also keeps families together that are dealing with the stress of being illegal. “The dads are not absent,” she says. “The children come to school clean and prepared, not like in other poverty neighborhoods.”

Once she arrived in San Diego, Glarafina traveled to Los Angeles, and then took a flight to New York City because her cousin had brothers already established there. “I have been here ten years, in Brooklyn,” she says, in halting English.

Falling back into staccato Spanish, she described the feeling of being undocumented in New York. “It’s an insecure feeling, you live day by day. When you first get here you live day-by-day. When you first get here you live and work here but your mind, your feelings are back home.”

Her husband, who works as a presser in a dry cleaning shop, is also here illegally, but not for lack of trying. But even for long-time residents a green card is often a dream just out of reach.

“Yes, it’s something that I want to have, because I know having that paper, it’s like a pass for better things,” she says. There are pitfalls, however. “Then again, you don’t want to be taken advantage of, that’s rampant.”

Her friend’s husband was bilked out of over $10,000 by an immigration lawyer over the course of a few years, and had nothing to show for it. He would pay $1000 or $1500 at a time, and then a few months later more money would be demanded.

The process is demoralizing. “Because we want to have our papers, we are asked for money, and we pay it, and it’s gone,” she says.

For that reason she has yet to commit to a life in America. “I have one foot here and one foot in Mexico,” she says. “We have purchased a home in Mexico, in case we have to return, so we don’t go back empty-handed.”

Her two children, five and three, were born in Brooklyn and have their American citizenship, for which Glarafina is thankful. It will make it easier for them to travel back and forth to Mexico whenever they want. For her, returning home is a grueling, time-consuming ordeal- she must cross back into America with the help of the ‘coyotes’ each time.

“I have gone across three times,” she says with a note of pride.

She has great hopes for her children, and believes that her sacrifices in coming to America were well worth it. As for the difficulties of being illegal, it’s not something she worries about too much.

“I don’t think anything of it, really,” she explains. “As they say, in life there are opportunities. The objective is to live here, do what can here, and prepare for the time you have to leave.”

It’s clear by her confidence and optimism that she is not someone easily deterred. “If someone was to ever send us back, there’s always a way to come back,” she says with a grin.