How two illegal voyages led to my American Dream

My mom was 4-years-old when she first dreamed about going to the United States. Sitting in front of the church in the impoverished village she grew up in, called Paraiso de Osorio in El Salvador, she watched a newsreel of President John F. Kennedy giving a speech, with the American flag waving in the background. Watching those images, she said to herself that the United States was where she wanted to go.

She was born in 1954 and grew up in a small village where there were dirt roads, no hospitals, fire or police stations, and no water or electricity. My mom rarely wore shoes. There were also seven other children in the family, making it more difficult to have aspirations in a life filled with destitution.

My dad was also influenced and inspired by Kennedy. He used to get care packages to feed children, which the U.S. sent through a program started by Kennedy. My dad was born in 1950 in a city called Santo Tomas, where he lived in a tin-roof house and showered with cold water in the outhouse. Working at age 17 to provide for his mother and sister, my dad had a strong work ethic and desire to leave his country.

Kennedy’s politics also had an impact on my dad, who grew as the radical and revolutionary type in the Central American country. But his love for the political climate in the war-torn country – which eventually erupted into a violent 12-year civil war – didn’t make him stay. He needed money to survive and he wasn’t finding it there.

Separately, my parents left the country in 1978 and began their illegal voyages, walking through mountains, dirt and mud to cramp into vans and big rigs with other immigrants headed on the same path. They made their way to the City of Angels.

For 11 days, my mom traveled through Guatemala, Mexico and into the United States. She paid three smugglers working together $900 to take her from El Salvador to L.A. My mom and 21 other immigrants walked from Tijuana to San Diego for 10 hours. Struggling to walk through the hills and mountains, several immigrants collapsed from exhaustion. After making it to San Diego, there was still the trip to Los Angeles. She and 80 others cramped into a hot and humid big rig. People fainted and almost suffocated. However, when the truck reached San Clemente, immigration officials stopped it for 25 minutes. They knocked on the truck and asked if anyone was there. The immigrants remained silent.

My mom arrived to a parking lot in downtown L.A. She shared an apartment with six other women. There are only two options for immigrants: working in a factory or housekeeping. But at a factory she would have been easily caught and it paid very little. She became a housekeeper for wealthy families, something she still does.

Throughout my dad’s trip, he met men who played folk songs to keep them positive about their journey to America. Arriving to Tijuana, he found a smuggler and crossed rivers and mountains into San Diego. He arrived to the same apartment my mom lived in. Landing his first job as a brick layer, he made $2.50 an hour, which was substantially more than what he used to make. However, the boss didn’t find his work satisfactory and started yelling at him: “Get out of here you f-ing Mexican!” Starting in 1979, there were random raids in Hispanic-dominated areas. My dad recalls one weekend of fun that ended in his deportation. There was a party in the apartment, and my dad, mom and aunt were sitting outside on the apartment steps. An immigration van came and they ran. My dad was hit in the head, dragged off and deported. He came back a couple of months later and found a job as a mold-maker in a factory where he still works after 30 years.

They became naturalized citizens in 1996. Gaining legality, they were able to cast their first votes for President Bill Clinton.

Looking at how my parents desperately wanted to leave their third-world country, I can’t blame them or others like them from wanting to come to America, legally or not. Should they come here legally? Yes, but how easy and possible is that? It can take years. I have a half-sister from El Salvador who has been waiting over 10 years just to get a Visa. With such animosity and anti-immigrant sentiment directed towards Hispanics, it’s a shame that we still blame a people who come for survival, the way past immigrants of different cultures and races did. In my case, my parents never went on welfare or asked for handouts, and still managed to own a home. My parents worked to own their home. They’re illegal journey made me who I am today and made what I’ve accomplished possible. I have an education and am a graduate thanks to them. Luckily I’ve surpassed any poverty my parents faced as children. We’re not the stereotype or the villains in this country like we’re made out to be. But because I’m “brown,” that’s the stigma placed on me. I know what it is to be brown, but maybe not to the extent of others who probably face more and much worse than I ever have. I recently heard of a proposed California ballot initiative for next year’s June election that would require parents to prove U.S. citizenship or legal residency to receive their child’s birth certificate. If they can’t, they would have to pay for a certificate acknowledging the child’s “Birth to a Foreign Parent.” Does that mean that because my parents weren’t lawfully here when I was born I wouldn’t be a considered a U.S. citizen? Does that mean future generations won’t get that chance? Through my parents experience, I’ve developed the empathy and sympathy to understand their plights. And such a measure is unfortunate, especially in a country that supposedly embraces differences and encourages economic prosperity.

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Editor’s Note: Minority Dreams asked its readers and writers to submit personal immigration stories, explain why it matters and how it has shaped them individually. Juliette Funes recently graduated from Cal State Fullerton and is interning at the LA Times Calender Desk.