Cruising.

otra rola de mi niñez.

May and June.

I had dinner with my father for fathers day. We met up with the rest of the family and had a small dinner. Nothing too fancy. Simple. The way my father is and will always be. After dinner, on the ride back to the city, I had a conversation with my father about immigrating to the United States. My father started talking about how much he used to dread this time of year: May and June. According to my father, this was the time of year when INS came up from the border states to conduct raids on factories and communities where immigrants had a strong presence. He dreaded this time of the year the most because of the heightened risk of a raid, the thought of being deported and losing me in the process. Making a difficult situation worst, my mother was also undocumented and worked in the same factory as my father. A double threat. This was also the time of year when INS would set up checkpoints off of the Kennedy expressway and request proof of citizenship. Fortunately, a raid was never conducted at the factory where my parents worked and they always managed to evade checkpoints. Unfortunately, others were not so lucky. My father recounted an instance where a friend of his was apprehended by INS while standing outside of a bank on Division and Ashland. These are the stories of my parents, of growing up undocumented in Chicago, in the 1980s.

for better or for worse.

I left Chicago on Feb 28, 2008. On that day I embarked on a trip to Mexico, ridding myself of possessions I considered trivial. Reflecting, I realize that I was restless and in search of something more than what I possessed in Chicago. This fact isn't something that I state with lament or regret, but with pride and joy. I was eight months into being 26 years old. At the time, I was more or less comfortable with my life; but there was something extremely discomforting about that. I didn't feel engaged. I didn't feel like I was on a path that promoted growth. I wasn't connected. I didn't know exactly what I wanted from that trip--or even less what to expect, but I knew exactly what I wanted to see. I wanted to see the way others lived; the way others experienced life. Existential dilemma? You bet. With that said, it was that much more difficult when--three months into my trip--I faced the harsh realization that I had to return. Reflecting, I couldn't have planned that trip any worse. Thinking about it even more, I couldn't have planned it any better. I say worse because, well, I became ill with typhoid and spent a lot of money on medicine and doctors visits. I spent a lot of time feeling sick, and feeling like I was being spit out. I returned home right before my 27th birthday, dejected and with a heavy question pressing in my head: now what? I say i couldn't have planned it any better because, well, a lot has changed since then and in ways that I would never have imagined. I just turned 29, I'm finishing school and I won some scholarships to embark on yet another trip. I'll be traveling to Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua for four months to study with a program focused on social justice in Central America. When I returned from Mexico in 2008, I remember thinking how terrible it was to have been spit out. Now I realize, I was actually being swallowed.