I am 3 years old watching my dad be taken away by officers while my mom is trying to negotiate his release. I am screaming in fear, both from the events that led to his arrest, as well as the idea that I will never be able to see him again. An officer comes into the kitchen where I am crying and slices me a lemon sprinkled with sugar, it calms me down enough.
I am 6 years old and my dad’s fake ID just expired. We are in La Linea trying to come into the states. A border patrol agent opens up the line and ushers in about 8 cars without checking for papers, we bolt it through just in time before they close the entrance once more. My dad has never seen his family since.
I am 9 years old as I watch my parents switch seats in the car after a minor fender bender. She’s mad that she has to take the fall for his crash, but there is no alternative. Had my dad stayed in the driver’s seat, he risked being asked for a driver’s license he doesn’t have. The officer waves my mom off with a warning. We are silent on the car ride home.
I am 12 years old and my grandma dies. My dad isn’t able to go to her funeral and neither am I. My mom leaves me behind to take care of my dad. We are on the front porch and I am watching him cry for the first time, I don’t know what to do so I just sit there and cry with him.
I am 15 years old when my Tio Pepe shows up on our front door with shredded clothes and a growling stomach. I don’t recognize the thin man in front of me as my Tio, but he recognizes me. My dad brings him inside and my mom cooks us a meal. Over dinner no one asks what happened, we all already know that he survived crossing the border.
I am 18 years old and my Tio Pepe dies in Mexico. My dad isn’t able to go to his funeral and neither am I. This time, my Tio Dani comes to comfort my dad and I fall asleep to the sound of them crying together in the living room. No one tells me that he overdosed until years later.
I am 21 years old in my last year of college. I stand for immigrant rights screaming “families belong together,” and as I look around me, I know that everyone feels the same way that I do. It brings me to tears watching everyone’s passion. We are all united in love and grief for our people. The faces that I recognize are filled with hope, anger, and resilience. We are chanting for the ones we lost, the ones who are still fighting and for the ones who have never had a chance. My voice cracks and I start shivering but I keep yelling, silence has never saved us.
I am still 21 years old when my parents tell me that my dad is going back to Mexico. It’s no longer safe to be undocumented with a criminal record, if it ever even was “safe.” My mom has been texting me photos of all the checkpoints she sees in our area, Azalea shopping center, Stonewood mall, Florence St. We are all scared, I believe that families belong together, but my dad believes it is safer to leave on his own accord than to be dragged away in cuffs.
Storyteller Clover is from South East Los Angeles studying Chicana/o/x studies with a minor in Education at the University of California Santa Barbara.
