Segunda Correspondencia a Jessie

Hola Jessie!

un placer como siempre volver oir de ti. Como dije en la última carta, quiero contarte como fue en una empresa y luego mi viaje a los Estados Unidos.

I cannot recall if i told you already, but after I studied for a couple of years at Universidad de Matamoros, I began working for Fisher-Price as inspector of Quality Assurance. After a while, I also began being in control as the auditor of supply of the raw material that was used for production. It was a pretty simple job, and I felt really lucky to have something like this. My husband worked for the Department of Agriculture and there was an agreement between the US and México to how the personnel would work, and my husband was also lucky to have that job.

Before I tell you how it came to be that we came here to the United States, I have to tell you that it may have been the best decision of my life. In México I felt oppressed like no other point in my life. Not by my job, but by my husband and my husband's family. The money I made and the money he made was used mostly so that he could keep his parents, who were aging, from having to work. I did not think this was appropriate, because his parents, like mine also rented out their land to other farmers. (His family had also snatched a landgrant when the government was handing out free farmland.)

We both had decent jobs. They were not great. We had a small little two-room house for ourselves, we had a car and we did not suffer hunger. When I was pregnant with my first son my husband and I both thought it would be wise to have him be American, and since I had my Visa, I stayed in Harlingen, Texas with some friends of the family and had him there. By birth my son is American. By the time I had him, I had to quit my job at Fisher-Price. I was not forced to leave, but I think it was suggested that it be best for the baby, and I agreed.

When i was pregnant with my second child, my husband and I discussed the difficulty of living in México and the struggles that even the educated have. My husband was also attending a college to become a schoolteacher, but we knew that even for professionals such as schoolteachers, in order to get a job, the school board of directors have to be paid 'under the table'. And usually the applicant with the best bribe got the job.

This kind of environment was difficult for us to accept to be the correct one for our children, and my husband chose to cross over to the United States in spite of his growing education. He had a Visa, as I did and traveled to Houston to work building houses, then in concrete then in landscaping. He missed the birth of our second child, Alex. I had him in Brownsville, just across the border so that he could be an American as well.

After about six more months (it had been about year) my husband paid my airfare so that I could finally be with him. At this time he was in Nebraska with some distant cousins. I took a busfare to Houston with my two little boys, then we flew to Dallas, then to Omaha, Nebraska. I had not seen my husband in well over a year, and my oldest little boy, Jessie, did not recognize his father, because it had been so long since he'd seen him. This broke my heart. But I was happy that we were reunited once again.

I began working at a slaughter plant along with my husband in Nebraska. The name of the company was IBP. The vast majority of the workers were Mexicans. Nearly all of them were illegal. There were occasional raids by the INS near the plant, but never directly at the plant. I remember one time the plant owners refused to let the INS officers enter the plant. And another time when the INS rounded up people living in the trailer parks.

My husband and I always knew never to live in a trailer park. A lot of illegals did it because it was cheaper, but it was just an easy way for INS to capture a lot of illegals in a single day, and instead we rented a small little house with a kitchen and a bedroom. My husband built a wall so that we could have a living room, too.

The working conditions at IBP were among the worst I remember. It was always cold, it was very dangerous and I always came home dead-tired from the work. The floors were always slippery and full of blood, and it was hard to see because the goggles we were made to wear could fog up easily. One day at work, a ladder fell on me and I was sent to the hospital. I had a herniated disc and I was in a lot of pain. The plant gave me fifteen thousand dollars to settle.

With the money, I convinced my husband that we should move to Texas so that we could be closer to México and closer to our families that lived in Texas. I talked about a new beginning, how we could use the money the plant gave us to maybe start a little business, I wanted an opportunity to do in the United States what everyone talks about: the American dream, a nice home, nice friends. Working as much as we did (it was about 50 to 60 hours a week) was just too much.

After five years of Nebraska, we moved to Texas.

Jessie, I will tell you the rest later, but it seems as though I have company at the door and I will have to leave it at this for now.

Talk to you soon,

Delia Rodriguez Guerrero