Publications

Two Faces of Immigration

Manuel is a great kid. Or at least he seems to be, as far as you can draw an opinion on a student at that age where anything is possible and idealism runs rampant.

He is quite a sight riding his bicycle up to the Marquette University campus from his home on Milwaukee’s south side, wearing a day-glow orange knit cap, the kind most often seen in the Midwest during deer hunting season.

Manuel laughs easily when the "stylishness" of his cap is mentioned. "It helps people to see me," he says, "when I am on my bike."

It must be an almost effortless ride for Manuel, since he changes gears so easily. For example, he can be listening to his favorite Lou Reed song and switch to Led Zeppelin. He can glide along recalling hardships and pop into a positive focus. "I tend to like my life," Manuel said. "I lead a kind of a charmed life, I have all the necessities of life, like food and shelter and education."

Manuel isn’t his real first name, and his last name can’t be used because some people in the United States would like to take Manuel and ride him and his bike right out of the country. He is undocumented in this country "illegally".

Jose Aguilar is 18 and doing pretty well in his freshman year at Creighton University in Omaha. Except, he admits to battles with depression since he has seen his parents only once in three years. Jose is a U.S. citizen by birth and had to fight his own country to see his parents for 10 minutes before they were deported.

"We are getting close to finals now and everyone is getting ‘care packages’ from their families, and all I am getting are bills," Jose said. "When school opened, there were a lot of kids and activities for parents moving in," said Jose, who lives in the dorms. "It’s parents weekend and I was kind of excluded from the beginning, I felt bad since my parents weren’t around and I know they would have loved to move me in."

Missing mom and dad’s help on where to stack your books, hook up your stereo and fold your clothes is trivial to the trials Jose faces daily. He has great gratitude for everyone at Jesuit Middle School of Omaha and Creighton Prep for helping him advance this far in life.

"I’m pretty sure Fr. (James) Michalski (president at Jesuit Middle School) got me the scholarship here and I couldn’t do it without this free ride at Creighton." His counselor at Creighton Prep, Jim Swanson, has been integral to his education and his survival.

"He (Swanson) has become like my second father pretty much. His is my support emotionally and has been a pretty big person in my life," Jose said.

But all the great support and having "second families" isn’t like having your own family around.

"People don’t understand why my parents aren’t here," Jose said. "Why it happened or how."

His parents grew up in California, where their parents had brought them as they found work. Jose was born in California and moved to Omaha when he was 8. Jose’s parents came to Omaha for better work and a better life. They worked at the steel factory and the plastics plant and worked at raising Jose and Eduardo. Then one day when they were at work, the immigration authorities came and took them away.

"I was 16, at school and got the call my parents had been detained," said Jose, who has always acted at the family interpreter. "They were released that same day on a probationary period and you are supposed to get six months to prepare yourself. You have to go in and report to the office each month, and when my parents went to report in, they were detained again and treated like criminals.

"My mom was depressed and crying all the time, so they put her in solitary. My dad, who had never done anything wrong, was put in jail and he was jumped. He had never done anything wrong and he was put in with a rapist. My dad is illiterate and they wouldn’t let me talk to him and I only was allowed to talk to my mom twice for 10-minute conversations."

The Aguilar family had been in the legal system for 10 years, and Jose said a succession of lawyers "scammed" them. Jose battled for his parents and says the government officials are "heartless and pretty much didn’t care" about them. "Their (immigration authorities) solution was to send me and my little brother to Mexico, even though we had never been there in our lives," Jose said. "People just don’t understand and they don’t know what is going on." At Marquette, Manuel, who loves his classes in Metaphysics and Philosophy of State, takes things a little more philosophically.

"It is impossible to be here ‘illegally,’" he said shaking his head at the thought. "It is ridiculous, it is a technicality. It’s pure luck on where you were born. Countries and boundaries are all transient; ultimately they are things that are just made up. Especially here in the United States, it is our history to include new peoples into our culture."

Manuel has lived in the U.S. since he was 8 years old. For all that time, he has watched his parents work to give him and his sister a better life. His love of education comes from his parents who were both teachers in Mexico. The life here, even with menial jobs, is better for the family.

"My dad works in a factory from 7:30 in the morning until 3:30 and comes home and relaxes and then goes back out and works in a restaurant. He comes home, goes to bed and then gets up and does it all again," Manuel said.

"I don’t know if I would do it and sacrifice for my family the way he does," he continued. "It sure makes me want to study."

Both these young men shake their heads at people, "who don’t get it." America is a country made up of immigrant populations which came here for a better and new way of life.

"People don’t understand," Jose said. "They don’t understand this life or how it works. It started with a lot of people who were farmers, and then some migrated and wanted to establish a home and set a life for their kids. People need to understand it takes a generation or two for people to have ties in the professional world. My brother and I are second generation and I go to college. My dad can’t read or write, but I am in college," he said. The lives mirror the family stories of many Americans, who are only a couple generations away from Ireland or Germany or Italy.

People don’t understand that many migrant workers are stuck in the U.S. since the borders have hardened. These people used to work in the U.S. and then return home. Now, they are stuck.

Neither of them chooses to spend their time complaining. "There are other kids in worse situations," Jose says. "I don’t like people to feel pity. I’m not the only one going through this. I am fortunate because I was old enough to not be put into foster care when my parents were taken.

"I have learned how to grow up and am accepting this is my cross to carry in my life, my burden I guess. I mean it happens, it’s life." And he still feels lucky to be where he is and who he is. "It is who I am and I am pretty happy with who I am now."

Manuel takes a second and throws philosophers Spinoza and Nietzsche your way to help explain his feelings on life. With both parents working, the family is still in the poverty level. This could make a youthful young man angry at society for having to take handouts and charity.

"We just got a holiday basket," Manuel says, "ultimately, you just appreciate it. I had some sweet apple pie." He says he knows the benefits such as scholarships and food assistance have helped him. But he adds, "Free food, free education, those are things that should be free."

Both also have faith that America won’t break families apart or make families fear deportation.

Jose has a dream he is working toward. He wants to get his law degree and work for a fair process for immigrants to earn U.S. citizenship. And he will work to bring his parents back from Mexico.

"People need to know about the problems with immigration and we all have to work for change," Jose said. "How would people feel if they were in my situation or if they were ripped away from their kids. They need to put themselves in our shoes.

"It’s human nature to make assumptions about things you don’t know," he continued. "People are disgruntled with things as they are now, and most people never take the time to say, ‘Oh, these laws need to be fixed.’"

Manuel , who credits Marquette University’s Urban Scholars Program and Larry Seiwert, cofounder and director of graduates at Nativity Jesuit Middle School where Manuel started his academic climb, for putting him on this successful track.

"Mr. Siewert, wise man that he is," chuckled Manuel, "has pulled many strings for me."

With a philosophy degree in hand, Manuel plans to apply for a visa after he gets his professional degree. And he has faith in democracy and the United States that it will do the right thing.

"I think there is a certain zeitgeist that has been developing in the United States," Manuel said. "There is a whole new opening up to liberty here and bringing in more and more people. I think that is just the course of democracy. I think it will spread out and it will take over, just as democracy has or will take over all the other forms of government."

The above has the beginnings of a pretty good speech - one that you can almost hear being echoed in the halls in Washington, D.C.

back