Surviving in the United States: An Immigrant’s Story

The U.S. economic crisis continues to cause problems for the worker population, despite Barack Obama’s triumphant declarations. This is especially true for immigrants, who are dealing with increasingly difficult working conditions (those who are fortunate enough to still have work). The situation is so difficult that, according to testimonials of friends who include U.S. citizens, many people who lost jobs months ago are still unemployed, and those who have found work are in fields unrelated to their experience or education. A nurse friend who lost her job in a hospital now works as a waitress, earning much less than before.

This is the story of Elena, a countrywoman of mine who is here for a few days, living with a friend and applying for a Canadian visa in hopes of visiting her daughter and new granddaughter. Unfortunately, though Elena has lived and worked in the U.S. for 14 years, she has been on tourist visas the entire time. She had to come back to Mexico to apply for a Canadian visa, which is taking some time to be processed.

“Look, first the Canadian Embassy told me that it would be one week, then 15 days and now it’s a month,” Elena told us in a resigned tone. Every step has been a bureaucratic hassle. In addition to paying 1,100 Mexican pesos [approximately $100] for the embassy paperwork, she had to show an invitation from her daughter, round-trip airline tickets, demonstrate financial solvency … and all of this so that they would give her only three months in Canada. “This is the treatment we receive from the same countries that exploit our resources and our people,” she commented, saying that Canadian companies own many of the gold and silver mines in our country. Many employ destructive methods to extract the minerals, as was the case with the San Xavier Mine owned by Metallica Resources. The use of dynamite destroyed the emblematic San Pedro Hill in San Luís Potosí, and cyanide used to separate mineral from rock is now poisoning the local aquifers. “Why is our government allowing it?” she asked, continuing with other commentary about government corruption and the permissiveness with which nations like Canada and the U.S. are treated by our inept authorities. What interests these countries least is caring for the environment of a nation where there is good business to be made.

After this moment of reflection and political criticism, Elena continued telling me about her life. “Look, it is like what I told you, that they haven’t given me my residency there even though I have been working for many years, and I even pay taxes.” “But why haven’t they given it to you?” I asked her. “Well, because I don’t have a fixed job … that’s what they say!” she states, ironic considering that almost since she arrived in the country, she has been working in the same place. “And it isn’t just me who works. Two of my children are there, and I have grandchildren who were born there. I rent an apartment with my husband, I pay taxes, I buy things there, I pay for cable and a phone … and look, they haven’t given me anything, and that is why I have to come back here for my Canadian visa!” I’ll stop here because I am getting angry.

This is what hundreds of thousands of immigrants hope for after many years: an immigration reform that would give them a legal certainty that they would be able to live in the country officially, avoiding situations like Elena’s or worse. Reform would keep immigrants from being expelled from the country if caught for no greater crime than working in this country illegally because of the cumbersome and complicated system of paperwork and uncertainty, which also makes them vulnerable to all kinds of arbitrariness as workers. When they have accidents in the workplace, undocumented workers are taken to a doctor and receive no compensation or pension, absolutely nothing, and this is why recruiting agencies like The QTI Group continue contracting out illegals to subcontract to other businesses. Employers get cheap labor and are not obligated to pay anything in case of an accident.

Elena told us that her two children both have small cleaning businesses, because there is a tendency in the country to make everything into a business, including domestic chores. Businesses prefer to pay specialized cleaning services rather than having their own employees because it is cheaper for them to do this, and they avoid paying benefits, overtime or anything else (and to avoid having to deal with the immigration status of their employees) because they only pay for the required services. As there are so many of these companies, the work has gotten cheaper. “Yes, look, before I came here I helped my husband clean some offices. We came in at 6 a.m. and had everything ready by 7:30. They paid us $900 per month, but another company showed up that charged $800, and do you think that the stingy owners gave us the work when they could save a filthy hundred dollars?!”

Elena is originally from Puebla, but when she was very young, she came to Mexico City to the Colonia Moctezuma, located in the eastern part of the city, and lived there with her parents and siblings. “I put myself to work when I was 14 in a sewing workshop. They made bibs, blouses, pants … and other things, and I had to put the fabrics in big machines … that were very heavy, but I always liked to work because ever since I was young I liked to have my own money,” she said, showing a touch of pride. “My father worked for the railroad as a telegraph man. He was one of the ones with the machine … tic, tic, tac … to say when the trains left or arrived, and his wages weren’t too bad, so we were able to buy the house in Moctezuma,” she continued, telling me these memories that were still so vibrant to her.

And we also spoke of her life in the U.S. “Look, I live in California, in Santa Cruz, close to San Francisco, on a very pretty road called River Street. At the end of this street there is a forest called Felton, and there are enormous, well-cared-for trees that are very pretty. All cypresses and pines, but they have trunks that are truly very thick, and as they are so close together, they give shade all day long, and all of the houses there keep their lights on all of the time,” — which I confirmed from a satellite view courtesy of Google later that night (this is, up to a point, the benefit of this web-connected world, I suppose). This makes me think about how the Americans consider themselves to be environmental crusaders, but are hardly so with regard to the natural resources of other countries where they operate their polluting businesses. The unstoppable oil spill off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico comes to mind. These coasts are being left in very poor condition, but it will not be only their coasts that are damaged in the end, but rather all of the oceans will be affected directly or indirectly. It will be the worst marine ecological disaster not only of the U.S., but of the entire world! (As I’m writing, the spill now approaches an area of almost 24,000 square kilometers — that is equivalent to the surface of a circle with a diameter of 175 kilometers, and it is growing by 140 square kilometers every day — the surface of a square with more or less 11 kilometers to each side!)

“Well, I live there in Santa Cruz with my second husband. We rent an apartment that costs us $1,100 … we don’t have enough to buy a house, even though they have gotten cheaper, and we both work. With the electricity, the cable, the phone, the water and the gas … now with all of the bills we pay about $1,500 … and then there is what we eat and everything else we need to live, right? My husband works in the businesses my children have, cleaning offices at night. Yes, it is difficult, because sometimes you go in at 10 p.m. and leave at 7 or 8 a.m. But in addition to this, every day he arrives at the house at 1:30 a.m. or earlier because we go at this time to deliver papers to the retirement home at the Dominican Hospital. We get the papers from a place that is four streets from where we live, and then we take them to the hospital that is about five kilometers away in Juan’s car. We deliver 160 newspapers daily, and they pay us 58 cents each. This is very bad pay, because we only get $680 between my husband and me, and we divide that down the middle. But what do you do if there isn’t work? Not everyone will accept a job where you have to get up every day at 1:30 a.m., right?” Elena asked, waiting for our confirmation, which we signaled with a nod of the head. She adds that the newspapers delivered are The New York Times, The Sentinel, and The San Jose Mercury News. She says that the delivery is to a retirement community near the Dominican Hospital where people who have a lot of money live, but who do not have anyone to care for them. A bad combination: lots of money and no companionship. “They pay $5,000 each, but the rooms are large, luxurious, with air conditioning and everything you might need!” she exclaims.

“Ugh, but if we only lived off of delivering newspapers, it would not be enough. Like I told you, my husband has four other jobs, all cleaning jobs, some with my children and some with others … well, where he can find them. And he makes about $3,000 a month, and with this, we more or less can make it. No, not enough to buy a house or other things, but it is enough.” She says that with the housing crisis, many people lost their jobs and houses because they could not continue paying for them, a mess well known all over the world. “One of my children, the youngest, had been paying for two houses for about 15 years … well, the banks took both of them without so much as a ‘by your leave!’ And my son, he was very resigned, and he told me that he didn’t want to stress himself and that it was better to just leave them. But I don’t think that he wanted to let them go.” Rather, the banks took them, and they were no longer his, and while he would have liked to fight them legally, he had to suffer like so many others. “My other son, the older, also lost one of his houses, and the bank sold it as well. You only have to go outside, and on every corner there are two or three houses for sale, and they are much cheaper now, but my husband and I can’t even afford one!”

In her earlier life in Mexico, after Elena was working in the sewing workshop in the Federal District, a cousin from Oaxaca came to visit her, and as she already was out of work, the cousin proposed that they go to work in Tehuantepec — a town in Oaxaca — in the government office as a secretary. “And I didn’t even think about it. I left, and there I stayed and made a life for myself. I met my first husband, who I was with for 13 years; we loved each other very much. I had three children, and I was very happy until my husband died of a massive heart attack. He worked in the government. At 29 years old, I was a widow. Yes, very young, and I was like that for eight years until I remarried with the man I live with now in Santa Cruz,” she added.

Another of the problems that “irregular” — undocumented — immigrants like her face, as I pointed out, is that because they do not have papers, they submit themselves to working conditions that are truly quite bad. “One of my daughters-in-law works in a business that makes herbal medicines. I don’t remember the name, but she has to come in every morning at 3:00 a.m. and leave at 2:00 p.m. She has to check in the computer that the machines fill each bottle with exactly the same number of capsules, and they pay her $10.00 an hour. And if she does overtime, somehow they never pay her for all of the extra hours. They miscount these hours by about a third, because the owners take advantage of her.” Her daughter-in-law is undocumented, like the more than 1,500 other employees that Elena estimates work there. “Now look here. I have a friend that has been working for 15 years in a freezer. She comes in at 6 a.m., and she leaves at 6 p.m. She prepares frozen salads and frozen vegetables. She packs lettuce and cauliflower. She layers herself in four pairs of pants and four sweaters and double gloves and socks. And she has been doing this for 15 years, can you believe it?! But she says she likes it even though they don’t pay her much — only around $100 a day, which isn’t much. But like I said, what are you going to do if there isn’t work? Those that are employed have to be careful. I don’t even want to imagine the bodily damage of working in a freezer like this 63-year-old woman does.”

Elena continues telling us about her life before emigrating. With Juan, her second husband, Elena decided to open a paletería [ice cream or popsicle shop] in Tehuantepec. He drove a taxi, which they sold to buy what they needed for the shop. “They gave us about 100,000 pesos [$10,000], and with this we could do it. It went really well for us. We were in the center of Tehuantepec, and all of the petroleum workers from Salina Cruz bought from us. They were good customers. The truth is that sales were good, and with this, we bought a house, and I had my daughter studying here in the city, in the Federal District. I could pay for all of her tuition and also for my sons. The oldest studied to be a mechanical engineer. Really, we did very well. But when he showed up, Carlos Salinas [de Gortari, the fraudulent PRI president who was in office from 1988 to 1994, and under whose administration the Mexican economic crisis of the mid-1990s began], that was it. Sales were down, I had many debts, and I had to sell the ice cream store for only 30,000 pesos [$3,000]. Just look, only that!” says Elena, her face reflecting those bitter memories. “And since there was nothing to do, no job or anything, we went across the border. As my son had already gone about five years earlier, my husband and I left … you see?” she asks, showing some satisfaction that they were able to resolve their problems.

Her daughter’s case is different. She [I will call her Christina] was able to study at UNAM [the Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City], thanks to the patience and assistance of Elena. She earned a degree in Computer Engineering. She was very dedicated, according to Elena, and worked while studying in the computer center of the UNAM to gain experience before finishing her degree. “You see that everywhere they ask for experience,” says Elena. Then, thanks to that and her great ability, Christina applied to work at Hewlett-Packard and did so well on her examination that she got a great management position. “They sent her to many countries, and (she) even took me to Miami (and) New York. She worked for HP in Mexico for about 10 years, but then she emigrated because she was often attacked.” Apparently, Christina suffered from the dangers that have led many of our countrymen to seek refuge and a new life in another country.

“My daughter told me that she arrived home very tired from work because she was working — well, if the schedule said 8 she stayed until 10. And she was harassed on the phone and told that they knew where she lived and that she lived alone; she was very frightened! Once she went to take a friend to the subway — I think in Chapultepec — and she said she was approached by a man with a gun. And as she had closed her window, the guy showed her the gun and pointed it at her, but the company had taught them how to defend themselves when they were in danger, so my daughter hit the horn so that everyone could hear her and would pay attention to her. And she got away! And because of this she left, because she couldn’t take the danger and thought it would be better to go to Canada.”

She is 40 years old and has been living there for 10 years. She just married, and two months ago had her first child. She is working for a Japanese company, and although she does not earn as much as she earned here, she tells her mother that it is very quiet living in Toronto. I wonder how much longer that calm will last, if the global economic crisis keeps growing. The insecurity will soon be global. Canada also shows high rates of unemployment and a rise in crime levels. This led authorities to impose a visa for entry and tighten entry requirements further, because they complained that many would-be U.S. immigrants were coming to Canada because it was easier. They were leaving to find work there, taking from Canadians the “opportunity” of, for example, working at a McDonald’s or some other franchise. There are professionals working in those places.

“So, I am going there to meet her first child. My daughter always told me that she wouldn’t have children until she had a secure life and a husband,” Elena said thoughtfully. “Oh, if I told her my life, it really would be a novel.”

Indeed, with the increasingly difficult conditions that people are living in around the world, there will be many other lives that could be novels, I conclude, saying goodbye to Elena and wishing her luck with her Canadian visa and trip to Toronto.