Su Casa, Mi Casa

I call them my United Nations class, Remedial English 070. It’s that kind of diversity we see more and more in the Community College setting. I get to know them through their writing, which is just as well since that’s the subject I teach. And so we are two weeks into the semester before I identify the fragile waif with enormous brown eyes as Maria who looks like a teenager but is in her late twenties. In her journals she writes of her two children, whom she adores, and their father referred to as her husband because he’s promised to marry her some day. She writes about coming to school to be a computer programmer and earn lots of money so she can buy things for her children and give them a better life. She writes of a grandmother in Mexico who raised her and tells of the boyfriend she left behind. Ah, the boy. Her writing now rises to ecstasy. And I’m a sucker for romance. Pretty soon Maria becomes a standout.

It begins with her coming to class haggard from lack of sleep because the kids have been sick and she’s stayed up all night but can’t miss the class because there is so much she needs to learn. Of course I encourage this, so pretty soon she is hanging around my desk after class, sucking up the last of even the most inconsequential lesson. We get to know one another pretty well. I advise her to marry so she and the kids can be carried on her husband’s health insurance, and she smiles shyly and says she’ll look into it.

 Assignment 1: narrative     

I am finish work at big factory and hurry rush home for to start dinner. My husband he is getting the boys from daycare. Soon I hear voices down the hall. “Mommy, Mommy, I have something to show you…” Then there are hugs and kisses that fall like raindrops on my face and boyish sweat tastes salty on my lips.  However Although tired I am, they give me sweet energy.

 “How long have you been in the States?” I ask, discreetly avoiding the broader term of America since technically she’s an American too.

“Eight years,” she replies and I quickly put two and two together, noting her children are aged five and seven, the eldest probably born a year after her arrival. “I know not very much English when I came…” Her eyes beg for affirmation.

“You write well, with a nice feel for detail.” I mean it sincerely. “But you need to work on the grammar and watch English TV to absorb the rhythm and syntax of the language – you know, the music of how we speak…” I can see her face turn luminous, as though my words emanate from some oracle. For Maria it’s hard. For others who came before, it was even harder. “And speak to your children in English. Let them be your teachers. Use every resource. Make this your primary job.”

It has turned into a lecture and I’ve lost her attention. Well, so be it. I can’t be the savior of the world.

 Assignment 2: Description

He was a neighbor, the brother of my best friend. We played with each other when we growing up but I secretly like him from the beginning.  Then we turned became teenagers and he turned cool so I ask my friend if it was because of some thing I did. “No,” she say. “I think because he likes you.” And suddenly I also turned shy. But then there was a school dance and my grandmother say I could go so I asked him and he say “Yes.” And that was the beginning of something wonderful.

Oh, he was so handsome, tall and slim with dark hair and such big sensitive eyes. He was different from the others. When finish school and go to work, many factory girls get picked up after by boyfriends, but not except when it has raining. But not me. He was always there, rain or sun shining. We go to the ice cream store and he take the napkin and write a poem to me right there in the store. For a long time I save them all. He sended me flowers, then more flowers even before the first ones died wilted.

“Is he still living in Mexico?”

 She nods. “A girlfriend came visit a couple of years ago. She say he still live near where we grew up. She saw him and he asked about me.” She blushes. “He never married.”

“But you came to the States. Why did you leave?”

“Is a long story.”

The classroom has emptied and I give her an encouraging smile, hoping to hear more. It doesn’t work.

“I have to get home and start dinner.”

“Right. Me too.” I pack my briefcase and stop for a hamburger.

 Assignment 3: Comparison and Contrast

Mexico is different than the States. Here women have much more freedom, especially with sex. In Mexico if a girl is not virgin when is time to marry, people say she is used goods. How do they know? Well, of course, if there’s a child, then everyone knows. But even without that, boys do talk. Is true, even in the States.

In Mexico, people are more friendlier and visiting together is almost forced an obligation.  If you have an appointment and someone comes over, you have to just wait until they leave, even if afterward you don’t go where you’re supposed to go or even lose money when miss a appointment.

In Mexico, education is not very important. A person can be teacher right from high school.  For children, school it is important only for to give them a chance to play. But once grown up, men go to work and women stay home and have children and that’s your life, forever.

“Are you sorry you came to the States?”

“What can I say? I had no choice.”

“Of course. Your parents…” Once more I look around at the empty classroom, inviting confidence despite knowing that it’s none of my business. “Will you be going back to Mexico?”

She shakes her head. “Is no reason. My grandmother is dead and the rest of my family is here.”

“Especially your children. And that makes it worth it.” Another attempt to affirm.

“Children are fragile.” We smile together. The word fragile is on her vocabulary list. “Once something is done, you can’t turn back the clock.”

 Assignment 4: Extended Definition

Obedience is something what is expected from person who is weak. For example, if a child is told to do something, he or she should do it. When my mother came back from years living in the States, she saw I was growing up and even wanted to marry even though although I was seventeen only. She was liked the boy but thought I was be too young.

Obedience is another word for being good. It means respect for to others and following rules. When my mother ordered me to come back to the States with her, I respected her because she is my mother.

Obedience is not fighting or arguing against an order. At the airport when we were only five minutes for to say goodbye, we tried not to cry and promised to wait because my mother promised said I could come back to Mexico after a few months if I still wanted to. I held tight the shoebox full of his poems and later pressed the rose he gave me.

Obedience is part of being in a family. My first obedience was to my mother, even when she and my brother beat me up for doing little things. Obedience is not running away, but trying to work things out even when though is hard.

“But you didn’t go back to Mexico. What made you change your mind?”

“I did run away. There was a nice man at work who looked at the bruises on my arms and asked what happen. And he was so gentle, I went with him and he was good and helped me. Then my mother knew where I was and I could not go home because she though, well, you know…  Even when at first it was no true. But then later…” She bows her head and blushes.

“So you were trapped.”

She nods. “But I was grateful. It felt so good to have someone treat me, well, you know…  Pretty soon I was pregnant. After the baby, he also began to beat me, so I left him and for a while I was alone and that was good. But it was hard. And when he came and begged for another chance, I said okay. Then I was pregnant again.” She spreads her fingers in a gesture of helplessness. “He doesn’t hit me no more. Is a good father.”

“Have you ever wanted to go back to Mexico, just to see…”

“Is too late. Even with one child, in my country, a woman is shamed when she is second hand, at least without a wedding ring.” Her eyes well with tears. “Is so stupid and old-fashioned. Here is so different. If I only knew…”

“But maybe someday, when the children are older, you can go by yourself, just to visit?”

She dabs away the tears then blows her nose. Finally dry-eyed, she takes a deep breath and manages a smile. “I will hope.”

Assignment 5: Problem-Solution

What happens when somebody tells you for to do something and everything in your head, heart and gut tell you is a mistake? Do you do what you know, you know, you KNOW is right or are you good and hope it works out anyway? Even a child knows the difference, but can still make a bad poor foolish choice…

What if you want to write poetry but have to go to work for to earn money for your family? What if the world never see what you write? Who comes first? Your family? You? The world?

What about the boy who wants for to go to college but can’t because the family needs his pay from the job. There are millions of these boys in factories in Mexico and America. Who comes first? Or is it like for being polite to visitors and you don’t say nothing?

What if your heart tells you he is the one but your parents tell you no. Who comes first?  

 It is the final assignment of the semester, a kind of last hurrah to show how much, if anything, the class has learned. For Maria, it’s considerable. I sit at my desk at home reading this stack of papers and hers tugs at me. I have seen the first draft but the final copy describes events in her sojourn to the United States in greater detail. Her story is not much different from so many others, yet she tells it particularly well and I’m enormously moved. Many other people would be as well.

I happen to be the moderator of our school literary magazine, so when I return the papers, I ask her to submit it, with an implied promise of publication, a gift well beyond the “A” she has rightly earned. Wouldn’t she like to see her name in print?

She turns pale. “Oh no. Is so personal. I just couldn’t.”

“We don’t need to mention names of people. And we can use a pseudonym or say it’s by Anonymous.” I’m coaxing because I’ve seen most of the other submissions for this year’s issue and they’re pretty bad.  Hers would bring the level up.

“Oh no, it is too much…” She gathers up her books and with a polite little bow, scurries out the door.

I’m bewildered and wonder why she spent so much time hanging around if she didn’t want to move on to wider opportunities. Maybe she doesn’t have the makings of a real writer and is just fulfilling routine assignments, which is okay of course. Yet I don’t want to give up. Maybe after she thinks about it a while…

I wait a week, turn in final grades and then try phoning her. After few more weeks of getting no answer, there’s a message. The number has been disconnected. Another call, this time to the registrar’s office. Maria has dropped out. Where is she? There is no further information. And that’s the end of it.

I spend a lot of time wondering what happened. Did she go back to Mexico and there find the boyfriend? If so, would that mark a happy ending or compound the tragedy? On the other hand, maybe she did marry the father of her children and simply changed her name. That would be the easiest explanation. At the other extreme, she might have been spirited away to live in perpetual bondage, tied irrevocably to a heritage of anti-feminism.  

I never do find out. Maria has simply disappeared into the crowd, one of the uncounted millions whose hopes exceed their grasp.

Next month I’ll walk into the classroom and face another United Nations. And once again I’ll tell them to watch English TV and listen to the radio because being an immigrant is hard.