The Hidden Burden

I believe one of the greatest tragedies in life is that of the child forced by external factors to grow and mature too quickly.  In undocumented and mixed-status families, it’s a fate that is placed heavily on most, if not all, children within the household.  If that family is one with multiple children, however, the oldest sibling always seems to play the role of sacrificial lamb and is tasked with carrying the heaviest burden. My oldest brother was close to 9 years old when we first arrived in the United States. I would have been 3 at the time.  The...

Less questions on belonging More photographs with smiles  More grounded in my roots  Less judges and less trials More wind beneath my wings  Less paths ahead left unexplored Clean slates with which to start each day Memories I can afford

My mother still has vivid memories of early childhood spent in the mountainous green valleys of Southwestern Mexico. Born into a farming family, her appreciation of agriculture started very early. For her father & grandfather, each day would begin at 4 am. Their farming practice relied on the labor-intensive & traditional practice of oxen tilling & stream irrigation. My great grandmother & grandmother would prepare daily lunches that my mom (aged 5 or 6) and tía (her elder by a year) were tasked with delivering to the fields where work was being done. In the late afternoon, they dressed in...

Madre mía. No words that I write can properly express what you mean to me and to our family. You are the embodiment of sacrifice and unconditional love.  To be a woman in today’s world is a difficult enough task. To be an Immigrant Woman, in a new country, raising 3 boys while living undocumented seems impossible.  It’s difficult to imagine how one could pull it off.  But I believe the simple answer is that you did it through Love.  Love for your children. Love that allowed you to sacrifice your own hopes & aspirations to ensure that your sons...

Mis hermanos. We are adults now, but I often reflect on our time spent living together under one roof as children. Denied the childhood home often attached to the idyllic American Dream, our situation forced us to move constantly. No living situation was ever permanent, so we knew many homes. So many, it’s impossible to label any single physical structure we temporarily resided in as a true “home.” But it made no difference. To me, home was never a physical space. “Home” was anytime that we were together. It was playing sports outdoors past sunset. Cartoons together before and after...