1 BE THE BEST
In the weeks before we moved to the United States, I watched my parents pack boxes of things in our Costa Rican home—where we briefly lived for a job my dad temporarily had—that we’d eventually leave behind: my dollhouse, a small pink chair, my favorite toys. “We’ll start fresh,” Mom would promise. “There’s so much more to look forward to.” I was a toddler, too young to understand the permanence of goodbyes or the uncertainty of the adventures I was assured I would experience. Instead, I grew excited, and when planes flew above us, I’d point my finger into the sky at the vapor trails streaming behind them.
“I’m going to fly to America,” I’d say.
* * *
Most people think that immigrants move from one country to another, establish a new life, and never look back. My parents didn’t do that—they were nomads, a characteristic of people who live close to the border. Growing up in Mexico, my parents knew they could always hop over to the United States on tourist visas to go to the malls or Costco. But when the economy got bad, tourist visas became an opportunity for people like my parents. An opportunity to get eyes on signs reading HELP WANTED or EN BUSCA DE LAVAPLATOS plastered in front of busy American restaurants. Restaurants that didn’t care about tourist visas, green cards, or any so-called necessary paperwork. They wanted Brown hands, and my dad happened to have two of them.
Before I was born, my mom and dad had visited America many times. Sometimes it was for a month as my dad bought and resold cars. Other times, he would get a more stable gig, like the time he became a celebrated chef in one of Arizona’s steakhouse chains. “La carne nomás necesita un poco de sal,” he’d say. “Meat needs nothing more than the right amount of salt.” But everything was temporary. Jobs would end, needs would change, and my parents would pack up and leave again. Sometimes they went back to Mexico; other times, they’d find themselves jobs in Spanish-speaking places like Costa Rica. But when my mom got pregnant with me, she knew she’d have to go back to the United States. From the moment she wanted children, she wanted them to be American. No matter how hugely pregnant she grew, she was determined to waddle her ass over the border before I was born if that’s what it took.
My mom stayed true to her promise, and a few months later, in the fall of 1995, I came into the world in a hospital in Tucson. My mom gushed at the sight of me at the hospital nursery, surrounded by a sea of crying white blobs. She didn’t see an “anchor baby,” she just saw her baby. A small Brown little raisin covered in a fine layer of dark hair. When the doctor handed me over to my mom, he chuckled at the fuzz. “She’s like a monkey,” he said. “Pendejo,” Mom replied. “Es perfecta.”
My dad wasn’t around when I was born but rushed to Tucson from work as soon as he heard that my mom was in labor. When he finally held me, all he could say was, “Es un regalo perfecto.” She’s the perfect gift.
“She almost had the same birthday as you,” my mom replied. “She just didn’t want to wait.” After spending weeks in Tucson waiting for my arrival, my mom was itching to go back to Mexico and ready the rest of the family to meet me. After I recovered from a severe case of jaundice, my dad packed us up and drove to Mexico. It would be four years before my parents moved us to American soil again—this time with plans to stay in Arizona for a while so that I’d one day be able to go to an American school. Sometime in 1999, I found myself in the back seat of a used car full of things my parents thought we’d need for our new life in the States.
While we waited in line to cross the border, my mom held our passports—my navy blue American passport was sandwiched between their green Mexican ones. It was a booklet that made me different and gave me things my parents couldn’t have, even if I didn’t realize it at the time. When the border patrol agent eventually asked for our papers, my mom handed the passports over, and the agent glanced at the picture next to my name. “Is your name Elizabeth?” he asked. “Yes, like the queen,” I replied. With a chuckle, he let us all through.
For the next hour, I stared out of the window and took in the Arizona desert. The landscape was littered with hundred-year-old saguaros. Eventually we made it back to Tucson and drove into a quiet trailer park. My dad parked on the street outside of a pink sun-bleached motor home.
“Ya llegamos,” my dad announced. My mom and I looked at each other, unimpressed but ready to stretch our legs. Slowly, I took in what would be my first home in America, one we would share with my tío Miguel and his own growing family of three. Adult me might have envisioned the energy of a city like New York or the glamour of Los Angeles when picturing my arrival to the United States, but that first night, we all slept on mattresses on the floor in one of the bedrooms while Tío Miguel and his family did the same in the other.
My dad had split the cost of the trailer with his brother, but it was solely in Uncle Miguel’s name because he had a Social Security number and Dad didn’t. He was a numbers guy, so he figured if he divided everything with Miguel for a while, both families would be better off. My mom, who didn’t trust my uncle, was pissed.
“Nos vamos a quedar sin nada,” she warned. “We’re going to end up with nothing to our name.” Still, she managed to keep me busy and unaware of the tension. Within the chaos, the lack of permanence and stability, Mom and I built forts out of crisp white sheets that smelled like Downy. As I poked my head up from underneath, I’d find myself staring at the way my mom looked. She was beautiful, her brown eyes framed by thick eyebrows, her features delicate and classic. I stared as the morning light would shine on her thick hair, making it look like the colors of a sunset in the summer. “Te encontré, I found you!” my mom would squeal, wrapping me up and lifting me up into the air.
Before long, my dad took his resourcefulness to Craigslist, scouring other people’s unwanted stuff to fix up our space while saving the money from the odd jobs he took. He recarpeted the rooms in a plain brown low-pile rug and furnished the living room with sturdy secondhand sofa beds, a vintage chest coffee table, and a TV cabinet made of what he called “good wood.” When I complained about our small living space or having to share it with other family members, my dad would shake his head and pull at the hairs on his chin. Though he shaved every morning, his stubble always grew back in quickly. My dad was proper that way, well-kept, his black hair always gelled and combed in a side part. His eyes crinkling into a smile, he would exclaim, “Don’t worry. This is just temporary.”
Eventually my parents formed a steady routine, but the best parts of it were always the weekends. We’d all hop in the Jeep Cherokee my dad had fixed up and drive to yard sales in the gated neighborhoods across the river. We’d head up into the mountains, where gorgeous adobe brick houses with pools lined the dips and crevices of the horizon. Sometimes we saw people who looked like us, sweat soaking their shirts as they worked on the beautiful landscaping, keeping it perfectly manicured. Peering out of our rolled-down windows, we’d imagine a life we couldn’t afford. After all, we were there to buy what the rich people discarded. We could always find furniture, knickknacks, and things we saw value in—items we could fix up or flip for more money. “When you’re older, you should buy a home here,” Dad would say, eyeing the architecture. “Even if it’s a small bit of land, maybe half an acre, that’s all you need.” Unsure of what to do with his impromptu lessons on real estate, I’d nod and think to myself, Isn’t he the one supposed to be buying us a home?
Occasionally we’d drive south instead of north, staying on our side of the river. If we drove long enough, we’d find ourselves in El Sur—a predominantly Mexican neighborhood that became an official city in 1940, forever separating it from the rest of Tucson. In many ways, driving through South Tucson felt like a drive through pueblos in Mexico. On the sidewalks, set up in the front yards of houses with bad paint jobs and rusted gates, were tacos and Sonoran hot dog stands. Little kids, dark and sunburnt, would ride their bikes in the middle of empty streets. Despite its liveliness, this neighborhood was known for its high crime rates and poor-performing schools. Whenever we’d visit the Mexican shops or the swap meet in El Sur, my dad locked up the steering wheel with a giant metal bar to deter thieves. “No podemos confiar,” he’d grumble. “You can’t be too careful.”
My parents talked about South Tucson as if it were a dirty place, but that didn’t stop me from liking it. When I was there, I felt fun and rebellious, and I liked that I blended in with crowds of Mexican kids at the park. There people didn’t care about how loud they blasted their music as they drove lowriders with tire rims my dad called tacky. In South Tucson, Mexicans seemed to make the rules. People seemed happier there, more relaxed, but whenever I’d ask Dad if we could move to El Sur, he’d always tell me the same thing. “Para qué? Es muy feo ahí. What for? It’s so ugly over there.” My parents had a clear idea of what they wanted to represent. I never understood exactly what that was, but I knew what it wasn’t: it was clear from the clothes we wore, the church we went to, and most important, the school their American daughter would go to that they didn’t want to be perceived as poor, uneducated Mexican immigrants.
* * *
Within weeks of our arrival in Tucson, I had a weekday routine, too. In the mornings, my mom would yell at me from the kitchen, “Elizabeth, ya despiértate, come have breakfast.” If I didn’t get up quickly enough, she’d stomp right up to me in bed, a spoon in hand. “Ándale, you’re going to be late for school.” By the time I got to the table, my plate of beans, eggs, and tortillas would be set next to my dad’s. Sometimes, my tía Rocio would barge in, taking up space in the kitchen to make food for my twiggy little cousins. My mornings always smelled like coffee with a splash of chaos. Someone was always angry or late or in a rush, but somehow I was always on time for preschool.
If my parents could have enrolled me in preschool before they even got to the United States, they would have. They were obsessed with my education, neurotic even, but my insatiable desire to be told I was smart made it easier for them. I was known at preschool for carrying around a picture dictionary while asking the teachers, “How do you say ___?” Within six months, I had learned English, and my parents, logically, came to the conclusion that I was a gifted prodigy. From there, my parents began to methodically research different elementary schools in the area. They listened to gossip and spoke to the people at church about it. Dad had spent a few years at a fancy university in Mexico City before dropping out, and he knew the value of a proper education and the connections it could create. My mother, who was innately smart and inquisitive, had less schooling than my dad, having dropped out sometime in middle school and gone on to secretary school, which I still can’t believe was actually a thing. She learned how to type and had a government job before marrying my dad. They both knew from experience that the world simply wouldn’t favor a Brown uneducated Mexican girl. They knew how much of an advantage a good American education would be for their American daughter. They wanted the best for me.
* * *
The school closest to our home was Laguna Elementary School, which my freckled, red-haired neighbor Kayla had briefed me about. “You and I can hang out during recess,” she said. “I’m already popular, so you can meet everyone I know.” What I didn’t realize was that my parents never intended to send me there. The thing about Laguna was that people like us went to school there. That is to say, Brown kids who spoke broken English and broken Spanish. And as far as my parents were concerned, places that served Brown kids and immigrants were not good enough for their Brown daughter of immigrants. The facilities were old, the location was bad, and the teachers and students seemed to have a negative reputation. There was no fit big enough for me to throw that would make them change their minds. Resolutely, my parents said I would absolutely not be going there. “You’ll just be another one, another poor Brown girl from the neighborhood,” Mom announced, exasperated. “Sí, está lleno de nacos y cholos,” Dad added. “Those kids will just end up in gangs.”
My parents were prepared to drive me across town if it meant I could go to a good school. The nicest schools were close to the beautiful homes we’d see at the foot of the Catalina Mountains when we were going to yard sales. They were pristine and well-kept, overlooking the city with their impressive views of the valley. The neighborhoods themselves were composed of well-off families and snowbirds from places like Iowa and Canada—people who’d come down to Arizona for the endless warmth. Some of their homes weren’t made of the typical adobe; some chose bright white colors for their homes, speckling the mountains. Their white walls and pristine green lawns seemed to sparkle among the mesquite trees and saguaros growing in the red and brown clay of the valley. The desert was always full of contrasts.
Day after day, my mom and dad would enter the clean, air-conditioned offices at the schools, where Dad would proudly and loudly speak in broken English about how qualified I was to attend. My parents received rejection after rejection, being told the school couldn’t accept me because we lived in the wrong zip code, as if that excuse would make a difference to them. They might have fallen off their high horse and were quickly going through their savings by relocating to the United States, but they didn’t come here to put me in a school worse than the ones in Mexico. They weren’t about to sacrifice my future—our future—and their image because we lived on the wrong side of the river.
A few weeks later, we heard about Richardson Elementary School from one of the Mexican moms who had a kid at the preschool I went to. “Es una escuela muy buena, it’s a really good school,” she said to my mom, wagging her finger in the air. “If you need to, you can use our address to sign up,” she continued in a whisper. “We live in the district. They have a great kindergarten program.”
Mom smiled. “Gracias, we’ll let you know,” she said, narrowing her eyes as she made a mental note. Because Richardson was out of our zip code, putting a different address down would make it possible for me to enroll. While it wasn’t necessarily the most scrupulous, my mom made moves. She would have been a shark had she had the education to become a lawyer or work on Wall Street. Sure, there was the risk of arrest or deportation, but Mom wasn’t used to losing. At least not when it came to her little girl.
It turned out there was no need to lie about where we came from or where we lived. The staff at Richardson waved my well-dressed parents in, assuring them it would all be okay. “Doesn’t matter if she’s out of district, hun, just make sure she keeps up her grades,” said the school secretary. “You can call me Mrs. Sabrina.” She winked.
When I first walked into Richardson, things felt different. Richardson was clean and well-kept. Everywhere I looked there seemed to be order; things moved along like a well-oiled machine. On a plaque above the blue front doors stood a bold quote, which to this day is still seared in my brain: Our Future Walks Through These Doors. This was a place that seemed to care about what would become of me. “I’m the future,” I repeated to myself.
Inside, the hallways were bright and lined with the pictures of those on the honor roll tacked on top of colorful kraft paper. The library was huge and run by a welcoming librarian with silvery white hair. She kept pets inside, including a black widow she housed in a jar and an iguana who sat on top of a bookshelf. She had somehow managed to hang a giant model airplane from the ceiling, which the fire department would later take down, claiming it was a hazard. The playground was large and tidy, with a giant hill covered in green grass, bright flowers, and annoying sticky seeds that got all over your clothes when you rolled down it.
By the time the first day of kindergarten rolled around, I was over the fact that I wouldn’t get to go to school with my neighborhood friend Kayla. With my mom’s hand gripping mine tightly, I was led to my classroom. Kids wearing new shoes and carrying new backpacks ran down the halls beside us. Confidently, my mother introduced herself to Ms. Brown. “Soy su mama,” she said. “Cuídamela.”
My new teacher nodded shyly before responding, “Muy poco español.” Still, she seemed to get the gist of what Mom had said. Before I ran to my seat, I felt Mom squat next to me, her brown eyes leveling to mine. “Elizabeth, tú tienes que ser la mejor. You have to be the best.” My small body was high on energy and nerves. “You don’t have to tell anyone that you’re the best, but you have to be.” I stood there, looking back at her, confused by her proposal. I was to be great, but I was to do it modestly. “Está bien, Mama,” I replied. “I’ll be the best.” I couldn’t have imagined all the ways her belief would continually empower me, and all the ways the pressure of that belief would eventually debilitate me.
2 THE MOVIE THEATER
I grew up watching my mom be brave. She stood up to my dad and my uncles, never cowering in the way I’d seen other Mexican moms do. She held her ground, her calm and resolute attitude only making the men around her angrier. “Todos somos iguales,” Mom said. “No authority or person has the right to belittle you.”
Sometimes Dad chimed in. “Y menos porque tú eres ciudadana,” he added with a smile. “Nobody can do anything to you.” Before I even understood the concept of citizenship, I knew I was protected in a way that they weren’t. They were always aware of authority figures, making themselves smaller around cops and the law, hiding—something I didn’t feel the need to do. “If you ever feel unsafe, go to the police,” my parents instructed. Unlike them, I didn’t need to hide.
My mom also didn’t like relying on my dad for money, and a few months after I started kindergarten, she’d gotten herself a job thanks to whisper networks. Mom had sourced information about where she could work the same way that most people without the right papers do: through the gossip and hearsay of those who came before them. For some, whisper networks led them to random corners in front of Home Depots. “Sí vas a las siete de la mañana, mi amigo tiene trabajo,” someone would hear. The next day at 7 A.M.—not a minute later—people would show up ready to work. Nobody knew who the “amigo” picking them up would be. All they knew is they’d get paid in cash.
Whisper networks were meant to protect people, and that was especially the case in 2001. Two months after 9/11, people could feel the tension as anti-immigrant rhetoric spread across the news. My parents, who always had the radio tuned to the Spanish stations, would keep tabs on the announcements of raids from radio hosts, who described scenes of immigrants getting corralled like cattle and shuttled to places like Eloy, where there was a private detention camp profiting from each faceless Brown immigrant they could get their grimy hands on. We rarely saw ourselves reflected on the TV screen except for when we were treated like animals, lined up and put into vans. Whisper networks helped keep people hidden and safe.
Copyright © 2024 by Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez
