These 3 Immigrants Can Stop Looking Over Their Shoulders

On different nights, in different years, Alicia Lopez, Pedro Zamora and Jose Ramos each made their way on foot over scrubby low hills at the place where Tijuana turns into the United States.

At the appointed hour, they dodged the spotlight of U.S. immigration agents, running as far into the folds of America as they could in one night.

Many others were caught and returned; these three made it.

But in all the years they lived in this country, during every day that they toiled at a job, they never stopped looking over their shoulders . After all, they were illegal aliens --the very phrase conjuring up images of beings from another planet, people who do not belong.

And visits back to their homeland were filled with the constant anxiety that they would be caught crossing the tightly guarded but porous border.

Now, all that has changed.

Last year at Christmastime, Lopez returned to Mexico to visit her parents, sitting comfortably in the first airplane she had ever boarded. Below, she could almost see the spot where 13 years ago she had crossed the invisible line into America.

Ramos and his wife drove into Mexico, more afraid this time of the Tijuana cops who stopped them and hit them up for bribes than they were of U.S. Border Patrol agents on their return to the States.

Zamora walked across the border at Tijuana and, on his return, patiently waited in line as immigration agents questioned those in front of him. This time, he felt emboldened. In the wallet in his back pocket, he carried a small document saying that he is a legal resident of the United States of America.

“Amnesty,” says Sister Kristen Schlichte, executive director of Catholic Charities, “has made it possible for immigrants to walk with their heads held high.”

The transition from outsider to a full-fledged member of American society will be complicated for most newly legalized immigrants. Lopez, Zamora and Ramos, who have never met, are a testament to that. Their lives in this country began the same and all have gone through the amnesty maze, but from that point, their stories diverge.

It’s 10:35 a.m. and Zamora is ready to give up his wait for a day’s work.

Since before dawn, he has stood at the corner of Placentia Avenue and 18th Street in Costa Mesa, half asleep but full of hope that today there would be a job for him.

About 70 other men wait with him, almost all of them immigrants, their hopes rising every time a truck or a car pulls up carrying an American who looks as if he might need a dayworker. But only 16 have been hired today.

This is the Costa Mesa Job Center, a city-sanctioned operation where employers are matched with men looking for daywork--unskilled work that mostly only immigrants will take because it often pays little more than minimum wage.

The men who apply for work here must show proof of residency. It is practically the bottom of the economic rung for immigrants.

Two blocks down the street, in front of a Winchell’s Donuts, clusters of men stand around with their hands in their pockets to protect them from the morning chill. When a car pulls up, they mob the driver to ask if he has work.

The men in front of Winchell’s are mostly illegal aliens. This is the very bottom rung.

At both corners, the workers are mostly unskilled, speak little English and are willing to negotiate with an employer for a day’s wages.

“But if you get a job at this center, chances are you will be better paid because we have our documents,” Zamora said. “The employers know that, so they have to pay you at least minimum wage.”

That, to Zamora, sums up the difference between his life before and after amnesty.

Sometimes, the men are hired for two-hour moving jobs. If they are lucky, a construction supervisor who hires them to break up concrete for a day will like the way they work and keep them on for weeks.

But work is scarce in the winter.

At least Zamora does not have a family to support, like many of the men here. But it is almost the end of the month, and his portion of the $900-a-month rent for the one-bedroom apartment he shares with six other men is almost due.

At 23, Zamora has seen more of the Pacific Coast than many young men born here. He came to California in 1985 from his hometown outside Mazatlan. He has traveled to work in the pine forests near Seattle, the apple orchards in Oregon, and other farm work in Arizona, Bakersfield and fields near Sacramento and Escondido.

Zamora’s fortunes have depended on a network of friends, relatives and acquaintances who pass on tips of job opportunities that sometimes don’t come through. He has learned to maneuver his way from city to city, without much English and, until recently, without legal working papers.

In November of 1988, Zamora was granted legal residency under the Special Agricultural Workers program, a provision of the amnesty law that legalizes immigrants who can prove that they had worked in the fields the preceding 90 days. Officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service say that almost half of California’s amnesty applicants qualified under the agricultural program.

Zamora came to Costa Mesa to look for “city work,” as he calls it, because friends had told him that there is money to be made in Orange County’s construction trades. But besides working at a condominium construction project for a few weeks in December, Zamora has found little work.

He constantly thinks ahead to his next chance for a job.

“I think I’ll go to Bakersfield tomorrow to look for work in the fields again--unless, of course, I find a girl to fall in love with here,” he says, grinning.

But there is a grand plan behind the wanderlust existence.

With the money that he has sent back to Mexico, he has built himself a house, not far from the home of his parents, who live just outside of Mazatlan.

“I built it for when I marry, so that I can have a place to take my bride,” he says, noting that he doesn’t have a girlfriend and plans to wait until he is 28 to marry.

As the long wait for jobs continues at the center, a teacher arrives to begin the twice-a-week English language classes that she conducts in the old filling station.

“What is this?” the teacher asks, holding up a picture. About 40 men answer in unison, “This is a wrench.”

Zamora is restless as he sits on the couch, grinning self-consciously at the lessons. He recites some of the phrases but then decides to leave.

He did not finish high school in Mexico, and he says he would like to learn English here, but work is his priority.

“I know I need to learn it, but I will learn later,” he says.

Another day, Zamora sits in the living room of his small apartment. The door is seldom locked, and no one seems to knock.

Because the men who live here don’t have a telephone, anyone looking for them has to drop by. It’s not a problem. In this small apartment complex on Placentia Avenue, almost everyone knows everyone else, and many of the tenants are from the same towns in Mexico. Four of Zamora’s roommates are here legally; the two others are not.

When Zamora was 19, and had been here for a year already, he went to Sacramento with a friend who said he knew of a job for both of them. After two days, the job did not come through, so Zamora and his friend parted company.

Zamora spent the next three days in downtown Sacramento, trying to call people he knew in Bakersfield and in Washington state, to ask that they send him money. But no one ever did.

He spent his time--and the little money he had--hanging around pool halls, bars or the bus station. He learned by asking around what restaurants or coffee shops stayed open 24 hours, because he didn’t want to spend money on a hotel. Most of the time, he stayed drunk.

He started panhandling, and when he collected about $40, he took a bus to Yuma.

“From that time on, I have worked hard and I have never gotten into any trouble,” he says. “No matter how hungry I am now, it doesn’t even occur to me to steal when I go into a store. I might ask a friend for a dollar if I am hungry, but I would never again ask a stranger.

“Because five years from now, if you sit down and think about how much you’ve earned, and you find that you don’t have a penny to your name, it’s your own fault if you drank it away,” he said. “Well, I decided I would rather send my money to Mexico, to do something with it there, than to lose it in bars.”

at the end of January, Zamora decided he could not afford to pay another month’s rent at the Placentia Avenue apartment because he was getting work so infrequently at the job center. So on the first day of February, he hopped on a Greyhound bus at the Santa Ana bus station and headed for Bakersfield, where he planned to try his luck in the farm fields again.

Mornings, Ramos attends English-language classes until noon. Then, as soon as the teacher dismisses her students, he hops in his 1978 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, hurries down Ball Avenue in Anaheim to his home five minutes away, and gulps down whatever lunch his wife has prepared. As Esperanza sets the table, Ramos tosses his 6-month-old daughter, Daisy, into the air.

Daisy squeals, but the father-daughter “quality time” seldom lasts more than a few minutes.

Ramos has to be at work six days a week at 12:30 p.m. and doesn’t get off until 11:30 at night. If he doesn’t play with the baby at noon, chances are he won’t see her again until the next day.

It is a hectic routine, but the only way for his family to get ahead.

“I would like to learn English and then go on and try to get a career,” he says. “I don’t think you can’t do it if you really put your mind to it.”

Ramos, 25, is from the tiny village of Atemajac de Brizada in the state of Jalisco, the fourth of 11 children born to sharecroppers. He never finished high school and knew only farm work when he sneaked over the border in 1981.

Esperanza Ramos, the fifth of 12 children, emigrated from Sahuayo, Michoacan, in 1981 but had attended secretarial school there.

The two met in Anaheim more than three years ago while working at the fruit-packing plant where Ramos still drives a forklift. Esperanza used to wrap cellophane around the fruit, but she quit last year just before she had Daisy.

In 1987, they remember hearing about amnesty.

“At first, though, we didn’t pay much attention to it,” Ramos says, “because, well, you don’t know who to trust.”

In fact, they paid a lawyer $200 to submit their first application, a cost that many legal-rights experts say is unnecessary.

But they are proud that they will soon become legal residents, although the changes in their lives are subtle.

Ramos continues to take classes at Trident Adult Center, even though he long ago completed the 40 hours required to qualify for legal residency.

But he still has the same job, working for just above minimum wage with no medical insurance or other benefits. They rent a comfortable, three-bedroom house in Anaheim for $1,100 a month, which they share with six other family members.

“We want to save enough money to buy a house,” he says, “but it is very expensive.”

Esperanza has to think hard to recall what it was that she first knew about America, because she has been hearing of it all her life.

“From the time I was a little girl, I wanted to come here,” she recalls.

They consider whether they will apply for citizenship, an option they have once they become permanent legal residents.

“I think I have to, because of my daughter,” Ramos says, sighing.

“I like it here because of the education the children can receive. I want the best for Daisy. As one who did not have much in life, you try to give your children everything. You suffer much without an education.”

They realize that if their daughter grows up here, she could lose much of what makes them Mexican--observing the traditional religious and national holidays that are celebrated with great fanfare in their hometowns, or valuing the tradition of strong ties with her extended family. Or worse--not being fluent in Spanish.

“One never knows how they will turn out,” he says. “But I want my daughter to speak English as well as Spanish.”

For them, the world in Orange County begins to look different. They do not have to be afraid all the time.

Three months ago, the INS raided the fruit-packing plant where Ramos works. Three years ago, they would have fled as soon as they saw the green uniforms of the INS agents. But this time, most of the workers did not run away, and the agents found only three who had no documents.

“I thought to myself, ‘Well, let them come, we are no longer afraid,’ ” Ramos said.

Lopez never intended to stay long.

But in the 12 years since she came to this country from the Mexican state of Nayarit--because doctors told her that it was the only way to save her infant son who suffered from asthma--the roots she has set down have grown deep.

Her three oldest children, who are in step with American culture and are as fluent in English as they are in their mother’s tongue, are about to graduate from high school. Another daughter was born here. An adopted daughter who has polio is receiving medical care that she could not receive in Mexico. And last year, as soon as she and her husband received their temporary amnesty papers, they looked for a house to buy.

In January, Lopez’s family moved into their own three-bedroom home in Santa Ana, the culmination of the immigrant’s dream.

Lopez works seven days a week as a cook in a chuckwagon that moves from job site to job site, at factories and car washes. She starts at 4 a.m., and a bus delivers her a block from her house at about 3:30 p.m.

She has been following this routine for years.

“My daughter, Elizabeth, says they never saw me when they were growing up,” she says one day after work. “She combed her own hair when she was getting ready for school in the mornings, and they made their own breakfasts. My youngest son used to walk himself to kindergarten.”

Lopez is proud of her children. The three oldest are considering attending college. Both of the sons, Carlos, 17, and Porfirio Jr., 15, play football for Valley High School. On Saturdays, Carlos works at the Orange Coast College swap meet, and Elizabeth, 16, worked in the men’s alterations department at Nordstrom last summer.

Lopez (who uses her father’s last name, as is custom for married Mexican women) and her husband, Porfirio Arrellano, a carpenter, pay $1,500 a month on their mortgage, and seven other relatives who live with them contribute extra income. Their budget does not allow much else.

“My children tell me, ‘Don’t work so hard. We will help you,’ ” she says. “But I tell them, ‘If you work more, you will no longer be interested in school.’ ”

But all in all, it’s a far cry from Tepic, Nayarit.

For years, Arrellano had been making the long trek into California to work in the fields and earn money to support his family.

“He would go to Indio or San Juan Capistrano, but only for about three months at a time,” Lopez says. “Whenever the migra would catch him, he would return to Mexico.”

She and her small children used to sell vegetables in their small, rural hometown. “It was a very different life for us,” she said.

Many of the men in her town migrated seasonally like her husband. Lopez’s father also had been coming here since he was a young man. When doctors told her that Porfirio Jr.’s asthma was getting worse, her father offered to accompany them to the United States.

The first few years were difficult. Porfirio Jr.’s medical bills came to $1,000 during the first few weeks of treatment. The Arrellanos were astounded that the treatment could cost so much and they eventually applied for public assistance to pay some of the medical bills.

Because they had been living here steadily for years, working hard and staying out of trouble, they were ideal amnesty applicants. Porfirio had worked for the same shutter company for 13 years and had pay stubs to prove it. Her children had all been attending school regularly in Santa Ana.

“I was the only one who could not prove it,” Lopez says. The chuckwagon company had been paying her in cash--and still does--so she had nothing to document her life here. Finally, the schools agreed to write a letter on her behalf.

Their house is the only part of the dream that has soured. It seems to be full of problems.

Pipes in one bathroom broke, flooding a bedroom and ruining the carpet. Gas vents were roofed over. When they moved in, the seller’s real estate agent did not even provide them with keys to the house, so Porfirio Sr. broke in through a back door and had to change the locks.

Still, Lopez is proud of her home.

A larger-than-life picture of Elizabeth dressed in a white lacy dress and a veil hangs in the living room, a symbol of another part of the family’s success.

Last December, for the first time since she came to the United States, Lopez and her family returned to Tepic. The visit coincided with Elizabeth’s 15th birthday, the time for the traditional Mexican quinceanera, or coming-out party.

It was the most elaborate celebration the town had ever seen.

Lopez and Porfirio had saved for a year to pay for Elizabeth’s dress and the festivities. They also bought the fabric to make dresses for girls from the town who served as her attendants. Porfirio’s father gave one of his cows to feed the partygoers, and all of Lopez’s brothers and sisters chipped in to provide two bands.

It was an emotional homecoming for the family, but for the first time in 13 years, Lopez realized that her ties with Mexico have changed. Her children’s lives are here, she says, and they can not be transplanted.

“They want to return to visit, but it’s not their home,” she says. “My children say they’re Mexican, but now their customs are the customs of this country.

“I guess we’ll stay here after all.”