The Boy Who Made Them Look

Once there was a little boy, looking for his mother. She’d gone north from El Salvador to the United States, to California, to Marin County. She had gone to work, and work she did. She cleaned houses for a few dollars an hour. After four years of this, she sent for her son, and here the 9-year-old himself takes up the tale:

I remember a dark and cracking street with puddles. At the end of the street I saw police hiding behind trees on bicycles. I saw them start to approach us and I was the first to run. They caught everyone else but me. I hid behind a tree by the river and then, all of a sudden, I fell asleep. When I woke up the coyote was standing over me.

We had to cross the river. There were four other men trying to cross over. We took tires to help us float across. The eddies in the river spun us around. The four men fell off their tires into the water. The tires came back but we never saw the men again. . . .

The coyote dropped us off in the desert. We walked for four days. We found some water but it was too sour to drink. On our way we saw several animals with just one eye. . . . I looked up on the hills and saw men watching us through binoculars. We ran through a railroad tunnel and had to hide behind rocks until night.

*

Before he finishes, perhaps it might help to know how the boy came to tell the story. Last September he started fourth grade at Bahia Vista Elementary School. He was, his teacher recalls, “a wild child,” alternately overexcited and withdrawn. He seemed never to have been in a classroom. He could not add 2 plus 3. Gradually he let slip fragments of his past.

The teacher was intrigued. Her class was filled with immigrants. It was not her duty to play border guard--this, sadly, will change, should Proposition 187 pass in November--but she assumed that many of her pupils had similar stories to tell. Still, this one boy’s passage seemed extraordinary--to come so far, alone, in search of his mother.

Now it happened that two Marin County artists, Larry and Kelly Sultan, had started a public arts project titled “Have You Seen Me?” The idea was to let youngsters tell their life stories on grocery bags. The intent was to demystify children, particularly immigrant children, to make people see them for what they are--children. Grants were obtained, a grocer was found, and the artists were steered by the teacher to the boy. He was proud anyone was interested:

Every night I would sleep curled up in a ball -- I didn’t have a blanket. We started off early the next morning. Everyone was really thirsty. I remember seeing a big sandy hill with a lot of deer on it. When we passed through the desert a car was waiting for us.

*

The bags went into use on July 4, a coincidence. By day’s end, the patriots were burning. Propaganda, they thundered. There would be boycotts, pickets. This boy must be found, cast out. The uproar brought national attention. The store owner, bullied, pulled the bags. The boy seemed more confused than hurt. His mother cried, and kept cleaning those houses.

Interest died out and the story seemed over, one more sorry measurement of California’s tumble into darkness. Except, there’s an epilogue. The initial flurry has been followed by a stronger, less publicized, push of public opinion. All summer, letters have poured into the store, expressing outrage that such venom could be directed at a child. A college scholarship fund has been established for the boy, to document Marin County’s “civility.”

This reversal should interest those who resist the current anti-immigrant hysteria. The boy’s story offers a political lesson: Let people discuss immigrants, and not just immigration, let them see people instead of abstract policy, and then the debate can shift away from shrill hatred and toward deeper core values. Like human kindness. And simple fairness.

This week the boy--his identity’s never been revealed--returned to school. He’s in fifth grade now, his math up to speed, his English improving. He rides a bike to school, plays plenty of soccer, wants a paper route. A boy. Like any other.

We finally arrived in L.A. and got to eat and sleep in a house for three days. Each day they selected people to leave. I was the last one. I was taken to another house. I opened the door and my mother was standing there inside.

I want to be a lawyer.

I would like to have a dog.