A Visit With a Mexican Mother Puts Prop. 187 in Focus

Proposition 187 has wrung California out. From limousine liberals to racemongers and all the good folks in between, the question of illegal immigration has created a broad canvas on which to paint our beliefs. If on nothing else, we can all agree the debate has been noisy and often unsettling.

In this last weekend, we can all hope for some quiet contemplation. At the risk of asking for too much, how about a clear sign as to what the right vote should be?

My epiphany came Wednesday night, sitting at a kitchen table with a woman who has taught in public schools for more than 20 years. Now she is a teacher’s aide, and she and her blue-collar husband are raising three preteen children in an Orange County neighborhood where they’re worried about violence. She shows me a citation from her congressman, lauding her for community efforts.

She’s also an illegal resident of the United States. As a parent, her three school-age children, none born in the United States, are vulnerable to expulsion if 187 passes. As a teacher, she wonders how many other children will be targets.

She’s speaking English to me, although it’s obvious that when she really wants to make a point, she’d be more comfortable in Spanish. But even when I have trouble with her syntax or pronunciation, there’s no misinterpreting her eyes and the tone of her voice.

“As a teacher, as a human being, speaking from my heart, I can tell you I don’t care if I’m legal or illegal,” she says, in a hushed voice that never rose during our two-hour conversation. “I’m a hard worker. The point is that children don’t have to pay the bills for our mistakes. Mexican people, I think, they are good and hard workers, because I’m used to working in too many poor communities in Mexico. I know people are coming here and then going back to Mexico. I know who they are: They are very, very poor and they are coming here to get money.”

They come illegally, she says, because they can’t afford the hundreds or thousands of dollars it takes to do it any other way. “Do you know how much they are earning?” she says. “I had a mother coming to my house saying could you please help me get a job. She says we have three children and my husband only gets $140 a week and we have to pay $300 for a room and we have to get $40 or $50 a week for food. They used to come here crying.”

As 187 momentum has grown, she senses growing resentment toward her. Where she once felt truly free, she now senses antagonism from whites. “Sometimes I see in their eyes, they just don’t like us,” she says.

She arrived in Orange County a few years ago, with permission to stay for two months. She says she obtained a work permit from the immigration service, and then got it extended. But she never became a legal resident.

Her children have asked her about their status. “They already ask me, can we keep going to school? Are we illegal? I said, I don’t want to lie to you, you are illegal. They are very concerned, afraid. Even for myself, it is a shock. I feel sad, because I didn’t hurt anybody, I’m trying to help as many people as I can.

“If I was a bad person for this country, I would tell you, but I don’t care about going back to Mexico. But I can tell these people that in the same way they love this country, I am loving it too. Yes, I am Mexican. I was born there, I was raised there. I have nothing negative to say about my country. In this country, I know who I am. I don’t want to change my skin color, my hair color. I want them to know that even though we are brown and are Mexican, I am a human, I am a good woman and a good citizen.” It becomes clearer as we talk that, to her, the proposition isn’t about public policy. It is about living a productive life and, yet, being marked as an outcast.

“This is a beautiful country,” she says softly. “I love it. I like it. Since I was a girl, it was my dream, coming to California. I would like to do something more for this country, but, really, I can’t. I’m talking to you in the Spanish way, and now the answer is I’m really, really hurt. Absolutely hurt, from my heart, my brain. Because nobody has the right to make your children--while you’re trying to raise them and put in their head to be a good citizen--nobody has the right to let them feel like they are like . . . a caterpillar, or something like that.”

I ask if she feels guilt, and she nods. “I have my kids here, and I can’t give them the right to be free. I feel it is my fault, because even in this country, we don’t have the right to be free. In the freedom country, we don’t have the right to be free, even though you can show you’re a good citizen, you’re a good parent and raising a good family. I can’t say successful, but at least we’re good people.”

At the end of our talk, I’m struck at how she’s been more sad than angry, more resigned than defiant.

Back outside in the cool night air, the vote I will cast Tuesday became ever clearer.

While in the booth, I’ll think of a woman praised by her school district, cited by a U.S. congressman and a lover of this country.

I’ll remember her searching for the right words to describe her fear and dejection over 187, and I’ll be convinced beyond a doubt that a vote against the proposition is the absolutely right thing to do.