I am La Migra

Wednesday, 22 July 2009

 

I find out, after returning to the mission that there have been ICE officials scanning the parking lot at Home Depot. Padre runs out there to take care of anyone he can. He returns later; thank god there were no arrests.

But the rest of the day, everyone is jumpy. A new woman comes into the mission and eyes me suspiciously. I overhear her question to the girl I am talking to—Is she the mirga? I am horrified. I never guessed people might look at me and see me as the oppressor.

Later that day, I am interviewing a man. He is homeless, I know, but he is giving me the runaround. I just stop by here, he said, waving at the camp. I have a girlfriend! A son! I live with them! I live with my son and my girlfriend! He repeats it over and over.

Surprisingly, despite his suspicions, he is still willing to talk to me, even if he is projecting an alter-persona. So I am asking him some questions when he stops.

You aren’t a reporter, are you? Are you? He accuses suddenly, like he is teasing it out of me—this great secret. You are la migra, huh? That’s it! You aren’t a reporter.

The muchacha is a reporter, my friends vouch for me, just as the girl did back at the mission.

But it stings all the same. 

INTERNSHIP: Padre and I visit the Factory, attempt one

Wednesday, 15 July, 2009

The Padre and I entered the factory the next day, wriggling through a tear in the fence around it. I stepped gingerly over stagnant puddles, broken glass and huge piles of trash. It reminded me of the camp I had seen in the desert last spring, the hidden cave covered in human garbage. It was isolated, a cave in a lonely ridge in the Sonora, yet it was packed with flies and discarded pieces of human existence. Once again, here was a place I couldn’t believe people live. And Chicago winters were for me comparable to desert summers. Neither place are liveable for humans exposed to the elements.

“See how much they drink,” said Padre, pointing at mounds of liquor bottles.

The next room, however, showed poignant humanity—overturned crates and a few chairs, one looking like a seat extracted from a mini van made a makeshift living room. Magazine pictures were tacked to the walls. I pushed on a door and it opened wide enough for me to see six mattresses, stacked with clothes and blankets and someone’s stored bicycle. Yep. People lived here for sure, though no one was there now.

Padre and I climbed upstairs to see more beds and piles of clothing but no one answered our calls. They were probably out working, seeking day labor at the Home Depot. We agreed to come back the next night and see if they were around. In the meantime, he had some other people I could talk to. 

INTERNSHIP: I first go to Our Lady of Guadeloupe Anglican Catholic Mission and meet Padre Jose Landaverde

Tuesday, 14 July, 2009

I walked into the church off of 26^th Street and took off my sunglasses, blinking at the change in lighting. I was in a converted storefront, pews lined up behind a glass-covered case where colorful Our Lady of Guadalupe’s reigned. The receptionist was using the case as a desk. Grinning but speaking no English, he sent me back through lacy curtains into a type of waiting room. An older man and a younger man, chatting in the corner caught my attention. A few women waited dispersed in different seats, speaking quietly in Spanish to their children. A little boy ate fried chicken with greasy fingers and seemed to have run of the place—he even seemed to enter a closed room place where I assumed meetings with the lawyers were taking peace.  Yesterday, when I had met with Mujica, he had given me the basics of what went on here—lawyers came to give free consultations on immigration and housing issues to community members. So I was there, but Mujica wasn’t.

The old man and young man seemed interested in my plight. I texted Mujica and it seemed the older man was looking for him, too. He kept asking me if I had an appointment. It was a hard thing to convey—Mujica has recommended that I go, but had never totally said he’d be there. I sad on the plastic seats, staring at my phone and the hushed Spanish conversations happening around me.

I felt, not awkward exactly, but that I was acting awkwardly. I was the only non-Latino in the room and I was sitting alone.

Eventually, I went to talk to the young man, who was now seated behind a desk. He had a smooth face and a mild expression. He was wearing a peasant sort of shirt, white with a symbol of a chieftain outlined in blue on either side of his chest.

I decided to start from square one, admitting that I had no idea what was actually going on.

So, I said. What’s going on here?

In the first two minutes, I was ready to bow to Mujica. The young man and I spent those two minutes establishing points of connection—of which, I quickly learned, there were many. Our meeting seemed established not by Mujica, but by some unforeseen god of fortune.

We determined that I was a reporter working for StreetWise writing about Latino immigrant homeless. We established that he was the Father of the church here (a surprise to me considering his boyish looks). We learned that he had gone to the University of Chicago for theological seminary and that I was living in Hyde Park. Then, he said casually that he had worked as a vendor manager at StreetWise when he came to the city. Then, he had worked as a member of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless creating a task force on Latino homelessness and the plight of day-laborers.

His casually stated comments were gold, all of them insights on the community, the homeless and his life. As we chatted, another community member wandered up. Soon we were swapping stories and observations. The Padre printed out his research and then, in the same casual tone, offered to take me to an abandoned factory where he knew a bunch of homeless were camped out.

What are you doing tomorrow? He asked. I cannot go now, I am busy. If you come, one o’clock tomorrow, we can go.

With a mischievous smile, he added: It’s a lil’ bit dangerous so I’ll wear my priest stuff and we’ll be ok.

Two minutes later, he led me into the back room to meet Marilu. I was deposited in a warehouse-like room after following the Padre down what looked like a supply closet—I hesitated at first, was he leading me or stopping by to grab some supplies?

But he beckoned and the room opened up. Half of it has junk and clothes piled on tall shelves. The room was filled with salty smelling smoke which drifted in from an open door.

Gathered around a table were six women, speaking Spanish. Some of them had plates of half-eaten cake. Tortillas sat in packets, tomatoes sat washed and ready to be chopped.  The women were hanging out and looked up curiously when we approached.

This is Marilu, Padre said, pointing me to a round woman with a friendly face.

I sat down. With the help of the women around her, especially a young girl who translated, Marilu filled me in on what was happening in the community. I sat there for over an hour as they told me about their friends losing their homes, steep housing prices and a name, almost whispered with following nods: Herminia Corona, Herminia Corona. 

INTERNSHIP 4: On the Beat at StreetWise

Working at StreetWise equals fulfillment of my own idiosyncratic dream: I am their immigration beat reporter. My editor let me develop my own series on homeless immigrants and the stories that I am writing now will become cover issues in the next month. Everything is self-initiated; I can call whomever, go wherever. I have the freedom to research and really know my topics and the freedom to travel the city and interview people from all different organizations and walks of life I have the press pass of being with an actual magazine. I only have to check-in occasionally with my editor. I have utter support from my editor and my co-workers and StreetWise is a base of incredible knowledgeable people from which to work.

I spend most of my time in pursuit of the stories I am writing, but when I am not doing that, I am taking the amazing assignments and opportunities handed to me by my editor. My third day, my editor had me connected to a phone conference with national advocates from immigration reform. I researched each participant beforehand and took frantic and voracious notes as I listened to them speak. After they spoke, the floor was opened for questions. The first question came from a reporter from NPR. I couldn’t believe it: I was in the same phone conference as NPR. The story I wrote about Obama’s meeting on immigration reform was spiced with quotes from these experts and was turned in the next day, for publication in the issue going to print early the next week. 

And my stories, oh my stories. I have traveled the city, uncovering truths and hearing people’s stories. I am writing about what happens to the homeless in the three largest immigrant communities in Chicago—Mexican (Chicago is the third largest Mexican city after Mexico City and LA), Polish and Indian. The more I discover, the more important these stories seem to me.

Yes, she trails off… it is a dream come true. And now that you all have the basics of what I am doing down, I can start describing the experiences I have had there. 

Assignment: The Themes of the Pilsen Mural Tour

Pilsen Mural Tour, June 2009

Life is color. Life is pain and joy, heritage and future. In the neighborhood of Pilsen, all of that is evident. The neighborhood is a testament to reality—to life. Lives happen in the streets and restaurants, churches, schools and little homes. Then, the stories of those lives are splashed on the walls in the form of Pilsen’s famous murals.

As we began our mural tour on a baking summer’s day, I reveled in the humanity around me. Everything that is important to people surfaces in this neighborhood. Children play in the hoses, neighbors and friends grill hotdogs.  Vestiges of home in a predominately Mexican neighborhood are evident. Spanish rolls from people’s tongues, street side vendors peddle exotic fruit and spicy treats. Still, I felt a shadow over all of this color—many of these people are incredibly poor. A giant smelting factory spits toxic chemicals into the air and strange diseases strike those living there. Many of the residents are undereducated, don’t speak English or are illegal—and so the illnesses continue.

Jose, our guide, led us down winding streets to stop us by walls popping with color. The murals were beautiful, thrown on to the walls of tortilla factories and churches, schools and homes. Many of them featured portraits of the community members below; grinning children, wizened grannies, and scolding teachers. The murals celebrated the communities heritage with a  backdrop of the Puerto Rican flag, words in Spanish or portraits of leaders like Cesar Chavez or Rigoberta Menchu. They were playful—coloring in shadows and creating puns with words. They were sad, showing disintegrated families and loneliness. Ultimately, they were filled with the dreams of immigrants—that their children would rise up—that they would one day read, would graduate, would embrace the future.