A bit of background:
After graduating from college, I was facing the problem that too many graduates face: where the heck do I go from here? I was also at the end of an unhappy relationship, and was truly at a crossroads. After months of stress, I decided to take a short vacation to Cancun. When I arrived in Mexico, I was immediately struck with a fascination for the country. 6 days definitely wasn't long enough! I went back to the U.S., worked a little and saved some money, then went back for a month just to try it out. I decided I wanted to stay a bit longer, so I flew back to the U.S., worked some more, then went back to Mexico again in May 2006. I found a job quickly, had some issues with immigration (specifically with getting a work visa), but eventually began to settle into life south of the border.
How I met my husband:
I was working in timeshare at a big outdoor-style mall in Cancun, most of the time working in the evening. One night I finished work at 10 PM, and boarded the bus to head home. I was the only person on the bus, so I sat at the front and chatted with the bus driver. Then, we stopped in front of the Salvia condos, and a young guy boarded the bus and sat next to me. I glanced back and saw that the bus was still completely empty, and so I was pretty puzzled as to why this person would have to sit next to me. I finished later than usual that night, and when usually got off work (earlier in the evening), there were more people on the bus. A lot of them would be waiters or bartenders who had snuck a little bit of what they were serving, so it wasn't uncommon for someone to try to chat me up. That night, I figured it would be more of the same. Surprisingly, the young man sitting next to me was very much a gentleman, not once suggesting that I be the sancha (Spanish slang for the "mistress" lol). After about a 45 minute bus ride, he asked for my cell phone number, which I gave him. He sent me a text, and a week later we went for dinner. The rest is history!
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| M and me about 2 or 3 months after we met |
How we came to the U.S.:
Life wasn't easy in Mexico. Work was sometimes hard to come by, and a large part of the issue was that in my ethnocentrism, I was trying to replicate my life in the U.S. ("Why can't we have air conditioning?", "Why are there so many mosquitos?", "Why is everything so backward?"). I was pretty ignorant and closed-minded. I craved my life in the U.S.. I swore the opportunities would be better. Life would be better. Better. Better. Better. So we began the long, arduous, expensive immigration process. Since M and I weren't married, we applied for the K-1 fiancé visa. About 5 months after applying, we were notified that the petition had been approved, and we had to go to Ciudad Juarez for the interview. A little time and a lot of money later, M had his K-1 visa in his hand. We were ecstatic!
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| M and me on our wedding day |
Life in the U.S.:
Life in the U.S. was not what we expected it to be. Racism toward immigrants is rampant. We've seen both blatant and covert racism, even while living in the fairly "liberal" state of Pennsylvania. The culture in the U.S. is "more, more, more" and "buy, buy, buy". Since we now have 2 children together, I genuinely have to ask myself if this is the life that is best for our kids. We've also seen our fair share of personal/family-related issues and drama, emotional blackmail, etc. The family unit isn't as strong in the U.S., generally speaking, as it is in Mexico. Every place has its ups and downs and pros and cons. That's a given. But it's a question of weighing them and understanding the long-term implications of them.
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| Our son, A |
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| Our daughter, I |
More and more trauma:
This is hard for me to even talk about, given that it is still in process. We lived in South Carolina for about 6 months, then moved back to Pennsylvania. We went onto craigslist to find an apartment, and we found a duplex for rent in a tiny little village not far from where I work. The problem at the time was that the owner of the duplex lived on the other side of the duplex. We didn't realize exactly what we'd gotten ourselves into until after we moved in there. She is a rampant alcoholic, abuses prescription medication, and suffers from some kind of psychosis. After numerous incidents, we told her that we were going to move out. She got increasingly belligerent, and was calling my cell phone and leaving threatening messages. So I decided that I would take the kids and stay with my mom (my mom lives about a half an hour away).
Because of previous issues, none having to do with our relationship, M decided that he would spend the last couple of weeks of our tenancy in the duplex while he packed and cleaned. He watched the kids during the day while I worked, then we would have dinner together in the evening. This happened for about 2 weeks. Long story short, the landlady went totally berserk because M wouldn't give her his social security number as he was moving out (crazy, I know), so she called the police. Police came, and she accused M of indecent assault. Cop asked M questions, M is more than cooperative. We figured it was open-and-shut. There are many, many things in her story that don't jibe, not to mention that she is twice M's age, is completely insane, and is *ahem* trashy.
The cop called me to the station, and said that he ran M's South Carolina driver's license and it pulled up numerous arrest records. M was very truthful when he said he'd never been arrested. It didn't make sense to me how these records could be affiliated with him. They occurred in 2009 and early 2010, at times that not only did M not even have a driver's license yet, but it would've been impossible for him to have been in SC without anyone knowing. I thought someone was stealing his identity, so I asked the cop how we can clear M's name. He said he didn't know. I didn't hear anything more about the case after that, so I figured that the cop probably ran M's social security number and saw that he didn't actually have an arrest record.
Fast forward to 2 months later, when much to our surprise, M is charged with- you guessed it- indecent assault. The cop, of course, didn't include in his report that M showed him a copy of his green card, or that the mug shot photo of the person affiliated with those arrests didn't look anything like M. Or that the bats&%t crazy landlady has a rap sheet 10 miles long and has been charged, among other things, with filing false reports. Or that the original call that the cop received was not for an indecent assault charge but because M didn't give the landlady his social security number. M's court date is in December, so stay tuned for the result.
This whole situation has got us thinking about our future here. We have had nothing but problems here- and big ones- since we arrived in the U.S.. M made the great point to me: what would happen if he had been accused of something more serious? Would he automatically be pinpointed because he's Mexican? Why do we have to go to such great lengths to prove his identity, especially after how much time, money and effort went into ensuring his "legal" status here (I say "legal" because I hate the word "illegal" and find the thought of a person being "illegal" absolutely ridiculous)?
Once all of this legal trauma/drama gets cleared up, we're going to be making some big changes.
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| M and me on a recent short trip to Mexico. M looks sad in this pic; we've been through a lot since we got to the U.S.! |
The court situation was not cleared up completely, but we settled on a summary harassment charge. It sucks majorly because M didn't even do anything, but accepting summary harassment is saving us a ton of money and grief of going through a trial. We've been through enough stress, so we'll take what we can get. So, thankfully, it's over.
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| About an hour after court- happy and relieved it's over! |
