THE DISPLACED
the gift shop, -where he again surprised me by looking through
its bewildering array of postcards. Wfadow-shopping was safe,
but handling goods broke another cardinal refugee rule: Be wary
ofbrealdng things you can't pay for, or being accused of stealing
in a country where your legal status is questionable at best.
"We'll each pick two;' Dad snddenly said. He chose a pal-
ace and a painting; .I snatched up a statue of Maria Theresa, and
2,detailed Austro-Hru1garian coat-of-arms, -vVhenevermy par-
ents allowed 1ne to buy toys in Ulaaine, I always examined and
reexamined, carefully considering my options. Now, I bareiy
glanced at the cards, hurriedly choosing before Dad changed
his mind.
Dad paid for the postcards, then carefully stored them,
along wifo ilie receipt, inside his large overcoat. "You have to act
like a human being;' he told me, tightening his sash and patting
the coat to malze sure the cards \Vere secured. "Ponimayesh?"
("Understand?")
I wasnt sure whether I 1mderstood, but I said yes anyway.
After months of only necessities, it felt wonderful to buy some-
thing, just because, I could almost feel the square little packet
inside Dad's coat) giving us \Veight1 making us more solid.
"Poshl±:'he tapped me, and out we "'Went,past the ornate giant
doors, past the outstretched arm of the benevolent despot Maria
TI1eresa,back into Vienna, back to the world of ghosts.
I one he knew and hired a smuggler to take me and my siblings
\5~ IJ? O\,
"'"
L! lt118'
f~
72
The Parent Who Stays
REYNA GRANDE
N obody had to tell me who the man sitting on my
mother's couch was. I'd grown up looking at his
grand-
photo-
graph hanging on our wall. He'd put on weight and wore glasses
now. Instead of being black and white like in the photo, he was
in color, his skin like rain-soaked earth.
I had to stand before this clean, well-fed stranger wearing a
tattered. dress, my head infested with lice, my belly swollen with
tapeworm. I looked down at my dusty feet, the dirt caked under
my toenails, my broken sandals held together by wire. "Go say
hello to your father:' my aunt said, pushing me toward him. All
I wanted to do was run away.
He had left eight years before when I was two, and
seven years later he returned to find his children-me, my
older brother and sister-just as he had left us: hungry, poor,
vulnerable.
He hugged me too briefly, too hesitantly. And I realized
that we were strangers to him, too.
This stranger, my father, had borrowed money from every-
north to his home in the United States, where we were to begin a
new life together. So, at the age of nine-and-a-half, I found myself
at the U.S. border and became an "illegal" human being by cross,
ing without permission for a chance to finally have a family.
73
 THE DISPLACED
1 remember so vividly that mon1ent ·when we ·were trying
to cross, crawling through bushes, jumping over rocks, 1ny body
burning from the heat of the unforgiving s1n1,and the white-hot
fear inside 111eat the thought of being caught and losing 1ny
chance of having 1nyfather back in 1nylife. At nine years old, I
v;ro.stoo little to 1nake the crossing, and I could not make my legs
run fast enough. I prayed for wings.
Border patrol caught us ac,d sent us back to Tijuana twice.
H 'Nas a 1niracle that vve made it the third time, although my
father had to carry me on his back most of the way. It was \:here
at the U.S. border where I got my first piggy-back ride from
111y father.
My parents didn't leave Mexico, they fled-not for their
lives, but for life-seeldng economic refuge fr01n a country that
couldn't or wouldn't give them the means to provide for their
fan1ily}✓.Iexico had failed them, and so they fled across the bor-
der to pursue the dreain to give us a house and a better life.
Later I would come to learn that im1nigrant fanillies who
relocate together fare better than those who go through sepa-
ration. Unfortunately~ 1ny fa1nily couldn't im1nigrate together.
Financially, it \l\rasn't possible. Legally, it wasn,t feasible. 1./Ve
couldn't come here as "real" refugees. Poverty, no matter how
extreme, doesn't 1neet any of the criteria for asylum. The term
"economic refugee;' a negative tenn here and in Europe, doesn't
encourage compassion in the receiving country, either socially
or politically.
what all dispiaced people have most in common, regard-
less -ofwhere co111efr01n, regardless
1,1,,re if '<Veare «official''refugees
or ((illegal"L."11.111ig-.1ants,
is our trauma. Tne traUJ.uathat propels us
to this land, and the traun1atic e1..rperiencestl1at await us.
74
The Parent V\lho Stays
My first traumatic experience happened before I had the
ability to remember. Due to a national debt crisis and subse-
quent peso devaluations, there were no jobs in Mexico, so in
1977 my father left his wife and children behind and became
part of the largest wave of migration from Mexico ever, a wave
that has only recently ended. I don't remember his departure.
In my earliest memories, he was already gone. My identity as a
little girl was that of a daughter with an absent father-a father
I !mew existed only through that black-and-white photograph.
While he was away, our relationship was the empty space he'd
left behind in my life.
Then the second trauma of my life occurred. I was four
years old when I watched my mother walk away from me to go
to the land across the border-El Otro Lado. I didn't know if
I'd ever see.her again. I stayed behind with relatives who didn't
want me, who treated me as a burden and ma_de me feel even
more unloved and unwanted than I already felt.
My childhood was defined by the fear of being forgotten or
abandoned, of being replaced by U.S.-born siblings.
As a child, I didn't understand why my parents had emi-
grated. I believed that they had left because they didn't love me
enough either to stay with me or to talce me with them.
Part of me didn't blame them for leaving. Though only a
three-hour bus ride from Acapulco, my hometown is no beach
resort. lguala, Guerrero, isn't a place where you can thrive, You
live a hand-to-mouth existence where all you think of is how
to survive another day. Guerrero is the second poorest state in
Mexico, with 70 percent of the population living in poverty. Due
to the so-called "War on Drugs;' it is also now the most violent
state in Mexico, which is the second most violent country in the
75
 THE DISPLACED
worl.d. In 2016, there were tvventy-three thousand homicides in
l\1.eyjco,surpassed only by Syria, but our ·war-supported by the
T,.JnikdStates through the rnillions of dollars..in funding, train-
i:.1gof soldiers, and provisions of 1nilitary aircraft, ,;,veapons)and
vehicles to the l\1lexican governmen-t-isn\ considered a «real"
,var, so lviexicans don't qualify for asylum. The United States
considers persecution by a goven11nent a valid criterion for asy-
lum, but not exploitation by criini.nal gai"'1gsor cartels.
Iguala is surrounded by die poppy fields diat feed d1e U.S.
drug epiden1ic, and the city bus station doubles as a distribution
center for the cartels, Mexico supplies 90 percent of America's
heroin, and Guerrero grows 50 percent of the poppies for the
heroin trade. In this city of dirt roads and shacks, many locals
survive by vvorking in the poppy fields. or in the U.S.-owned
garment factory in my old neighborhood. The factory pays die
workers $5 a day, but a pizza in Iguala will cost them $10. Iguala
is also a place of special infamy-forty-three college students
were taken and disappeared by 1i1-e police working togeilier wiili
the cartei in 2014. To this day, we still don't know what hap-
pened to those students.
--vvhatsustained me through the years of separation fr01n
J:nyparents was 1ny dream of having a fan1ily again. 1 clung to
it through the birthdays and Christmases, Mother's Days and
Father's Days. I clung to it through the three attempts to cross
the border and the drive along Interstate 5 to the front door of
111y father'sho111ein Northeast Los Angeles
I wish I could tell you that this is where and how my story
ends, with this long-awaited reunification. \i\Tith my siblings
and" 1ne arriving at our father's house and starting a new life
together in this great land of opportunity. I wish I could tell
76
The Parent \ 1\Tho Stays
you that we got our happily-ever-after, and die trauma ended
with ilie border crossing, and as soon as we overcame iliat bar-
rier the psychological wounds began to heal. Unfortunately for
us immigrants, ilie trauma doesn't end with a successful bor-
der crossing. I believe that for the rest of your life, you carry
iliat border inside of you. It becomes part of your psyche, your
being, your identity.
Even beyond being undocumented and fearing deporta-
tion and having to live in die shadows of society, was ilie dawn-
ing realization that there was a mismatch between how I had
imagined my new home and the reality of how it actually was.
After so many years of separation, we didn't know each
other. Though physically we had crossed the border, we'd missed
so many years of each odier's lives that emotionally and psycho-
logically diere was still a barrier between us. Immigration had
turned my parents and me into strangers. The family I once had
in Mexico no longer existed.
As time went on, the separation continued. As I grew
up and assimilated, my assimilation became another barrier
between me and my parents. When I learned English at the
expense of Spanish, language increased the separation. The day
I started junior high, I surpassed my parents, who had only gone
to elementary school, and so my education further separated us.
Our emotions became a barrier as well, I was the daughter
they left behind, and for most of my life, my relationship with
my parents was filtered through that lens. Anger, resentment,
and shame tainted how I saw them and interacted wiili them.
My father dealt with his own psychological pain by drowning
it in a can of Budweiser. Alcoholism helped him nun1b the suf-
fering caused by his low-paying job, his limited English skills,
77
,_ 0~
 THE DISPLACED
his alienation in U,S. culture, but it also led him to a slow,
painful death,
Thirty years would pass, and I vvould become a 1nother,
-wife,and successful writer, Yet when 1nyfather died in 2011, he
·vvasas n1uch a stranger to me as he 'ivas when I first 1net him in
my grandmother's home,
It is the central irony of rny life that n1yparents e1nigrated
to try to save our family, but by doing so, they destroyed it
l know my experience isn't unique. Eighty percent of
ilnmigrant children in U.S, schools have been separated from
their families during the process of migration, Complicated
fa1nily dynainics add to the burden these children are already
carrying, and schools that serve these children need to consider
the trauma created by separation. Nothing is more counter-
productive than the goal of rapid integration of immigrant and
rdugee children into the c01n1nunity, Assimilation and accul-
turation add tc their post-trau1natic stress. Im1nigrant and ref-
ugee children need ti111e,patience, love, ax1dpsychological help
to heal fron1 their experiences, Tramna follmvs them into the
classroom as it did me, and powerfully 2Jfectsperfonnance and
the ability to learn,
Iv1yeducation in U,S. schools was almost as traumatic as
being abandoned by my parents, When I started fifth grade
in Los Angeles, language -was a barrier. Because I spoke no
English, I was put at a corner table and ignored by my teacher,
I felt voiceless. I sat in that corner, on the outside looking in 1
marginalized, excluded, "othered:' Months went by, and for my
it was as if I didl1t exist.
teaCJ.1e:-,
Once I learned English, I still felt invisible when the books
given to n1e by 1ny teachers and the librarians had nothing to
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78
The Parent Who Stays
do with my experience, VVhile I was fascinated by books such
as Sweet Valley High, which gave me a glimpse to a world
that wasn't mine-white, middle-class America-I knew that
life could never be mine, Through the years, I'd often wonder,
Where am I in these stories?Invisibility became another barrier
to overcome.
At thirteen years old, I understood that I would have to
write my way into existence,
Growing up, howeve1; I didrit know I was traumatized, I
didrit have the words to describe what I felt: anxiety, depres-
sion, post-traumatic stress disorder, These words wererit part of
my vocabulary, so I never used them-I described my feelings
through stories,
And yet, I know I was lucky, IfI arrived at the border today
seeking asylum, I would have the door slammed in my face, I
would be told that I haverit suffered enough, that I should go
back to my country and suffer some more, Even ifl was seeking
refuge, I was not a refugee,
TI1reeyears ago, there wi's a surge in unaccompanied child
immigrants, most from Central America, who came seeking
refuge from poverty; oppression, and violence created by crim-
inal gangs, Their migration continues, though their arrival at
the border is no longer in record numbers because the United
States is now paying Mexico to catch and deport these children
before they reach the border, But for the ones who do arrive in
the United States, after all the trauma they've endured in their
countries and during the long journey to the border, they're
thrown into detention centers and forced to face federal immi-
gration judges to plead their cases in court, often without legal
representation,
79
 THE DJSPLACED
At nine-and-a-half years old, the same age my daughter
is novv, I broke U,Salaw and beca1ne a "crilninal" for daring to
to a better future. I ran across the border seeking refuge
from abandori-1nent, desperate to leave behind me those feelings
of being unwanted and unloved, Once across, I thought I was
done ·with borders; I didt1't knc1,1,r there vvould be more. Yet, in
foe past thirty-ti,vo years that I've lived in this country, I've had
to cross cultural, language, legal, gender, and career barriers,
8.17-dn1ore.
V\Triting continues to be an act of survival, As an immi-
grant or refugee, there is no end to tramna. You're always the
object of hostile acts and political rhetoric that accuses you of
being a criminal and a rapist And it takes a toll. But I'm grateful
that n1y experience -wasnot as grueling and horrific as that of
those con1ing today. Unlilcetl1ese nev;rimmigrants and refugees,
I did not experience the terrors of-war; I did not have any family
1nen1bers killed or disappeared by criminal gangs or narcos; l
did not have a gun put to 1nyhead to force me to join a gang. I
did not travel alone to the border: I did not ride the deadly train,
La Bestia, across IVl:exico;I 1Nasnot robbed; I was not raped; I
-wasnot attacked by gangs, bandits; or corrupt Iviexican officials
along the way. I was not a victim of sex trafficking or child labor.
I vvas a victiln of a consequence of rn.igration that is often
over1ooked or given little ilnportance-the
lence of vvatchingyour family fall apart Farnily separation and
disintEgtation is the price n1yfa1Tiily
paid for a shot at the Alner-
ican Drec.m.
My story in the United States was full of abuse ai,d insta-
bility, and it vvas hard to find 1ny vlay in this country, to try to
earn my right to remain and find a place to belong, but lucky for
80
,_ :0__-'"---·=---"-_x,, __c? --,- - _ ~ -"-•- •-
The Parent Who Stays
me, I finally did. Under an amnesty signed by Ronald Reagan,
my family became legal residents, and eventually U.S. citizens.
Despite psychological and emotional distress, I went to college
and became the first in my family to get a university diploma. I
became a teacher, a published author, a homeowner. I have won
awards. I married a good man and have two beautiful children.
I accomplished every goal I set for myself and have been more
than lucky.
With children of my own, I have come to understand my
father in a way I could not have before. I look at my children
and try to imagine what it would be like to leave them, to walk
away from them because I cannot provide for them. I look at
my nine-year-old daughter and try to imagine endangering her
life by taking her across the U.S. border. Would my own child
survive what I survived? I don't know. What I do know is that if
I were put in my father's place, I would do the same. I would risk
everything for my children.
I bear witness every day to foe trauma of our loss, suffering
wounds that will never heal. It's a price I would pay a hundred
times over because one of my fafoer's greatest gifts to me, and
indirectly to his grandchildren, is this: His decision to immi-
grate has allowed me to be the parent he could never be. Unlike
him, I will never be a stranger to my children.
psychological vio- I now get to be the parent who stays.
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81