SOMETIMES THERE IS A POVERTY WORSE THAN MATERIAL

Maria was 14 when her mother decided to leave.  At a time when a Latina girl dreams of her “quinceanera”, her “Sweet 15 Coming Out”, and looks at her mother, however imperfect, as a  model of womanhood, Mom disappeared.  She chose to immigrate to the United States through the petition of a naturalized U.S. Citizen brother. She left Maria with her father.

Dad was a likeable, cheery sort. Coming from the working class poor, Maria did not expect a lot for her quinceanera, but she hoped for something to punctuate her passage from child to woman. But with Dad’s struggling with the separation from his spouse…well, it wasn’t the same.  Her quinceanera passed unnoticed. Maria would eventually come to the United States under the petition of her same mother, ten years later. Things worker out well for her—marriage, children, career, comfortable home—but Maria still carries baggage, emotional scars. She remains uneasy with her mother, seldom speaks with her, rarely visits. She distances herself from Mom as any sort of role model, but yet carries Mom’s fallout with her: From time to time, Maria becomes callous, defensive and suspicious of family loyalty. She still needs a lot of TLC and assurance that her new family’s love is real and won’t run away. 

Sometimes there is a poverty worse than material. 

I sat in my law office before a prospective client. She asks if I would represent a family member, just apprehended at the border and in immigration detention in San Diego. Yes, I would. Smiling shyly at the relief I would take on the project, she re-enforced the importance of the job.  “He’s my sister’s “companero (domestic partner) and she is in her eighth month.”  I affirmed, yes, it is important that the man be free from detention at this important juncture of her sister’s life, and inquired as to where her sister lived. Expecting to hear “Bay Shore, Brentwood, Hempstead” or some other Long Island Salvadoran enclave, I was surprised when she answered “El Salvador.” “Why is he heading North if his expectant wife is due to deliver at any time?” I asked, not rhetorically.  “Well, he needs to earn money for the child’s education.” She answered, not rhetorically. The man came North to earn money for the education of a child he might never see.  Even with modest Salvadoran standards, we’re looking at a fifteen year plan to see him through school.  I would lose the account, but saved my soul by my next comment:  “I think he should be with his wife and child.”  She agreed.  “Now that you say it, my sister is upset with his leaving.” The man would be released from detention and deported in time for the end of his wife’s confinement, and saw his baby born. 

Sometimes there is a treasure more than material. 

Many decisions to immigrate to the United States leaves proverbial widows and orphans behind.  It breaks families and hearts. Children do not know their parents and gravitate to gangs and the witchery of quick-rich schemes (“just like Mom and Dad”).  Their focus of school is skewered by the lure of upping and leaving.  The generational cycle bids to repeat.

With a marked upward tick of children being sent alone to the border from Central American countries…unaccompanied through passages arranged by shady “coyotes”… there is a legitimate question if this is not a form of child abuse.  If I sent a pre-teen so much to Scranton alone on a Greyhound, I would be pilloried for being a negligent parent.  Yet, young children are dispatched north through inhospitable terrain and amid the seamy underbelly of the border-towns they seek. 

Sometimes there is a poverty worse than material. 

Indiscriminate advocates of unfettered immigration policy sometimes miss this piece. Where is the feminist outrage over dead-beat and absentee Dads, and the objection of “children advocates” for the dangerous journeys they are placed? Young children are transported hundreds of miles, through strange territory with strangers.  The U.S. shelters they are held following border apprehension create humanitarian disasters where sexual abuse, sexual activity among the young detainee and other unhealthy conditions are common. Is there a nascent arrogance in their belief that it is better to live in the United States working than back home with loved ones?  Is there an unconscious racism suggesting “these folks prefer bread and circus to family ties?” 

My wife is from Latin America and we often talk about arriving immigrants I meet. Always gracious, she reminds me I do not understand the extent of material poverty in Latin America and the desperation that fuels leaving. Perhaps. But I’d like to think that a child would prefer to live penniless with her parents than wealthy without them. Sometimes there is treasure better than material. But an immigration-scarred newcomer might not believe me.  

Sometimes there is a poverty worse than material.