They knew their families were different, and they knew that difference meant they had fewer rights than most Americans.
They watched as their parents swallowed their pride and went to work for long hours at menial and labor-intensive jobs, never seeming to get ahead and always seeming to miss birthdays.
While “the land of opportunity” is the only home they can remember, its opportunities always seemed to be hanging just slightly out of reach.
With no access to health care coverage, after-school sports weren’t common among kids in their community – they were painfully aware that a broken bone was a luxury their families could not afford.
As they became teenagers, and classmates began to talk of all the freedoms a driver’s license would bring, they knew that milestone was off-limits to kids like them.
No matter how good their report cards or how many extracurricular activities they racked up, they wouldn’t be eligible for most college scholarships, loans or federal financial aid.
As high school graduation approached, they saw other kids of their status begin working full time in order to help provide for their parents and siblings, forgoing college and repeating the cycle of poverty.
This is what it’s like to grow up undocumented in Oregon, according to three young adults who sat down with Street Roots to share their stories.
They are close friends, all graduating this past year from Salem’s McKay High School, where 64 percent of the student body is Latino. All three were brought to the U.S. illegally when they were just toddlers, and while their parents had different reasons for leaving Mexico, they all had the same dream: that their children would have a better future in America.
Growing up, they learned that being an undocumented immigrant meant you did what you could to survive.
Fátima Preciado said she hopes her story will help motivate other Oregonians to join their cause. All three have taken leadership roles at Causa, an organization aimed at improving the lives of Oregon’s Latino immigrants.
“I’m just like you,” Fátima said. “I have my own dreams too. I want to be able to make a difference in this world, and I think anyone can see themselves in me.”
Since the election in November, Fátima has spoken publicly about her immigration status, sharing her story and encouraging others to do the same. For this reason, we are publishing her first and last name. Her friends Manuel and Joseluis asked that we use only their first names.
Coming of age in a country where you don’t have the opportunities of others around you can be “heartbreaking,” Manuel said.
In 2012, however, their futures all began to look a little brighter. That’s when the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was announced, making it possible for qualifying undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to apply for temporary protection from deportation.
While DACA recipients, known as “Dreamers,” aren’t given the full rights of citizenship, they can legally work and go about their lives without fear of deportation.
In Oregon, lawmakers deliberated for several months before deciding in January 2013 that Dreamers would also be permitted to drive.
Fátima, Manuel and Joseluis are just three of roughly 12,000 undocumented immigrants in Oregon to be granted DACA status, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
To remain protected from deportation, Dreamers must submit an application for renewal every two years, a process that involves a background check, fingerprinting and a $495 fee. Fátima and Manuel are both in the renewal process, with their statuses soon to expire. They’re both confident they’ll be approved.
On April 18, the day we spoke with the three friends at Causa’s Southeast Portland office, news broke that a DACA recipient had been deported to Mexico in February.
President Donald Trump said April 21 that Dreamers “should rest easy.” He told The Associated Press his immigration policies were aimed at criminals, not Dreamers. Just two days later, however, ABC News asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions if he agreed with the president’s statement, and he replied: “Well, we’ll see. I believe that everyone that enters the country unlawfully is subject to being deported.”
Fátima said she’s aware her decision to be vocal about her status could result in detainment, as it did for Daniela Vargas, the 22-year-old who was arrested after giving testimony at a conference in Jackson, Miss. Vargas’ DACA status had lapsed.
When asked why she was willing to put herself on the line, Fátima said it’s important to speak up.
“It shows that we’re not going to stop. We are going to keep fighting regardless. We are not people who simply give up when things are tough,” she said.
In March, North Portland resident Emmanuel Ayala Frutos, 21, was arrested and detained just two weeks after his DACA status expired. He told local news media that immigration officials told him they simply wanted to ask him questions about his DACA renewal application but then arrested him.
Neither Fátima, Joseluis nor Manuel knew what exactly they would do if they were deported tomorrow – they have no memories of life in Mexico and little knowledge of how to survive there.
“Imagining myself in that situation,” Fátima said, “I would have no idea what to do. I don’t know who I would call. I have family in Mexico, but I don’t know them. I was raised here in America. Everything I know – my community, my education, my friends, my teachers – everything is here. My family is here.”
Manuel
Manuel was 3 years old when his mother brought him from their home in a rural mountain village in Oaxaca, Mexico, to the U.S. His father had crossed the border two years earlier, and it was time to join him.
“There’s not a means to make money there,” Manuel said of Oaxaca. “You work hard every single day, making around $1 a day, so it can be difficult to access resources like food, education, healthy water – what you need to flourish and grow up to be a healthy human being.”
His family lived in Woodburn, then Bend, before settling down in Salem seven years ago.
Manuel remembered that when he was approved for DACA status at age 15, he thought, “Wow – my whole world just changed!” He said most importantly, he could help his parents with his new, official identification card.
“I can show my I.D.,” he said, “because you need an I.D. for everything, and sometimes when you are undocumented, you can’t get one, so it opened a lot of doors in order to help them out.”
In 2014, Oregon voters widely rejected Ballot Measure 88, which would have given his undocumented parents the ability to drive legally by obtaining driver’s cards.
“My parents, if they make one mistake, it will cost them,” he said. His father’s job in construction takes him to various job sites around the region, and public transportation isn’t always a viable option. “You can’t just not work,” he said, “because you have a family, so it puts you in a really tricky situation.”
He also worries his father’s past mistakes could get him deported; he has a history of DUIIs. If that happens, Manuel said, supporting the family would fall on his and his mother’s shoulders. Now a stay-at-home mom, she would likely get a job working in the fields, he said.
His father was also recently involved in a car accident.
“Now he is trying to figure out that, and how he can pay his fees without having to be directly involved with court,” Manuel said, “because if he goes to court, he can risk being detained. I think that’s the same for a lot of people in our community. They want to go to court, and they want to fix things and they want to get things straight, so they’d rather pay double fees than go in and fix it personally.”
In high school, Manuel took a chemistry class from a teacher who helped him discover his passion for the subject. While his friends couldn’t understand why he liked chemistry so much, he thought he might want to pursue it as a career.
Manuel applied for scholarships available through a private liberal arts college in Salem and was awarded one based on merit. While Dreamers cannot get federal financial aid, he was able to get additional need-based funds through the school’s financial aid program.
Now he’s in his first year at Willamette University, where he said he’ll likely major in biochemistry.
The scholarship and financial aid weren’t enough to cover all the costs, so he fills in the gaps with money he earns working as a cook in a local restaurant.
He said college was a culture shock for him after attending McKay High School.
“Salem has this de facto segregation where you notice the communities and how they come together in different areas,” he said.
At the university, he said, he’s been meeting with other Dreamers and a few “trusted professors” to figure out a way the school can support DACA recipients if they or their family members get deported.
When he isn’t working or attending classes, he said, he likes to volunteer.
“I believe it is important to give back to your community and be involved,” he said. “I actually work with the Community Service Learning office on my campus.”
But he also likes to relax and listen to music or watch “Black Mirror” on Netflix. Right now he’s “really into Blanca Rosa Gil,” he said, but he also likes Modest Mouse and Vampire Weekend.
He said that during the Obama years, while he heard a lot about deportations, he didn’t feel like it would happen to him.
“But now it’s the feeling that it can happen to anyone, whenever,” he said. “There is more fear, more precautions you have to take, and less time you want to go out and work, and to the grocery, and out to wherever because you know if you go out you are risking yourself.
“It can be terrifying sometimes.”
His three younger siblings are all U.S. citizens, and he said he’s not sure where they would go if his parents were deported.
“I could get deported tomorrow; that’s a reality. But would I rather focus on that or focus on education and the hope that I might be able to provide for my community, and might be able to do something with my education? I’d rather focus on that than get down,” he said.
“If I did get deported, I really don’t know what would happen,” he said. He has about $1,000 in emergency savings. “It would only get me a hotel for a week, maybe,” he said.
Fátima
Fátima has a brief memory of the night before her family left their home in the small town of Aguililla, Michoacán.
She remembers that her mother said to her, “I need you to please be strong tomorrow and take care of your sister.” Her sister was about six years older than she was, but had developmental disabilities.
She replied, “OK, Mom, I can do it!” She was just 4 years old.
Fátima remembers being terrified as she was separated from her mother and placed into a car with her sister and two strangers. As her sister cried, she remembered her mother’s words.
As the car crossed the U.S. border in Nogales, Ariz., the sisters pretended to be different children.
“Your memory sometimes tricks you, but I have nightmares where I wake up and I’m in a car and driving the whole night, not able to sleep,” she said. “It’s always a red car, there’s a man driving and I can’t see his face, and everything is black. I look out the window, and all I see are the stars.”
Her two younger siblings crossed in a separate car, and her mother crossed through an underground tunnel with a coyote, someone who smuggles immigrants.
She and her siblings arrived at the safe house in Arizona where they met her father, but her mother wasn’t there. It would be two months before they learned she had been caught and placed in detention.
Fátima still remembers watching each car as it arrived at the safe house, hoping to see her mother exit the vehicle.
“The fear of missing her and the worry – that I always feel,” she said.
In March, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it was considering a policy of separating children from their mothers when they are caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
After Fátima’s mother was released, she crossed again undetected.
Fátima’s family moved to Modesto, Calif., but her father was abusive, and he drank. Her mother eventually left him, bringing her children north to Oregon.
Fátima said that once she was in the U.S., her mother had to trade in her high heels and manicured nails and take menial jobs scrubbing toilets.
She eventually got a job waiting tables at a family-owned Mexican restaurant. Fátima worries her mother, now approaching her 50s, won’t be able to take the daily 12-hour shifts much longer.
“I remember my birthday parties, she wasn’t there. Going home for Easter, she wasn’t there. You get used to it over time – that’s how it is in America if you’re an immigrant,” Fátima said.
When she was 15, she began working at the restaurant alongside her mother because she wanted to help pay household bills.
“That’s when I realized the situation,” she said. “When I watched her and realized how hard she was working – and not just her, but all our immigrant communities, how much they work.
“I became really frustrated with the way we were living. I was like, this is pointless – we are never going to get anywhere. My mom’s never going to be able to buy a house; we’re just paying rent and paying rent. And I was like, there has to be a way out,” she said. “She’s just working her whole life for nothing at the end.”
Over the next 15 years, the Latin American-born population over 40 in the U.S. is expected to grow by 82 percent, according to a paper published in the spring 2017 edition of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity.
There is no safety net waiting for undocumented immigrants. They cannot collect Social Security and are not eligible for Medicaid or Medicare, despite paying the taxes that fund those programs throughout their lives.
“A large elderly population of undocumented immigrants is a policy challenge that the United States has hitherto not faced,” stated the Brookings Papers authors.
Figuring out a way to take care of their aging parents is a burden felt by many Dreamers.
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In Salem, Fátima watched as many of her Latino classmates went straight from high school into full-time jobs so they could help support their families, she said.
“They don’t see an opportunity for them,” she said. “Their families are barely surviving, so to think about an education is completely out of their mind. So those that do make it, it’s very rare.”
But Fátima was determined to break the cycle. She began volunteering with the Boys and Girls Club, recently speaking on the organization’s behalf at a conference in Las Vegas.
She applied for scholarship after scholarship until she was awarded what she needed to attend Portland State University, where she’s now in her first year studying social work and political science.
She wants to use her education to give back to her community and to have the means to provide for her mother.
One day she might open a nonprofit that helps domestic violence victims, she said. In the meantime, she has an internship at Causa, where her supervisor, Cristina Marquez, said she’s been an “incredible community leader” who’s “fearless in sharing her story.”
In other ways, however, Fátima is the typical American teenager. She likes getting her coffee at Starbucks and eating hamburgers. Outside of school, she plays soccer and volleyball, and she said she loves listening to Bruno Mars and Beyoncé – she really likes Beyoncé.
She said there are only 80 Dreamers enrolled at PSU – a school of more than 27,000 students.
“The rest, where are they?” she asked rhetorically. “They’re working. They are providing for their families. They are scared; they don’t want to come out. I’m given the platform, so I’m willing to speak out for them.”
Joseluis
Joseluis’ mother brought him to Oregon from Tijuana to visit their extended family when he was 3.
“We came as tourists, like most people do, and just overstayed our visa,” he said.
His mother was planning to return to Mexico, but she fell in love with Oregon’s green trees and abundant nature and decided to stay.
“I don’t know if you’ve been to Mexico, but it’s very barren,” he said. “In Tijuana, there are loose dogs everywhere, and random mountains that are just dirt. Even now, every time we are driving around, she just stares out the window and is like, ‘wow this is amazing.’”
Like Fátima, he worries about his mother’s situation as she ages. He said he and his brothers would like to buy her a house one day.
“She’s been cleaning houses since we got here, and now she just works labor jobs,” he said. “She’s not made for those jobs – but it’s all that she has because of her status.”
His mother had a better job in Mexico, working in a government office. But she never returned home because she wanted to see her kids flourish in America, Joseluis said.
“She was sacrificing her youth to raise us into men who can one day be successful. Because of the way Mexico is, it’s very difficult to do something without getting into corrupt politics. It’s pretty dangerous in Tijuana right now, because of all the cartels.”
Growing up, Joseluis said, he didn’t really think about the risk of deportation.
“I was in high school. I was still a kid,” he said, “I was thinking about not wanting to go to class tomorrow.”
He played football in middle school and ran track briefly in high school. But he said it was too expensive for him to continue. Instead he joined the student government, began mentoring freshman students and took lead roles in service clubs.
He said getting involved opened his eyes to many needs in his community, such as how homeless teens needed shoes and many families needed to learn about the paths to citizenship that were open to them. He also became aware of how many Latino families were living paycheck to paycheck, with no investments.
He said with the current political climate, there is a fear deportations could increase at any moment.
If an executive order came down making any minor violation grounds for deportation, he said, because of Oregon’s ban on driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, anyone who drives could be at risk for deportation.
“If they get stopped by the police, they get arrested, and because of Secure Communities, their information is handed over to ICE,” he said. “It’s a fear that we’re living in, because at any point we could get stopped by a police officer for a broken taillight.”
His mother often drives from Salem to Canby and Aurora, where she cleans houses. Being Latina and driving through affluent white neighborhoods has resulted in multiple calls to police over the years, with neighbors reporting her vehicle as suspicious.
With no license, she has been arrested and detained multiple times, he said, and the fines, “they stack up with three kids.”
He recently traveled to Salem to tell lawmakers about his mother’s experiences getting pulled over for being Latina in a white neighborhood in an effort to persuade them to support House Bill 2355, which would require the state to develop a method for recording data on officer-initiated pedestrian and traffic stops.
He was there as a Causa volunteer, along with several mothers who had their small children in tow.
The mothers were lobbying for House Bill 2726, known as “Cover All Kids,” which would extend health care coverage to the more than 17,000 undocumented children who are currently excluded from Oregon Health Plan.
Neither bill has yet come up for a vote.
Fátima said Joseluis motivated her to do well in school and pursue her goals.
“His passion to give back and serve others is inspiring,” she said. “He has a huge heart and always finds a way to make me laugh when I am feeling down or upset about something.”
Today, Joseluis is living in Portland and majoring in communications at Warner Pacific College. He’s also working two jobs, at Unit-ed Parcel Service Inc., which is helping him pay for college, and at Five Guys on the weekends. He still finds time to advocate for immigrant rights.
Despite the political climate and the risks their families face on a day-to-day basis, Fátima, Manuel and Joseluis are focused on the future.
“We made it, right?” Fátima said with a smile.
She still isn’t sure where the money for the rest of her education is coming from, but she seems confident she’ll find a way.
In the meantime, all three are determined to make Oregon a better place for undocumented immigrants through their advocacy work.
They “worked tirelessly” to register their community to vote this past election, said Marquez, advocacy and civic engagement coordinator at Causa. Now she said they are focused on preparing and educating the community about deportations and “against attacks.”
Joseluis said recent marches and protests show that “people’s hearts are in the right place,” but he said the real test of whether Oregon is a place that supports immigrants will come when the driving privileges for undocumented immigrants comes up for a vote again.
He said lawmakers have a chance now to at least give equity to undocumented children by passing Cover All Kids.
While Dreamers have gotten a lot of attention lately, it’s their parents who really need the support of the community right now, Joseluis said.
“I’m an optimist about the future and our generation,” he said, “and if they do deport us, then we’re going to make Mexico amazing.”
Email Street Roots staff reporter Emily Green at emily@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @GreenWrites.