Border Street: Dreams percolate while they dodge deportation

By Tina Griego, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Baby Citizen, the child of Maria the elder and her husband, has grown fat and cheerful. He sits grinning, a warm corn tortilla mashed in a chubby fist, in the new apartment where his parents have moved - the third home of his short life - while his parents discuss the pros and cons of Maria's return to work.

Had it not been for the phone call, this conversation likely would have been postponed for at least three more months when Baby Citizen turns 1. Maria the elder's husband wanted her to be home with the baby at least that long. In the meantime, the law changed in Colorado. That left her return to work in further doubt since bosses now are supposed to check as best they can that their new hires are here legally.

Maria the elder hasn't been a legal resident since the day she crossed the desert into Arizona in 2001. Her husband isn't here legally, either. Not that he's particularly worried. He has a valid Social Security number, assigned to him when that agency was more focused on making sure workers paid into the system than on what their legal status might be.

"It's my name and my number, so no problem," he says. The same flaw in the system could allow his mother, the Mexican grandma, to slip past undetected, as well as Maria the Other, though when she tried to replace her lost Social Security card - please, she pleaded with the woman at the local office - the answer was no. I can't help you, the clerk said.

The new law got off to a shaky start in January, what with questions about affidavits and federal databases and what defines a good faith effort and what will enforcement look like when there are tens of thousands of businesses in the state and responsibility for audits will fall largely upon four people who haven't been hired yet.

Maria the elder says her mom's boss went to meetings and complained about the law and said, "I can't do this. My business will fall apart. I need these workers."

"Oooh," Maria the elder says, her eyes widening. "Nobody who works with my mom has papers. Maybe three people."

Still, ripples have been felt. There are reports of people leaving for other states. Maria the elder's husband says that when he asked his foreman if he had any work for his friends, the foreman said: "Not now, but when I do, I will have to ask them for their papers." Technically, the foreman is only allowed to make this request after a job offer has been accepted.

On Border Street, the Fast-Food Worker Wife took a second job in December, partly out of concern that no one would hire her after January. Down the street, Maria the Other says her sister is petrified that her bosses are going to question her, though the law applies only to new hires. "She thinks it's only a matter of time," Maria the Other says.

But most of the Mexican workers on Border Street just shrug and say, no, I haven't heard anything. No, no one has said anything to me. And the Construction Worker, using a fake Social Security number, was hired this month on a new job.

All of this discussion might have remained outside Maria the elder's consciousness had not her former boss called this week.

Can you come back? We really need you.

This was not the first time one of her former bosses beckoned. Maria is good with customers, good-natured and beautiful and, most important to them, bilingual.

I don't have papers, Maria told her old boss. Not even a fake number.

Don't worry, Maria says the boss told her. I'll use the one we have for you on file.

"I don't know if I'm going back," Maria says. She is sitting on the floor in their new apartment, which is bright and clean, a three-bedroom they share with four others, including a cousin who sleeps on the floor.

"I really don't want you to go back," Maria the elder's husband says. "But, if you do, your pay can go to rent and we can save most of mine." He says he's earning $15 an hour in construction.

"I won't make that much," Maria says. "Maybe $8.25 an hour, but our share of the rent is like $270. So, I could pay that."

Her husband says his mother could take care of the baby. He'd pay his mom, so she could earn a little money, too. He says with their savings, they could return to Mexico. He doesn't really want to, he says, but Maria does. She has wanted to go back for a long time. She feels isolated here, connected to little else but her family. What do you think the gringos do when they come home and never come back outside, she asked her husband. Watch TV, he said.

His cousin, the one living with them, just sent his wife and two children back to Jalisco after seven years in the U.S. They are going to start our home, the cousin says. I'll go back in December.

Maria the elder's husband says his mom has some property in San Esteban and plans to sell it. She'll help us and if we save money for a year, we could buy a little farm, he says. Not in San Esteban. Somewhere closer to Guadalajara.

Oh, Maria the elder says, beaming, the baby would love that. He loves animals. We could have chickens and a horse.

I like it here, her husband says, but I want my own place, my own property, my own stuff, a full life instead of part of one.

griegot@RockyMountainNews.com