Undocumented Parenting: The Talk

My son balls his hand into a fist. “I will punch the border patrol so they won’t take you mom.” Then he cries into my shoulder.

My son is sitting on the trampoline. He has put on his noise cancelling headphones. He sits in a lotus position. His eyes are closed. He’s breathing deep and slow. My daughter is crying on my lap. The Google Earth map on my laptop terrifies her. “I don’t want to talk about borders, it's scary.” She sobs into her hands.

I have gathered my kids outside to talk to them about my undocumented status and the criminalization of my body. I am dysregulated and exhausted. I can feel how impatient I am being with them but I just want to get this conversation over with. The sun is warm on our backs and there is a soft breeze. We watch a few birds fly into the lime tree. I ask them what they remember about our last discussion of borders. I tell them that this conversation will be more difficult than the last but that it is important that we have it.

I read La Frontera: El Viaje con papá ~ My Journey with Papa. We discuss borders again, we talk about border patrol agents, we talk about the laws criminalizing my body. Their dad and I hold back tears, the children cry into our chests. My son balls his hand into a fist. “I will punch the border patrol so they won’t take you mom.” Then he cries into my shoulder.

The world becomes a tight fist in my belly, a huddle of warm bodies surrounding me. Their tears could form a moat around us. Shelter us. Keep us safe. They try to place these concepts into simple boxes, Good or Bad. Why are we brown? Why don’t they like us? We tell them they are Mexican, children of an immigrant and that they should be proud. We tell them our culture is beautiful. We tell them that there is nothing wrong with us. The laws are wrong.

At bedtime my son yells from the bathroom, “You’re a citizen now mom. There. You don’t have to worry now.”

Propina: Free know-your-rights stickers and La Cuenta Pop-up

As we mentioned last week, we spent part of a book promotion budget printing out know-your-rights stickers in English and Spanish. We will start mailing these out in the next few days. If you would like a few (for free!), let us know where to mail them here.

And a reminder that if you are in Mesa, AZ this weekend, we’d love to see you at the La Cuenta pop-up.

We’ll see you next week.