Last summer in Phoenix, a young woman, the wife of an undocumented immigrant, handed me this plate. As you can see, the plate is embossed with this Kodak-perfect whimsical marine scene. Dolphins cavort. Eels slither. Fish jump.
It’s a happy plate.
The young woman was not happy. She and her husband, who had a fatal disease, were about to make a life-and-death gamble.
They were going to deport themselves to Mexico to maybe save his life.
Emphasis on the word “maybe.”
They didn’t have room in their baggage for the plate, one of their most prized possessions.
They wanted me to have it.
“I’ll keep it for you until you return,” I chirped.
Of course, we both knew we might not ever see each other again.
I can’t tell you more about the woman right now, because she and her husband take up an entire chapter in my nonfiction book, ILLEGAL, which will be published later this year by Lyons Press, which is a division of Globe Pequot Press. I can’t tell you a lot about the real-life characters in the book until the book comes out. What I can tell you is that most of my book characters are undocumented immigrants. I’ve recorded some of their stories on video and in photos and I’ll post all that when the book debuts.
Until then, I’ll blog about the news events that impact the lives of undocumented immigrants.
Or I’ll blog about leavings, treasures, artifacts, recuerdos of the year I’ve spent getting to know the people in the shadows.
Like the happy dolphin plate. It couldn’t have cost more than a few bucks.
To the immigrant family that owned it, though, it was a treasure.
As the temporary steward of this recuerdo, I put it on my office shelf.
Every now and then I pick it up and stare at it. Cavorting dolphins notwithstanding, it reminds me of the sorrows and struggles of undocumented immigrants toughing it out in Ground Zero for the Immigration Debate–Phoenix–in 2010.
What a beautiful bittersweet anecdote. It captures all the fragile hopes.
This is a poignant and insightful blog, depicting the life of the illegal immigrant in Phoenix. Sometimes, mementos, or recuerdos, are all they have to remember a life that they have left behind and a life here that is spent hidden in the shadows.