Mexicanos in Oregon: Their Stories, Their Lives

Testimonio by Edith Quiroz Molina

234 Mexicanos in Oregon Testimonio by Edith Quiroz Molina This testimonio consists of excerpts taken from an essay commissioned by the authors for a book on 1.5 and second generation immigrants. When she wrote this, Edith was directing a bilingual employment agency she and her husband founded in Portland after their graduation from Oregon State University. The excerpts were selected and arranged by the authors. The night was clear and peaceful and it was about one or two o’clock in the morning. My mom, my older brothers, and I had been awake for the last thirty minutes. My mother was very nervous. She had awakened us as we were arriving, saying, “Ay, Dios mío! Aquí vamos. Here we go. Evodio, Israel, Edith levéntensen rápido! We are about to cross the border. Qué Dios nos ayude!” she exclaimed and began to pray. My three other siblings kept on sleeping. We looked out curiously through the small windows of the camper and could see and hear my dad talking to the uniformed immigration officers. They would be the first white people I would see in real life. My father proceeded to show his green card to the immigration officer. “OK, what do you have in the back of the truck?” the officer asked my father. “Just my wife and my kids, sir,” replied my confident father in broken English. “OK, open it up, we have to check it,” demanded the officer. “But they are sleeping, sir,” responded my father. “It doesn’t matter. Wake them up. It will only take a couple of minutes,” the officer ordered as he moved quickly to the back of the truck. My father advanced to open the camper and the officer stood right beside him. It must have been a very impressive scene, because his face looked amazed when the door opened and he saw my nervous, frightened-looking mother. She must have looked like the image of the Virgin Mary, slender with fair skin, carrying a baby in her arms wrapped with a chal and surrounded by five other little ones, all of us rubbing our eyes and wondering why this tall person with big blue eyes and blond hair was studying us under the beam of a large flashlight. “Get them out. We need to check the inside,” he ordered. My father looked at him, confused and reluctant to follow the order. It was very cold. The officer quickly stated that it would only take a couple of minutes. My mother covered her baby’s head with her chal and promptly got out with the help of my father, who held her hand, and then one by one he helped all his children out. Immediately after, one of the officers went inside and 235 THEIR STORIES, THEIR LIVES Testimonio: Edith Quiroz Molina checked around, then a dog was thrown inside to check as well. The dog sniffed our stuff and I guess he didn’t find anything other than our smelly socks, because he got out rapidly. The officer looked at all of us, one by one, as we stood in a straight line, shaking from the cold, still rubbing our eyes trying slowly to wake up. He must have felt pity and compassion for my parents, because he instantly informed my father that the search was over and to bring us all back inside the truck before we caught a cold. As soon as I lay down close to my mother, I fell sleep and did not wake up until the sun rose again in the mountains of Arizona. My father stopped at a rest area so we could use the bathroom. Our beat-up truck had made it to the other side. We had made it to the United States of America. That was it. That’s how I entered this country. This experience is unique and very different from those of most of my friends or of the majority of Mexicans who cross the border daily, exposing their lives to danger and death. I had a positive experience crossing the border, which is why I never felt like an illegal immigrant when I was going through high school. I was born in Mexico City and was raised there until my eleventh birthday. I have only happy memories of my childhood, but I barely remember the city, its cars, its stores, neighborhood, parks and schools. Now at age eighteen, I was fully developed into a young woman...