Immigration is a hot-button topic this spring. On May 1, a planned boycott will test the nation as some immigrants will stay home from work and keep their children home from school in a move to show Americans the importance of immigrants to the nation’s economy. Will this boycott succeed in getting Congress to overhaul the immigration policies or will it backfire?
Two University City residents, who came to the United States legally, share their backgrounds and beliefs on the current situation involving illegal immigration and the May 1 boycott.
Judith Alcaraz was born in Tijuana, Mexico, the middle child of five siblings. Her mother had a love for the United States and a love for hard work. She hated laziness. Initially she worked the fields across the border, did outside laundry to help support her children and planned ahead. In 1955, she took out the necessary papers to become a legal resident of the United States, and she secured a job as a waitress in an Old Town restaurant, crossing the border daily and returning to her children in their modest home with a dirt floor, “the cleanest dirt floor” you’d ever see, according to Judy.
By 1958, Judy’s mom informed her husband, who suffered from alcoholism, that she was taking the children to San Diego and he was welcome to come. He opted to stay in Tijuana. With no car, a long bus ride and a long wait for green cards, Judy remembers the rainy night when she and her siblings stood at a bus stop with Mom. Because a landlady canceled a house rental deal when she realized there were five children involved, Judy’s mom had to scramble for housing, which she did. She was a great role model for Judy because she overcame so many odds through hard work and tenacity.
Tijuana schools were more advanced than San Diego schools, according to Judy, but the language barrier was a hurdle Judy had to overcome. Entering Sherman Elementary in April and with the help of an excellent teacher, Judy was conversational in English in two months. No ESL program, just total immersion in English. She excelled in math especially and went on to become an accountant.
“Whenever I hear people couldn’t make it because of lack of education or other issues, I just laugh,” she says. “We were dirt poor in Tijuana with a home the size of this dining room.”
Her mother courageously took on challenges that would seem insurmountable to most of us.
Judy doesn’t think people should participate in the May 1 boycott. She hears her mother’s voice advocating hard work in school and on the job as keys to success.
“People shouldn’t demand what they’re not willing to work for,” she says.
While Judy can see it is more difficult to get a green card today, she opposes amnesty.
“Because illegal immigrants have been here for five or ten years, it doesn’t mean they should automatically become legal citizens ” get in line like everyone else,” she says.
Judy also thinks we need to protect our borders better. With the threat of terrorism, drug smuggling, human trafficking and even puppies being brought across the border, she can’t pinpoint how the borders should be protected, but she sees a critical need. She also believes that guest workers in agriculture would solve a lot of problems.
Judy holds President Vicente Fox responsible for a lot of the problems. “He should do a better job for his constituents,” she says. “I hear my mother’s voice. Mexico never did anything for my mother, and that’s why she wouldn’t go back except to visit, to help out my dad. Her future was in the United States.”
In 1992, Judy’s mom passed away, and the death hit Judy hard. This role model was very tough, a disciplinarian, a strong advocate of going by the law and working hard.
Judy and her husband Ruben met in high school and married at age 20. They have a beautiful home in UC, three grown children, and eight grandchildren. Judy is a professional volunteer at Our Mother of Confidence Church, where she serves on seven committees.
Her mother wasn’t one to go to church that often, but she had a great faith in God and a devotion to His Mother, Our Lady of Guadalupe. She would expect her daughter to be a professional volunteer on seven committees, of course.
Brampton, Ontario in Canada was the hometown Brian Morenz left when he accepted an athletic scholarship to play hockey at the University of Denver. He had an education visa. In his second year of college he got married. After graduation, he moved to the New York area to play hockey. At that time he applied for a green card, and his wife was his sponsor. It took a trip back to Canada and some waiting period. He moved to San Diego to play for the San Diego Mariners in 1975.
“I came here legally, as did all my friends,” Morenz says.
As an employer, he thinks the work world here is not a fair playing field, as the saying goes.
“For example, in the business of sweeping shopping centers, I know an employee who recently worked for an employer who pays fair wages, workman’s comp, insurance, etc.,” he relates. “This employee left and started his own business. Only he hired illegals and never paid fairly. He was able to undercut job bids and take work away from his former employer [who was] playing by the rules. This new employer should be fined, but the government isn’t enforcing the laws on the books. Who can compete against him?”
In regard to the border, Morenz is adamant about tightening the southern borders. He thinks a barbed wire fence 20 feet high with an electric current should be built from here to Florida. “Take half the money we’re spending in Iraq and you could build 10 fences,” he says. “President Fox should take some responsibility for the economy that produces only the very wealthy and very poor with no middle class. May 1 boycott is absolutely breaking the law.”
It’s not that he isn’t sympathetic to some illegals taken advantage of by employers. They are mistreated because they can’t run to the police. However, he resents illegal immigrants draining social services, like hospitals, here, while some legal American citizens are living on the street, can’t get insurance and are invisible to politicians.
Morenz, the father of two grown sons and two grandchildren, realizes he didn’t have to overcome a language barrier in the United States, but like Alcaraz, he thinks you learn the language of the land, work hard and obey the laws.