My Border Crossing

Summer 2008

Hello, I'm Rosa.* I'm 17 years old and was born in Guerrero, Mexico.

While studying in high school I met a 35-year-old man whom I considered to be my boyfriend. Little by little, with kind words, promises, sweetness, and other things he was able to convince me to come to this country.

When I decided to leave my home I had the idea that everything would be easy and beautiful, but things didn't go as I expected. My boyfriend told me that he would come for me upon my leaving my dance class. He wanted me to go with nothing but the clothes on my back but I said no so he took me to my house where I left my things and left a note for my mother telling her that I would be fine and not to worry. “I've chosen my path”—were the strong words I left her. I only took a little money, a pair of pants, and a T-shirt, and I started out on my major lesson.

I started my experience on the 7th of November. First I traveled by bus for six hours to Mexico City, where I spent the night. The next day we flew to Tijuana, BC Norte, where I spent 15 days. During those 15 days of staying in Tijuana the only thing that I was thinking was, “Why did I come?” I thought a lot about the pain I had caused my mother and what had been the worst mistake of my life. We were there alone, dirty, only eating scraps twice a day and locked in as if we had been kidnapped.

The first four times that I tried to cross the border were in the trunk of a car with four other people, but each time as we were about to cross the driver went back, saying, “They changed the border guards.” The first time we were closed in the trunk for almost two hours and there wasn't much air. I ended up dehydrated. Since we weren't able to cross by car, we decided to change smugglers.

Here they told us that we would be walking through the hills—“Only 30 minutes”—and we accepted. The next day they took us to Tecate and we passed through a hole in the ground under the sheet metal barrier that divides the border. On the other side there was a highway and not all of us had passed through when they started to yell, “Hurry up! The Border Patrol is coming!” They made us run barefoot, supposedly so that we wouldn't leave shoe prints, and those that remained were brushed away with a branch. We had passed through the hole lying down, dragging ourselves in the dirt, the hole being about one meter in diameter. We ran about 200 meters and they hid us under a trailer, where a blue van arrived and piled us in bunched together. In the van we were lying down one on top of the other, packed in like a baby in the womb. Later they left us in the desert and we started to walk and walk for more than 15 hours. There were snakes, plants with thorns, and we climbed many high hills—here I understood how hard it is to be a mountain climber. During the 15 hours of that long trek many things passed through my mind as if this were a movie. Parts of my life passed through my mind—sad times, happy times, worried times—but the thing that mattered to me most was: “Is this the end?” “Will I die here?” These were my most frequent thoughts.

We passed close to a prison where we were almost caught, and later they made us wait for a ride, hidden in the thorny brush at around 4:00 a.m. It was very cold and we hadn't eaten anything, and we had no water.

About two hours later the famous ride arrived and took us to San Diego where we remained until about 10:00 a.m. when they brought us to Anaheim. Here they kept us until someone arrived to claim us. A friend of my boyfriend came for us and had to pay smugglers $6,000 for both of us.

Now that we were here my boyfriend took me to Victorville where the dream ended. There he kept me locked in a room in a garage where I only had two blankets, and he kept me far from everything. I couldn't leave the room. I couldn't even use the telephone except when he was present, and we had relations even though I didn't want to. He threatened to do something to my brothers or my mother if I told anyone how he was treating me, until one day I sneaked a call to my brother and told him what was happening. That is how I was able to escape from this nightmare.

I came to stay with an uncle, but two weeks later my boyfriend came to take me back by force, but with the help of the police I was able to leave him and they took me to a shelter where my uncle was able to help me and finally become my legal guardian. Now I have my 2-month-old son and I am studying but I depend on my uncle and aunt and on the courts until I am 18 years old.

Through the legal proceedings the social worker informed me that my ex-boyfriend was in prison for drug smuggling and running a drug lab, and that he has a family in Guerrero and has been deported. After this big lesson I hope to overcome the trauma and teach my son about the chaos of life, to be able to get him ahead in life, and to find my inner peace.

—Rosa, 20 November 2006

P.S. Always smile, even when it might not be the correct thing to do!

* The student's name has been changed.

Summer 2008