Homelands by Alfredo Corchado

Author:Alfredo Corchado
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

SECTION IV

Uneasy Neighbors

14.

Heartache Heartland

Angela and I set off in a rental car across the United States to become more familiar with a changing country. We were officially an item. I thought I had it all figured out. On New Year’s Eve in Dallas, I took out a ring I had picked out back in El Paso. She looked at it, surprised. She didn’t say no. She just said she needed more time.

We raced across the Midwest, giving us much-needed time together and doing what we both loved: journalism.

As it had when I first found Mexicans in rural Pennsylvania, the sound of accordion-laced Mexican conjunto music blaring from car radios in “white” towns still surprised me, but never like the first time. Our journey commenced in Oregon, and weeks later we resumed the trip in Nebraska, Iowa, Connecticut, rural Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and finally Texas. The ghosts of history seemed to loom as we saw reminders of a shaky past and hints of an even more uncertain future: the newcomers were no longer single men but families barreling forward with the intention of setting down roots. Vendors peddling tortillas and tacos on the green open roads echoed my memories of California.

Oregon reminded me of the San Joaquin Valley, I told Angela as we drove passed tienditas and tortillerias. We spotted small cafés promoting comidas corridas, or affordable three-course lunches for people on the run, remnants of Mexican culture that had made it to the north. We stumbled upon small Mexicos under construction. Mexicans unofficially named the town of Hillsboro, Oregon, “Palomas” in honor of their hometown in Michoacán.

It’s the California story all over again, she said. Well, I guess it’s more accurate to call it the American story, because it replicates itself across every state.

I remembered my mother’s words: We’re not alone anymore. They’re all here.

Mexicans were leaving their mark on one-stoplight towns from the strawberry valleys of McMinnville, Oregon, to the tobacco fields of Apex, North Carolina. But it wasn’t an easy integration. The resistance toward new Mexican immigrants often came more from other fellow immigrants who worried their presence would drive wages down and reinforce negative stereotypes of being brown.

The tensions in some communities were palpable for other reasons. Angela and I got the feeling that the Mexicans were tolerated but not exactly welcomed. They cared for children and seniors; did the backbreaking work of picking fruits and vegetables; landscaped; worked tough restaurant jobs cooking, cleaning tables, washing dishes—and they did it all with sweet smiles and on the cheap. These were, after all, jobs that white and black Americans didn’t want. But the darker side of immigration wasn’t very far off: like the Italian, Irish and Chinese mafias before them, Mexican criminal organizations were expertly exploiting immigrant networks nationwide to move marijuana, Colombian cocaine and heroin. The vast majority of Mexican immigrants were humble, hardworking people just trying to make a better life for their families; those bad apples exacerbated the tensions toward integration.

My so-called binational correspondent’s job wasn’t so fancy after all.

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