La Familia -- Rafael

Rafael (early 30s as well) is probably less ‘complicated’ than Elsa or Jonathan. Because he’s been awesome all the time since day one. Like Camilla, he exudes this aura of perpetual, genuine happiness. Unlike Camilla, he’s had life experiences that add significant depth to this happiness.

For starters, he never knew his father. And his mother, who worked three jobs to support the family, died when he was 12. The guardians he had from there were mostly his friends. Friends who arranged for him to go to the morgue and identify another friend’s (fake) dead body, friends who introduced him to crack cocaine. He managed to avoid jail, unlike many of his friends, but stayed in a pretty low place all through his teens.

The two main things that lifted him out of these depths were Elsa and Jesus. He and Elsa got married at 19 and 20. He and Jesus met at roughly the same time. Both gave him strength, direction, purpose. Both helped him turn his life around.

Nevertheless, he continued to face challenges. He had to find work, he had to support a family – and do both in a place that wasn’t very hospitable towards either. People always call Oaxaca tranquilo. It is, for the most part, a term of endearment: free of the crime and bustle of a place like Mexico City. It’s tranquil for a reason, though: there aren’t very many jobs. And there is a good deal of poverty. For the first six years Rafael and Elsa were married, he, she, and the three young kids lived in two rooms of Elsa’s mother’s house. He tried to find jobs that would utilize his considerable artistic skills, but the only things that were really available were scattered construction jobs. So he took those. They weren’t much, but they allowed he and Elsa to buy their own house in Esquipulas.

The immediate problem there, however, was it was less a house than a plot of overrun grass with a crooked canopy roof in the middle. So for the first few weeks they were there the family slept huddled under the roof, individual blankets on individual patches of grass. A bathroom obviously didn’t come with the deed, so they used the one that Niños Unidos had across the street until they could build their own.

Little by little, though, they built up the house. Four metal walls made a kitchen; a few granite slabs made a kitchen floor. They gradually brought over furniture from their old rooms; local relatives pitched it the rest. A few months in, they basically had everything they do now: a kitchen, a bathroom, two curtain-divided bedrooms, a den with a TV and DVD player, and a garage for storage. Certainly a respectable house.

Not wholly satisfying for Rafael, though. I find warm bucket baths refreshing, but as he has said, there’s something to be said about indoor plumbing. Being able to knock out your kitchen wall with three swings of a hammer is convenient when you’re moving furniture, but some people yearn for a more sturdy foundation. Unfortunately, as of now, Rafael and his family don’t have that foundation. Morally and emotionally they certainly do, but otherwise they pretty much live from paycheck to paycheck. Which, given the job-to-job nature of Rafael’s recent work -- painting company logos on the sides of buildings -- doesn’t offer a lot of stability. Or many opportunities for creativity. There are virtually no non-school books in the house; Rafael used to buy paints for him and the kids, but recently they’ve become too expensive.

The thing, that some of you may have guessed, that this is all leading up to is illegal immigration. He is still mulling over the decision, but for two years in the near future, Rafael will probably be an illegal immigrant. He will wait on a corner, hop in a truck, and become one of the millions of Mexicans illegally crossing the border. Try as Sean Hannity and his Minutemen might, Rafael probably will slip through. His water and breadsticks probably will end up at one of our tables.

I’m pretty sure this brings up two questions. (1) Financially, does he really need to come to the US? (2) Since when did being a nice person permit you to break the law?

The second question first: Clearly the border should be secure. Drugs could get through, terrorists could get through, a free-for-all is not a good idea. Having millions of people use social services without paying taxes or being accounted for is also not a good idea – and is probably, in the long run, a far bigger problem. So, in short, it shouldn’t be easy for Rafael to break the law, and he shouldn’t break it to begin with.

That doesn’t mean, however, that he should be demonized for doing so. He poses no threat to anyone, he’s trying to provide for his family, he’s coming back after two years, and I don’t recall a particularly large segment of the U.S. population being composed of unemployed Caucasian busboys.

As to whether he really needs to come to the US (what about the DVD player? what about the DVD player?), the answer is probably no. The DVD player is misleading because it’s a pirated DVD player – virtually the only affordable kind in Oaxaca – but he and his family could certainly get by. He doesn’t know what his next job will be, but he could get something and they could get by.

The point is, though, he doesn’t want to “get by.” He wants more for his family. He wants to be able to buy books or a paint set. He wants a greater sense of accomplishment at the end of the month than “I held our heads above water.” And the fact is, two years of US wages could help him realize that dream. When he has a job, he works seven days a week, but the wages here really are low. There is not much money to go around. Whereas everyone who’s spent a year or two in the US has said, there’s a lot of money to go around there.

I mentioned the Bush Temporary Worker program to Rafael and he was extremely interested. Obviously there are a lot of advantages to going legally: greater privileges within the US, no fear of deportation, no fear of retribution, not actually breaking the law. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any actual applications for the program online. The only thing that has consistently shown up is the transcript of Bush’s speech about the Temporary Worker program. So, I assume, as of now, it’s not an actual, functioning program. The other option Rafael brought up was applying through the Mexican government. He said, however, that this is not option because the application process is, like the Mexican government, extremely slow, extremely expensive, and corrupt.

Thus, when it boils down to it, unless he or I find a more concrete Temporary Worker plan, Rafael will illegally cross the border in the near future. He won’t want to leave his family, he won’t want to break the law, but that’s what he will do.