I felt that having to interview someone about their migration story was like asking them to share their darkest secret with me.  Being an immigrant myself, I know that such information is extremely personal but at the same time you want everybody to be aware of what you been through.  Also, because I’m an immigrant, I happen to know many immigrants.  I decided to interview a very close family member.  The interviewee asked to be called Antonio Garcia, because he does not want to be identified.  I conducted the interview on a Sunday afternoon at his house.  He has a small place but well kept and traditionally decorated.  I’m going to report the interview from the migrant’s point of view.

Interview was conducted in Spanish

            I was born in Mexico City on June 20th 1964.  At a young age I found out that the opportunities for me and my family to succeed were minimal.  In the city, work is scarce; so when a job becomes available hundreds of workers show up for the work.  For example, I’m a painter, so when there was a painting job I would show up along with about 60 other guys.  Therefore, the job would go to the lowest bidder.  That’s one reason why the wages are suppressed in Mexico.  Whenever I was able to find a job, I would usually get paid 100 pesos a day.  However out of those 100 pesos I would spend 10 on the bus and 20 on lunch.  I was left with 70 pesos for my family.  Tortillas and eggs use to cost about 10 for a kilo of each, so I was left with nothing.

My family was not supportive of me.  They were financially stable so they had the means to help but they never did.  I was young and impressionable so I developed a certain hatred for them.  So, without family support and without a proper education (I left school in 6th grade), I was left with little options. I thought about leaving the city and going to a rural part of Mexico.  However, outside the city there is nothing to do besides fieldwork, and unfortunately for me I knew nothing about fieldwork.

Around 1987 my sister-in-law Luz became involved with a guy named Carlos.  He was a young Guatemalan on his was to California, where he had family.  We got to know each other very well and soon started talking about the chance of me going with him to the U.S.  My wife encouraged it because she had wanted to leave the City for a long time. I had left once to the North, so the idea was not new to me.  However, the possibilities of succeeding were better now with my new brother in-law because he already had family in the United States.  So I decided to leave my young wife and kids behind to pursue a better life, not just financially but also opportunity wise.  Unfortunately my country, Mexico, did not offer any opportunities.  I wanted my kids to have a future.  I didn’t want them to end up living my life

We made arrangements and were able to buy train tickets to Nogales, where we were going to work as painters with other family members that had recently left.  I remember that we only had enough money for the train ticket and no money for food or anything else, but we decided to leave anyways.  Once we arrived in Nogales, we found out that the company we were supposed to work with had folded, so we were left without a job.  After that, we traveled to Tijuana which because it was closer to California.  While we were in Tijuana, I remember Carlos calling his brother and asking him to help us out.  Carlos asked him to pay for the Coyotes to get us across.  At first his brother agreed to pay for both of us, but when the Coyotes asked for the money he only received money for Carlos.  Carlos said he was willing to stay in Tijuana with me until we found a way to cross, but I told him no.  I told him that he needed to go and if he could in the future to help me then.

After Carlos left, I was alone in Tijuana.  I started to look around and realized that there were more and better jobs here than in Mexico City.  I called my wife and told her about the opportunities that were available in Tijuana.  She told me to stay and that she would soon move with the kids.

So, we found ourselves making a living in Tijuana.  For a while it was working out.  I had a good job and my kids were going to school.  However, I was young and inexperienced, so I decided to quit my job in order to start my own business, but I knew nothing about business.  I wanted to start a pig farm, so I bought some pigs.  The pigs ended up not having babies (because the male was too young) so I killed them both and made carnitas out of them.  I tried other businesses but nothing worked out and often found myself without any money.

One day my oldest son came and asked me to buy him a typewriter that was required for his high school classes.  I realized that I had no money to buy it for him (I ended up buying after selling a couple of things) and I started thinking.  I began to think about my two younger son and that soon they would be going to high school and there would be no way of me to pay for all of their school fees and school supplies.  Luckily for me around the same time Carlos came back from the U.S. to visits us.  He felt that he owed me a favor, so gave me two options.  He would either give me $1500 dollars to start my own business, or that we would help me cross into the U.S.  I remember telling him that I would need at least $10000 to start my own business and he got really angry, because I was telling him that $1500 was not enough money when I didn’t even have $10 dollars in my pocket.  So, after we did the math, my wife and I decided that it would be to our and our children’s bets interest to move to the U.S., mainly so that our children could get a proper education.

Crossing the border is not like it used to be, it was a lot easier.  I remember deciding to cross through the airport, after two ours of scouting for a place to cross.  So, I walked across the ‘border’ (it was only three little wires) and jumped into Carlos’ truck.  After that, it was only a couple of hours drive to Ontario, California, where Carlos and his family lived.  After a couple of days in Ontario, I was able to find a job as a cook.  The job paid well enough that I was able to bring my family across within 3 months. 

It took some getting used to, but life was immediately better here.  What surprised me the most was the cleanliness of the cities.  I was used to the dirtiness of the big cities in Mexico.  Also, the number of Mexicans that were already here surprised me.  Another noticeable difference was gender equality.  Unfortunately, for us Mexican, the Mexican machismo is world-renowned.  I was surprised by the gender equality but I welcomed the change.  I have been the victim of racism, but I understand that racism exist all over the world because there is ignorance all over the world.  However, it hurts me very much when it comes from my own race.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of racism between Hispanics, mainly because there are many differences, physical and social, within our race.  But my overall migration has been a good one, I guess if you ask me if I would do it again, I would have to say, with pleasure.