Two Worlds, One Journey: Embracing Duality (eBook)

Fernando Guzman (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
208 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-8489-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Our world is, each day, getting smaller and more complex. Globalism and technology made this a reality. People now, more than ever, live in pluralist societies where citizens must learn to coexist and adapt if they wish to strive and survive. Inequality and poverty have not changed at all. On the contrary, they continue to expand throughout the world with haste. They reign with more emphasis in certain areas, forcing millions of people to take drastic measures and venture into unknown worlds in search of an opportunity for a better life, always hoping to survive. Some make it to the promised land, strive, and adapt; others get lost in the transition, lose their identity, and their hopes dwell in limbo. This is the story of one of those families that left the world they knew and embarked on a journey of self-discovery. This is the story of Max and Bella and their ultimate sacrifice in efforts to solidify family unity and rescue their children from losing their identities as they struggle to adapt to the norms of contemporary societies. This is the story of a journey where unconditional love for family, and God guides their difficult decisions regardless of the outcome, for not everything in this world is perfect and every decision must be calculated just like in the game of kings, Chess!

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Textauszug

2

THE BORDER

After a couple of minutes of self-reflection and realizing that he had not yet revealed his complicated plan to Bella, Max decided to make the first move.

“We sacrificed a lot, Bella,” said Max, gently holding and caressing her right hand. “We have dedicated our entire lives to working diligently, trying to make sure we survive and give our boys a better chance. We work hard to shelter them from the misery that accompanies people living in poverty. Look at my hands. Look at your hands! They’re scarred from the abuse we have put them through.”

“I am not ashamed of them. I have no regrets,” replied Bella.

“I am sure of it. You left your family and loved ones for me and our dream to secure a better future together with our own family, but I know it has been twice as hard for you. I hope that it all has been worth it.”

“Max, I am happy to be here with you. I knew back then we would face many obstacles to get here where we are today, but God has been good to us. We are here. We have two healthy boys, good jobs, our health, and this beautiful home. What else could we possibly ask for? It has been a long, difficult journey, but we embarked on it together with firm steps, love, and respect. Haven’t we?”

“Yes, we have, Bella. Having you at my side has made our journey a lot easier. You are a blessing in my life, and there is no doubt in my mind that I could not have gone this far without you. I just hope that it has all been worth it. We were so young when we left our loved ones and our village.”

“Indeed, we were young, but we had no choice. We had to leave to escape the grip of poverty.”

“Hearing and seeing Jose today so defeated and frustrated pained me inside. We have been friends since we were little kids, and we have been through so much together. Both of us left our village and loved ones when we decided to come to this country. Both of us tried to cross the border together. I still remember the day Jose and I were caught by the thugs the first time we ever tried to cross the border. Remember when I left our village? Did I ever tell you what happened to us?”

“Hmm yes, I remember the agonizing days without you when you left, but I don’t recall you ever telling me what happened to you,” replied Bella with a slight quirk on her lips. She had heard his story many times before, but for some reason she loved hearing it again and again. Besides, every time Max recalled those days, he always added new details to his narrative, and Bella loved to hear him reminiscing about the past.

Max eagerly settled into his chair and began to narrate his experiences trying to cross the border through the Otay Mountain Wilderness.

Our journey began 21 years ago on September 28, 1987, the day after our Señor del Encino arrived in our village. That was the day we decided to leave our village and our loved ones. Initially, we had planned to leave earlier that month, but we concluded that we could not leave without our Lord’s blessing, so we decided to wait for His procession from Ocotes de Moya to Yahualica. I remember how difficult it was to decide to finally leave everything behind, but our situation in the village got more difficult and unbearable as the years went by. We always worked hard for long hours, but it wasn’t enough to eat well, dress properly, or sustain our families. Misery was never far away in our homes, and it became an unwelcome, uninvited friend. Like many others in our village, we decided to leave with hopes of finding a better life and seeking shelter from the cruel poverty that had grasped our community for so many years.

Listening to Max opening his story by highlighting details from their village prompted Bella to lean back on her chair to get comfortable. For a moment, vivid images of the adobe hut and the small garden she grew up in materialized in her mind. She could almost hear the birds singing triumphantly throughout the day, and she could almost smell the scent of the bougainvillea flowers in the early morning, inviting her to rise from her bed full of energy and motivation. When she remembered those days with love and affection, she could not control her emotions. Mixed feelings of joy and sadness invaded her inner soul, which caused her eyes to tear up and a couple of subtle tears flowed from her eyes down toward her cheeks. Such was the passion in Max’s storytelling that every time he did it, he prompted her to travel in time with him. Perhaps that is why she did not mind him telling the story over and over again, and she always listened attentively.

We arrived in Tijuana three days later. The bus ride was very uncomfortable, and those days seemed like an eternity. We got there with high hopes, and we thought that crossing the border was going to be easy. Nobody ever warned us about the nightmare yet to come. All we knew about the ordeal was based on what people in our village had said about it. They all talked about how easy it was to make money in the U.S.A., but for some reason, no one ever mentioned how hard it was to get there. And if they mentioned it, I am sure that the need to survive and the part about making a lot of money surely made the warnings about the journey’s hardships and logistics easy to ignore. We were blinded by the idea of having the opportunity to reach this famous dream that people kept talking about and how it was possible to succeed in a land of plenty, but I don’t remember anyone mentioning that hundreds of people died each year trying to reach this dream.

At that time, we both dreamed of a better life and more opportunities to survive. We wanted to break the vicious circle of poverty we had inherited from the day we were born. I am sure you can relate to that, Bella. We wanted to escape a system specifically designed to pin us down in misery and desperation. We were tired of the corrupt system full of injustice and disregard for the lives of the poor. That unjust system forced us, among many others, to aim our sights up north, to the U.S.A., away from our loved ones in search of opportunity. We knew it was possible since many of our elders had done it before, and they persevered in the land of the rich and plenty.

Jose turned twenty-five years old in the fall of 1987, and I was twenty-one. We were both young, but we were eager to make the move to Tijuana, a complicated place where everything was wild, and everything was possible. We knew that thousands of people congregated there for multiple purposes. Many of them arrived there from all over the world with the same hopes of making it to the U.S.A., and plenty of them were forced to return to their homes after they failed in their mission to cross the border. Some went there for profit. Tijuana had a government structure, police officers, politicians, and laws, but the real people in charge of running Tijuana had turned it into a place where everything was possible. With the right money, even humans were for sale there. Jose and I arrived in this jungle not knowing a single person and with little money to survive. Among our most valuable possessions, we each had a beautiful image of our Señor del Encino for faith and a piece of paper with a phone number and the name Esteban, the smuggler who was supposed to welcome us into Tijuana and who had planned the logistics to cross us to the U.S.A.

Smugglers, also referred to as coyotes, were quite popular in Tijuana in those days. They oversaw the logistics, transportation, and crossing of thousands of desperate people who left their homes in search of a better life. Ironically, these men represented hope and opportunity for immigrants even though they were cunning and deceiving. Their expertise revolved around human trafficking, and they were the typical con artists, always looking for ways to take advantage of the desperate. Dealing with them was no different than cutting a deal with the devil. They had no conscience, no remorse. To them, their clients were nothing but pollos, chicken, to get from one place to another for the sake of profit. That’s how their nickname “coyotes” derived from the traditional stereotypical idea that coyotes are always after chickens. These men and women knew the desert, mountains, and trails like the palms of their hands, and they were able to navigate through the harsh terrain to cross the border as easily as possible. They were able to easily track the fresh meat arriving at Tijuana with high hopes, but desperate, vulnerable, and in need of their services. Jose and I landed in the hands of these men without having the slightest idea of the horrible journey that awaited us.

Five days after we arrived in Tijuana, we got a message from Esteban, our smuggler. In it, he said our turn was up. He explained to us that he had assembled a group of thirty-two people to cross with us. I remember being in shock because I was expecting Jose and I to go by ourselves. The day we were due to cross the border, the smugglers seemed quite nervous. They kept telling us to pack only a few necessary items and encouraged us to rest throughout the day. We were happy and excited about making the move, but we could never have imagined what lay ahead of us. We were eager to cross the desert and conquer the harsh terrain that separates the two countries, two worlds, and two kinds of people: the haves and the have-nots. Living in the slums of Tijuana became unbearable after only five days of our arrival. We were so naïve. We ran out of money quickly, and our desperation made us certain that crossing the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 23.11.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-8489-7 / 9798350984897