Part Five: Strangers in a strange place
In Part Five of A Home For Brissa, traveling to Mexico brings back memories for the girl from Acapulco and opens her mother's eyes to a whole new world.
BY CINDY LANGE-KUBICK | Lincoln Journal Star
EL PASO, Texas — Piles of paper cover the beds in Room 210 like stacks of folded laundry waiting to be put away.
On one hotel bed, Jason Placek counts $20 bills. The consulate across the border in Juarez takes only cash, and he wants to make sure they have enough.
Brissa and Jessica check forms off a list.
The family that has traveled so far has heard the stories. Of applicants turned away because a document is out of order. Because a name is spelled wrong. Because the staples are removed from a medical report.
When their plane floated over West Texas four days ago, the mother and daughter peered out the window. First a vast brown nothingness and then a flat city, stretching as far as they could see.
The next morning they held hands crossing the Mexican border in the back seat of a dusty Ford Taurus. And they held their breath that night crossing back into the United States.
Jessica pushes the window open to let the Chihuahua desert breeze wash away the smell of carpet cleaner.
But she can’t wash away the fear. In less than 24 hours, she will have an answer. Either a slip of paper that says her daughter can come home for good, or news she can’t bear to hear.
Nacho will pick them up after lunch.
Ignacio “Nacho” Mauricio is their guide, the answer to the e-mail prayer Jessica sent before the trip. A neighbor in Wilber contacted her brother, who owns a concrete company in Colorado. One of his employees, Nacho, had a sister in Juarez.
He would give Nacho time off to travel from Colorado to El Paso to help.
Yesterday, they spent the day at his sister Lupe’s house, learning to make tamales.
Tonight, they will sleep there. Their appointment is at 7:30 a.m. The consulate in Juarez is one of the busiest in the world; more than 450 people from all over Mexico have appointments Monday.
The line will begin forming before dawn.
Nacho pulls up, and they pile suitcases and Pepsi in the trunk. Brissa stares out the cracked windshield, pushing buttons on the radio, as Nacho drives down Abraham Lincoln Avenue into Juarez.
Bienvenidos a Mexico.
Welcome to Mexico.
Salsa music plays as they zip past funeral parlors and porn shops, a pale pink hospital and gated mansions, bars on every window.
At stoplights, men in straw hats approach, selling cigarettes and newspapers, paintings of the pope and yellow puppet chickens.
This is not how it is in America, Jessica says.
“Instead of just standing on the street corner, they’re working.”
Nacho steers off a busy four-lane street. His sister’s house is behind a tall wire fence. The low concrete home forms a U shape with two others. Lupe’s mother-in-law lives in one, her brother-in-law and his family in the other.
They share a dirt courtyard. Rebar sticks up like lightning rods from the rooftops, in case they ever have the money to add a bedroom.
The guests from Nebraska wipe their feet on a damp mop by the kitchen door.
Their hosts don’t speak English.
Jessica and Jason know no Spanish.
“Ask Lupe how I can help,” Jessica tells Brissa, while Nacho’s sister stirs a pan of frijoles.
Le puede ayudar?
Brissa is embarrassed. Her Spanish is stilted. But it is coming back. Everything here reminds her of her old world. Bottles of creamy yellow Mexican eggnog she once drank at funerals. The smell of a eucalyptus tree. Grilled corn husks wrapped around moist tamales.
Still, a feeling grows the longer she is here. She doesn’t belong anymore. This isn’t home.
The day grows warm and a soccer game — Chivas vs. Jaguares —plays on the TV in the pink bedroom off the cramped kitchen.
Crowing roosters in the courtyard compete with the burps of city buses idling outside.
Women disappear off those buses, Lupe tells Jessica. Hundreds murdered in the past four years, many of them found in the fields ringing the American factories on the outskirts of town.
She won’t send her daughter to school. She does not go to work.
Her husband is in Colorado with a temporary work permit, and even if he had a permanent visa, it might take 10 years for him to send for his family. That’s how far the system is backed up.
When she gets home, Jessica will write U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel’s office, looking for a way to help Lupe.
This isn’t right, she will say. These are good people.
Dancing in the dust
The sky turns pink. Nacho grills strips of beef and piles a clay pot high with carne asada. His mother brings out warm tortillas and chunky guacamole.
The Placeks eat their fill.
Lupe’s brother-in-law opens the doors of his battered gray Nissan and music pours into the courtyard.
Si tiene Los Bukis? Brissa asks.
Si.
She has no memories of her father, but she knows he loved this music.
And this music makes her happy. She dances in the dust.
Later in the pink bedroom, she cries. She just wants it to be over.
She just wants to go home.
Next: The day is here. Will Brissa be granted a visa? Or will all her mother’s work be for nothing?
BY CINDY LANGE-KUBICK | Lincoln Journal Star
EL PASO, Texas — Piles of paper cover the beds in Room 210 like stacks of folded laundry waiting to be put away.
On one hotel bed, Jason Placek counts $20 bills. The consulate across the border in Juarez takes only cash, and he wants to make sure they have enough.
Brissa and Jessica check forms off a list.
The family that has traveled so far has heard the stories. Of applicants turned away because a document is out of order. Because a name is spelled wrong. Because the staples are removed from a medical report.
When their plane floated over West Texas four days ago, the mother and daughter peered out the window. First a vast brown nothingness and then a flat city, stretching as far as they could see.
The next morning they held hands crossing the Mexican border in the back seat of a dusty Ford Taurus. And they held their breath that night crossing back into the United States.
Jessica pushes the window open to let the Chihuahua desert breeze wash away the smell of carpet cleaner.
But she can’t wash away the fear. In less than 24 hours, she will have an answer. Either a slip of paper that says her daughter can come home for good, or news she can’t bear to hear.
Nacho will pick them up after lunch.
Ignacio “Nacho” Mauricio is their guide, the answer to the e-mail prayer Jessica sent before the trip. A neighbor in Wilber contacted her brother, who owns a concrete company in Colorado. One of his employees, Nacho, had a sister in Juarez.
He would give Nacho time off to travel from Colorado to El Paso to help.
Yesterday, they spent the day at his sister Lupe’s house, learning to make tamales.
Tonight, they will sleep there. Their appointment is at 7:30 a.m. The consulate in Juarez is one of the busiest in the world; more than 450 people from all over Mexico have appointments Monday.
The line will begin forming before dawn.
Nacho pulls up, and they pile suitcases and Pepsi in the trunk. Brissa stares out the cracked windshield, pushing buttons on the radio, as Nacho drives down Abraham Lincoln Avenue into Juarez.
Bienvenidos a Mexico.
Welcome to Mexico.
Salsa music plays as they zip past funeral parlors and porn shops, a pale pink hospital and gated mansions, bars on every window.
At stoplights, men in straw hats approach, selling cigarettes and newspapers, paintings of the pope and yellow puppet chickens.
This is not how it is in America, Jessica says.
“Instead of just standing on the street corner, they’re working.”
Nacho steers off a busy four-lane street. His sister’s house is behind a tall wire fence. The low concrete home forms a U shape with two others. Lupe’s mother-in-law lives in one, her brother-in-law and his family in the other.
They share a dirt courtyard. Rebar sticks up like lightning rods from the rooftops, in case they ever have the money to add a bedroom.
The guests from Nebraska wipe their feet on a damp mop by the kitchen door.
Their hosts don’t speak English.
Jessica and Jason know no Spanish.
“Ask Lupe how I can help,” Jessica tells Brissa, while Nacho’s sister stirs a pan of frijoles.
Le puede ayudar?
Brissa is embarrassed. Her Spanish is stilted. But it is coming back. Everything here reminds her of her old world. Bottles of creamy yellow Mexican eggnog she once drank at funerals. The smell of a eucalyptus tree. Grilled corn husks wrapped around moist tamales.
Still, a feeling grows the longer she is here. She doesn’t belong anymore. This isn’t home.
The day grows warm and a soccer game — Chivas vs. Jaguares —plays on the TV in the pink bedroom off the cramped kitchen.
Crowing roosters in the courtyard compete with the burps of city buses idling outside.
Women disappear off those buses, Lupe tells Jessica. Hundreds murdered in the past four years, many of them found in the fields ringing the American factories on the outskirts of town.
She won’t send her daughter to school. She does not go to work.
Her husband is in Colorado with a temporary work permit, and even if he had a permanent visa, it might take 10 years for him to send for his family. That’s how far the system is backed up.
When she gets home, Jessica will write U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel’s office, looking for a way to help Lupe.
This isn’t right, she will say. These are good people.
Dancing in the dust
The sky turns pink. Nacho grills strips of beef and piles a clay pot high with carne asada. His mother brings out warm tortillas and chunky guacamole.
The Placeks eat their fill.
Lupe’s brother-in-law opens the doors of his battered gray Nissan and music pours into the courtyard.
Si tiene Los Bukis? Brissa asks.
Si.
She has no memories of her father, but she knows he loved this music.
And this music makes her happy. She dances in the dust.
Later in the pink bedroom, she cries. She just wants it to be over.
She just wants to go home.
Next: The day is here. Will Brissa be granted a visa? Or will all her mother’s work be for nothing?
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