Cesar |
In Guatemala, I lived with my mother and my five brothers and my sister. For fun I would swim in the river with my brothers. It is my favorite memory of Guatemala. It was fantastic.
When I was a child, I started working when I was six or seven years old, doing hard work with my brothers. It’s different because the kids don’t work here - they go to school. In Guatemala, we only had one teacher for eight or nine classes. Obviously, you don't learn too much when there's only one teacher teaching. It’s not like here because here they give us food. Over there you don't eat anything. You have to just study and study. That's it. The place where I lived was poor. If you wanted to get money, you had to work really, really hard - that's why my father came to the United States first. Then he told us to come here because here was a better life than Guatemala. My father came nine years before I did. He entered the United States through Mexico. The rest of my family didn’t come because it is too dangerous to come: you can die when you try to come. I came to the United States when I was a ninth grader. I came with my brother. My mother and all my family in Guatemala had said goodbye to us. Then we left the town where we were living. We just got to bring what I was wearing on my body: my shoes, my pants, my sweater. That was it. First, we crossed the border between Guatemala and Mexico. It was dangerous, but not too dangerous because we were in our own country. We were traveling city-to-city by bus. Then we arrived in Guatemala City. We met the people who were going to travel with us. We also met the person who was going with us, showing us where to go. Then we walked for three hours in the forest to cross the border of Guatemala and Mexico. We walked at night so nobody could see us. A group of 60 people were traveling with us in a truck trailer. It was very dangerous because the air and the oxygen was something that we were missing. Some people almost died. We were in that truck for 30 hours. Then we arrived at a small house. We were there for one week. We were eating just one time a day. We traveled by bus again in Mexico. We arrived in a small town and walked for one hour. Then we arrived at the train station. We got on the train, which was going slow, like five miles per hour. We were above the train and jumped onto it. It was cold. We were on the train for 25 hours without food. There was a lady with her children who was crying. We were afraid someone would hear us and take us back again. Riding the train was the most dangerous thing that I’ve been through. We were exhausted, but we knew if you fell asleep on top of the train you could die because there are tree branches, and if one tree touches you, you fall and you die. We arrived at another train station. After getting off the train, we went to a house, and we stayed there for 10 days. We were almost on the border between Mexico and the United States. The coyote, the person who shows you where to go, told us to make groups of five people to climb the wall. My brother and I went first. We climbed the wall, and after we climbed the wall we ran as fast as we could. Once we couldn't see the wall we stopped to wait for the coyote. Once everybody crossed the border, we walked for two days in the desert. We had canned food and water. We were almost at the point where other people were waiting for us when we ran out of water and food. I remember that day, we were resting under a rock when a helicopter was flying above us. From the helicopter, they told us not to move. The coyote told us to run if we didn't want it to get caught. We ran as fast as we could. Then Border Patrol was chasing us. We ran and ran but they caught us. We couldn't run anymore because we were tired, exhausted. Once they caught us we went to a Border Patrol station. I was 16 years old, a minor, so I went to a shelter in Texas. My brother was 19, so they told him that he would not stay in this country. They sent him back to Guatemala, and they left me in the shelter. Of the five people we crossed the border with, only two of us were allowed to stay in the United States - me and another minor. I stayed in that shelter for three months without my brother. I was sad for my brother, but it could have been worse. Once I got my ID they told me that I was ready to go to my father. They sent me on an airplane to Minnesota. My father was waiting for me. I was happy because we had done video calls, but it’s not the same as when you’re able to give him a hug. They gave my father some papers, and my father got me food. We came to Pelican Rapids. I came in February, the middle of winter, to Minnesota, and I was surprised by the snow. We don’t have snow in Guatemala. A woman named Ventura, a family-friend, helped us when I got here. She helped with paperwork for migration. She is a very good person. My brother tried to come again, but he got caught. He never made it to the United States. I feel scared sometimes because if ICE tells me that I did something wrong, they can tell me that I have to go back. I don’t want to go back again. What I miss most about Guatemala is my mother. I do video calls every week with her, but I still miss her. It was hard to be in school without my friends from Guatemala. If I had the opportunity to go to Guatemala and then come back, that would be great, but now if I go, I wouldn’t be able to come back. We still have traditions that started in Guatemala. For holidays we make tamales and ponche. During Holy Week, we eat bread with honey. People treated me wonderfully when I came. My friends now make up a diverse group. They’re from Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador, and some of them are from the United States. I like that it is a small town, and I enjoy going to the lake and riding my bicycle. I love Pelican Rapids, maybe too much. *Cesar graduated from Pelican Rapids High School in May 2022. He plans to continue working at his current job as an operator.
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