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 Editorials | Issues | April 2007 
Coming to America
 Darlene Ramos - Chippewa Valley Newspapers
| | Modern-day immigrants find ‘promised land’ to be less than promising. |
Leaving one’s homeland to tread into the unknown has never been for the faint of heart.
Most Americans, wherever they live, can thank their American forebears for their sense of fitting naturally into this good land called home. It was our ancestors’ sense of despair in lands afar that prodded them toward the adversities they would need to face down in order to better their lives. It was their courage and struggles that made us Americans.
In 2007, some things never change. It is still daunting to “come to America.” To other countries that have not experienced our prosperity, America appears yet to be the great land of plenty, the answer to despair, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Currently, our Latin neighbors south of the border are especially acting upon this belief. Their south-to-north migrations have held steady for many decades, but a warm welcome for them is now less likely than ever. Today, we are a more-than-settled nation. Our cities teem with citizens who pay into a tax system far more developed and demanding of us than was true a century ago.
Americans enjoy government services and benefits not dreamed of then, but not without price and not without some protest. Use of our tax system by those who do not pay into it is a major reason given when Americans object to the current wave of Mexican immigrants.
Northward journey
Five years ago, Antonio and Luisa Murillo (their names have been changed to protect their identities) caught wind that Wisconsin farmers were finding it hard to persuade strong young hands to work for them.
The couple weighed the negatives of their life in Mexico against the promising stories they were hearing. Although unfamiliar with the northern clime and its people, the couple decided that Antonio would follow a handful of men who had crossed before and make his way alone to a Dunn County farm. The following year, he went back for Luisa.
In Mexico, the Murillos had three children who stayed behind in the care of Antonio’s mother. The plan was to work and save and to bring the children and the grandmother to America as soon as the promised better life arrived.
Dark time
“It is impossible to describe how hard it was to be without our children,” Luisa recalled. “We missed them so much. This time was very dark for us. Antonio and I worked as one on the farm, saving as much as we could. We worked so hard that our ‘patron’ (boss) could only be happy with us.”
A year before Antonio’s mother and the children arrived, the couple had another child. The baby was born in an Eau Claire hospital. As Luisa’s release was arranged, she understood that bills would be forthcoming.
Once home, she put the word out to other farms that she was willing to deliver home-prepared Mexican foods to the workers. For months she did this, until icy roads and an unsafe vehicle put an end to her entrepreneurial venture.
Without the other Mexicans to serve, Luisa hoped that cleaning private residences might be an answer. Under the belief that she could come to America and find this type of work easily, it was a blow to discover that people were reluctant to employ her.
She soon learned that being in a sparsely-populated rural region meant that blending in and going unnoticed would not be easy. Luisa abandoned her naiveté about being “illegal.” Not worrying about “being turned in” was a luxury she and her family could not afford.
Hoping for the best
In Wisconsin, farmers large and small voice their difficulties in keeping local men or even family members interested in staying on the farm. They acknowledge that the work is hard, dirty, unyielding and low paying. Their own struggles prevent the possibility of offering anything but the least they can afford.
These circumstances, in turn, create an ironic twist for the American farmer. In his struggle to keep going, he gambles on “being turned in” himself. He employs the illegal, and like the illegal, hopes for the best.
Roy Verduzco was born in California, but went to live in Mexico as a small boy. His grandparents had started the family’s road to America as migrant farm workers, but ties to Mexico urged his mother back when she became widowed in her 20s.
Roy returned to California as a teenager. He studied and worked, attended college for two years, but found the financial struggle to continue on too difficult.
In 1994, after several years of helping friends who owned their own restaurants, Verduzco began to think of owning one himself. He is now part owner of Dona Rita in north Menomonie, and he also helps manage El Patio in the L-Mart. The restaurants are a collaboration between friends.
Sense of kinship
“I have known my life in America as one that I belong to,” Verduzco reflected. “I was born here; I am a citizen. I have always felt my rights as an American. Even so, I am also Mexican, and I feel tied to this heritage.”
Verduzco appreciates his sense of belonging. He also feels a kinship with those who are attempting their modern day migrations. He credits the hard work and struggles his parents and grandparents went through as the impetus that paved the way for his own success.
Education is the key
Born in Palau, Mexico, Hector Cruz has been a professor at UW-Stout in Menomonie for 28 years. He too credits his parents’ struggle and hard work toward the “dream” for the goals he has himself met in America.
“My father was an accountant in Mexico. He brought our family to Texas legally, but was not happy with the social climate there,” Cruz recalled. “My mother had friends in Wisconsin, and she and my dad agreed in 1954 to come to Milwaukee. My dad believed an American education was the key to everything. He gave up the accounting and decided instead to accept work running a large farm crew of Spanish-speaking men.”
Not surprisingly, the work proved to entail long, hard hours. What was surprising, even within the scope of the “dream,” was the eventual realization of the family’s success. At 18, Cruz was recruited to Stout as a wrestler, hardly imagining that one day he would be the “owner” of an illustrious teaching and coaching career.
Success stories of those with Hispanic heritage are plentiful in America, but in Dunn County they are scarce enough to bring about another sort of “fear of the unknown.” If one only goes by current reports in national news, there is perhaps enough there to squelch the welcome that might otherwise be naturally extended.
Welcoming the children
Del Boley, principal of Tiffany Creek Elementary in Boyceville, is one who has been faced with the predicament of enrolling children who are likely undocumented into a taxpayer-funded school. For Boley, there was little or no hesitation.
“When children come to our doorstep, it is our responsibility to educate them,” she declared. “We are mandated to do this. Other than determining if the families have addresses that would place them in our district, we largely act upon the fact that they have come to us and they need an education.”
“Last year we accepted four Spanish-speaking children from two families,” Boley said. “One father was employed on a farm, and the other had been hired at the ethanol plant. When the superintendent and staff discussed the matter, we all agreed that given the lack of cultural diversity in our district, having these children was a plus.”
Dennis Rettkep, superintendent of Boyceville Schools, agreed.
“Many times welcoming students who speak only a foreign language is a challenge,” he admitted. “In some cases, a district might have to make a special personnel hire to accommodate the enrollment. In our case, we had staff on board that were all in agreement to make this work.”
Those who protest against illegal immigration most often voice two major concerns: use of American taxpayer dollars and usurping of the American job market. But their concerns have developed several secondary issues. |
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