In 1995, after a couple of years in Mexico, her mother heard that one of Rosalinda's brothers was in trouble in the States and decided she needed to live closer to him. Rosalind wanted to stay, but her mother ignored her pleas, saying, “Pack your bag because we are leaving early tomorrow.” It took them three attempts before they were able to sneak across the border with the help of smugglers who took them to San Bernardino. During the trip, one of the men groped fourteen-year-old Rosalind. “I couldn't do anything – I couldn't scream or anything,” Rosalind said, wiping away tears. “I just had to remain silent. After that, I told my mother: “Do what you want, but I will _never_ cross again. That's it, I'm finished.” Two years later, as a high school student in San Bernardino, she met Manuel and became pregnant with Jose's child.
As a couple, Rosalinda and Manuel sometimes thought about returning to Mexico. But only once, more than fifteen years ago, did they come close, after a particularly humiliating experience of trying to enroll their young children in Medicaid. Rosalind told me: “The woman who worked there made me feel so bad that I came back crying and said, 'I don't want to live in this country anymore.' But when he and Manuel asked Jose, then twelve, if he wanted to move to Mexico, he begged them to leave the family in America. “And they respected my wishes,” Jose told me, recalling the conversation. “They listened.”
About half of the extended Garcias family now lived in Southern California. Rosalind knew the other half, who was in Mexico, almost only by name. Until recently, she and her husband led a vibrant social life in San Bernardino. She attended an evangelical church regularly for many years and still went to exercise classes with the friends she made there. Manuel, despite all his shyness, was a regular on the recreational baseball team.
Rosalind had not forgotten her youthful promise never to cross the border again. It was surreal to return to Mexico, which after three decades in America seemed like a figment of her imagination. “We are afraid because we are moving to a place we don’t remember,” she told me, sighing. “I think it is.”
On weekends, the family enjoyed relaxing at a nearby RV park and private campground where they had been members for many years. There were tent and trailer campsites, cabin rentals, barbecue grills, two lakes and three swimming pools. For a long time this place had been Rosalind's favorite place, but now it acquired additional attraction because it was private property. “Everything is fenced in, so it's one of the few outdoor places where ICE “I can’t just show up,” Jose explained. Last spring, when the raids in San Bernardino reached their peak, Rosalind camped there for two weeks. “I slept in a tent next to the shower to make it more comfortable,” she said.
One Saturday afternoon, Rosalinda, Ana, Jose, Irene and I piled into our black Tahoe and drove to the campground. In the car, Rosalind wanted me to listen to one of her favorite songs. northernersis a type of Mexican folk song that often features the accordion. “This is what I'm going to listen to when I leave the United States,” she explained. The song was called “El Mojado Acaudalado”, or “The Wealthy Wetback”, referring to an early twentieth-century slur referring to Mexican immigrants who entered the United States illegally by crossing the Rio Grande. The narrator of the song is a migrant who has saved up money while working in the United States and is finally returning to his homeland. Rosalind sang along to every word:
