Top Quotes: “In The Country We Love” — Diane Guerrero

Background: Guerrero, an actress known for Orange Is The New Black and Jane The Virgin (one of my favorite favorite shows!), writes about the years leading up to and following the most tragic moment of her life: her parents being deported to their home country of Colombia when she was 14. She beautifully portrays the joys and tribulations of Latinx immigrant life and the way in which she had to become an independent person when she had just begun high school. It’s a remarkable and often shocking story — a poignant look into what it is like to grow up with undocumented parents in such a xenophobic country.

“My story is heartbreakingly common. There are more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in America, and every day an average of 17 children are placed in state care after their parents are detained and deported.”

“We moved a lot, but all within the small radius of Boston’s neighborhoods, some more blighted than others. If the rent was due to increase at the end of a lease term, my parents had to search for a more affordable option.”

“Not only were my parents emotionally traumatized by the sorrows of their early lives; they were also financially desperate. So in 1981, with all their belongings stuffed in two suitcases, they arrived at my aunt’s home in New Jersey on a four year visitor visa — the type that was easiest for them to attain because they were hosted by family members who were here legally.”

“From the minute their visas expired, they began strategizing about how they could become citizens.”

“In immigrant communities all over the globe, celebrating is part of the culture. It’s a survival mechanism. When relatives are thousands of miles away, you make up for it by connecting to others who speak your language and understand your traditions. Our neighbors weren’t only our neighbors; they were our extended family.”

“I don’t recall a time when I didn’t know my parents were undocumented.”

“Our house was like a stop in the Underground Railroad. When my parents’ friends or the relatives of our neighbors fled from Colombia, they often slept on our floor. During that time, the community would do for them what they’d once done for my parents: Hook them up with menial labor. Connect them with a landlord willing to accept rent in cash. Show them where to get groceries and household goods on the cheap.”

“Our lives revolved around my parents’ quest for citizenship. Nearly every week, Mami and Papi strategized about how to get their papers. Lamented that they didn’t have them or argued about whether they ever would.”

“In our area, which was mostly filled with Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, anybody who wasn’t one of those two groups was usually considered a dirty immigrant. We were spat on. Cursed at. Looked down upon.”

“On the evening of May 17, 2001, out of breath and full of dread, I unlocked our front door and crept inside. Nothing has ever been the same since.”

“The doorbell rang. I stretched up to look through the peephole and there stood our neighbor. The women stared at me like I had three eyes and said glibly, ‘Your parents have been taken,’ as if she was reporting the weather forecast. ‘The immigration officers came here and arrested them. They’re gone.’”

“Mami, who’d been making dinner, was arrested in the late afternoon while Papi was on his way home from work. My father pulled into the driveway to discover that immigration officers had surrounded the house; they were waiting to put him in handcuffs. Papi was driven to a facility for men, Mami to one for women.”

“After a week, ICE had been silent, and I also hadn’t received a call from Massachusetts Child Protective Services. At 14, I’d been left on my own. Literally. When the authorities made the choice to detain my parents, no one bothered to check that a young girl, a citizen of this country, would be left without a family. Without a home. Without a way to move forward. I’m fortunate my best friend’s mom agreed to take me in temporarily, but no one in our government was aware she’d done so. In the eyes of ICE, it was as if I didn’t exist.”

“I recalled the years my family had spent worrying about this day, the energy we’d expended fearing my parents’ arrest. I now wish we’d set aside the anxiety, refused to let it invade our every interaction, fully enjoyed one another’s presence. Instead, we’d allowed ourselves to be robbed twice. Our worry hadn’t changed the outcome.”

Julia Quinn: “In every life there is a turning point A moment so tremendous, so sharp and clear that one feels as if one’s been hit in the chest, all the breath knocked out, and one knows, absolutely knows without the merest hint of a shadow of a doubt that one’s life will never be the same.”

“The summer I lost my parents, it was the strangest heartache. No friends gathered to grieve over the deported. No flowers were sent. And yet the two people I’d cherished most were gone. Not gone from the word itself, but gone from me.”

“I, aware of the major sacrifice my friend’s mom was making, become vigilant about respecting boundaries. I minimized the space I took up. Without her having to ask, I helped with the chores. I got her permission before I ate anything.”

“I could make 50 bucks last four weeks. I loved being able to buy small things for myself. I couldn’t wait to turn 16 so I could get a job. While many girls my age were poring over fashion magazines or giggling about crushes, I was figuring out how I could make it on my own. My parents’ deportation had thrust me, headfirst, into the world of adult worries.”

“In our culture, it doesn’t matter if you’ve never met family; they are blood and therefore you are bound by something greater.”

“On many [Jane The Virgin] filming days, Gina [Rodriguez] will gather all the background actors, stand up on a little podium, and thank them for the work they do. ‘We couldn’t have done this scene without you: I mean, we would look pretty stupid at a club with no people in it.’”

“In 2013, 70,000 parents of U.S.-born children were deported. Kids who have at least one undocumented parent make up 7% of K-12 students.”

“Without undocumented workers investing $15 billion a year into Social Security, we’d be 10% deeper into our funding hole for the program.”

“More than half of America’s 2.5 million farmhands are undocumented.”

“89% of those detained never have legal representation.”