How is it possible that an American citizen can be deported? I have wondered that many times because it did happen
My aunt Lucy, a Los Angeles native, was ten in 1931 when her parents died. Lucy was sent to a Los Angeles orphanage. She was asked if she had relatives who could adopt my her. Lucy replied that she knew of many relatives who lived in El Paso.
Officials decided that Lucy would be placed with her grandparents, who lived in La Brecha, a village in Sinaloa state, Mexico. Lucy was horrified. As is true of many Latino kids today, my aunt did not speak or understand Spanish. That fact did not get the decision changed. How is it possible that I am being deported? she wondered.
Lucy did not know her grandparents. How is it possible that I am being deported? she wondered. Some of us would argue that she was not deported, just sent out the country.
In fact, Lucy was effectively deported. After a long train ride, Lucy arrived at her new home. All the villagers were poor, including Lucy’s grandparents. For the next two years, Lucy learned Spanish, made and made and sold tortillas and adjusted to sleeping on a dirt floor. But there were no schools, and so, Lucy’s formal education was over.
Two years passed before family in El Paso would learn of her plight. A family went to La Brecha and brought Lucy home. Whenever she recounted her experience Lucy would weep. Her lost education is most weighed on her.
Ricardo Chavira Chicano 