“Immigration” By Kiyla N

It was the 10^th of May, 2014 ironically Mother’s Day in Mexico. My dad, grandma, siblings and I were getting prepared because my grandma, siblings and I were going to get on the bus to have a 3 day travel to Tijuana from our little town in Mexico called Zacualpan, Nayarit. It was a day we had been preparing for 1 year, we were finally going to go to the U.S. to be able to have better studies and a better economic situation. We had planned to go in the morning so that we can get the earlies bus that gets there. 

We were saying good bye to my dad while the man from the bus helped us load our suitcases and bags on the bus. We were crying as we said our good byes and stuck to our dad until the last minute possible.

When we got on the bus, surprisingly there was quite the amount of people, I remember hating where I was sitting because I was behind a lady with a baby that wouldn’t stop throwing things at me and in front of a kid hat was 5-7 years old and wouldn’t stop kicking my seat. The bus had tiny TV’s and a bathroom, which was surprisingly clean, at the back of the bus. Sometimes the bus driver would make stops at different bus stations and more people would get in and some would get down, some people got on the bus just to sell stuff like chips, sodas, water, food, etc.

On our way to Tijuana we made a total of 9 stops that were for the same thing, two stops were made each day, one to get breakfast and the other for dinner. Sometimes the bus drivers would switch depending where we stopped. I remember watching the movies that they would put on the bus, honestly I can’t really remember what movies they put because of how often they would be old movies that only my grandma knew, and I remember eating my chips as we passed a military training base which was also a stop where they would check our things, and this was a very scary moment for me, because there was actually a bag that had some narcotics in it and the bag belonged to a man that was sitting two chairs behind me. Now this may seem weird that it scared me, but the reason why it did is because my siblings and I were actually talking to the guy sometimes and he would often offer us some of his chips that he had. If it weren’t for my grandma at the time telling us not to accept them, I don’t even want to imagine what it is we could have ate.

When we got to Tijuana it was 14^TH of May, 5-6 p.m. we immediately went to the Border to be able to cross. My siblings and I had our papers because we were born in L.A. but my grandma had a visa that allowed her to come to the U.S. for 6 months. I don’t know exactly why, but when we got to the line to show our papers and cross I was very nervous. We had all our papers which were obviously real and legal, but I still felt scared. I kept telling myself that I was being ridiculous but no matter how I kept repeating it I still felt scared because of the stories that are always told in Mexico of corrupt police and what-not.

It was already 2-3 a.m. when we finally crossed and were able to actually see a little bit of the U.S. for the first time in my siblings and my life. There was a lot of buildings that had a lot of lights, the buses seemed more modern and updated and not as beat down as the one’s in Mexico. The fast food places that we usually only saw in movies actually were real which embarrassingly I thought was super awesome at the time. We called our uncle that lived in the city we were in at the moment, which was San Ysidro, he picked us up and because his car was a van we were able to fit everything and have space to sleep in the car, the same way we slept on the bus which was one person taking two seats and another one sleeping on the floor.

When we woke up it was already 3-4 p.m. of the 15^th of May, we were in front of a house that had a white fence and was a wide one floor house, now this house for me at the moment was big and awesome because of how similar it was to the ones in movies and how different it was to the house I lived in Mexico. When we got out of the car my mom was already waiting for us, and after a year of not seeing her we cried of happiness and started to go in to our new life talking about things we miss about each other the past year.

This experience made me have a new hope in the way I want to live in this new environment that was given to me. When I was growing up in Mexico I had never been talked to about college, and High School was already where we had to start paying, and because of our family income we didn’t have enough money to afford for all 3 of us to go. It’s thanks to the experience that I had growing up in Mexico that I can be more appreciative towards the opportunity that was given to me by coming to this new country and give it my all to be successful.