Last week Jannet hugged her mother for the first time in nine years.
She looked into her mother’s eyes, searching for new lines etched on her mother’s face. She touched her mother’s trembling hands and stroked her shoulders. Overcome by emotion, Jannet buried her nose in her mother’s hair, breathing in the smell of home. The older woman stroked her daughter’s long hair, tangling her fingers in it, pulling her daughter as close to her as possible. Both women cried.
Too soon, Jannet’s allotted three minutes were over and Border Patrol agents ushered her back through the heavy metal door that bisects one of the many fences lined up throughout Border Field State Park.
Jannet wept as she walked away from her mother, away from an embrace that she had missed for so long. She didn’t notice that the crowd around her, observers, reporters and even the Border Patrol agent escorting her, also wiped away tears.
Once a year, for El Día del Niño, the Day of the Child, the gate between the U.S. and Mexico is opened and a few lucky families are allowed to stand in the gateway for a strictly-timed three minutes to hug their loved ones. It’s the only reunion possible for people who can’t risk their immigration status in the United States to meet with family members in Mexico.
Jannet applied for the opportunity. “I didn’t think I had a chance,” she says. “When I got the call that I’d been chosen, I was at work. I burst into tears. All my co-workers hugged me because they knew how badly I wanted this. I felt like I’d won the lottery.”
As the next family took their turn at the gate, Jannet scanned the fence trying to catch a glimpse of her mother. With her daughters, 10-year old Yvette and 13-year old Jasmine in tow, she pressed against the border fence, sticking her pinky through the wire mesh to touch her mother once again.
“Vas estar bien, mami, vas estar bien,” she murmured. “You’ll be fine.” Jannet had reason to worry; her mother recently spent three weeks in the hospital, hovering near death. Jannet, whose immigration papers are still being processed, knew she couldn’t risk leaving the country, even if her mother’s condition worsened, without putting her legal status in jeopardy.
Jannet’s mother held her hand up against the fence, trying to soak in as much of her daughter’s touch as she could, although Jannet could only poke her fingertips through the tiny holes. “I wish I were a dove, Mami,” Jannet whispered, “so I could fly over this wall. But I promise you the next time I see you, it’ll be for real, not a hug for three minutes.”
Jannet was born in Tijuana, as were her three children. In the early years of their marriage, her husband, a U.S. citizen, crossed the border every day to work in the U.S. When the children reached school age, the family decided to move north.
“I came not knowing if I would stay a day, two days, a year.” Her husband was afraid she would be picked up by the Border Patrol and didn’t want her to go out of the house. Jannet stayed in the shadows for a while, but finally decided that she couldn’t live in fear every day.
Unable to work without a Social Security number, she began taking English classes at the local elementary school, dropping in to talk with her children’s teachers, becoming part of the fabric of the neighborhood. When her daughter was in my class, she stopped by frequently to check on Jasmine’s progress, to greet me with a hug and a cheerful, “Hola, Maestra!”
When she finally received conditional approval to stay in the U.S., along with a work permit and a Social Security number, she felt a little bit freer. “I think it was the first time my husband was able to rest without fear for me,” she adds.
Jannet misses her home country, but makes it clear that she would go to any lengths to give her children a better future. “If there were opportunities in Mexico, we’d have stayed there. Mexico has wealth and power, but they don’t use it to benefit the people. Here my children have access to books, to activities, to good schools. I know the U.S. is the best country, but if I thought Japan would offer my children better opportunities, I’d have found a way to take my children there.”
After hugging her mother, Jannet was exhausted and elated. She wanted to keep looking through the fence at the family and country from which she’d come, but instead she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and looked north toward her home and her waiting children.
