The Making of a Dream

by Laura Wides-Muñoz

  America, we are liberated by the pain

  So let’s talk, because

  America is home

  A land of dreams for all dreamers.

  Once more the audience stood and applauded.

  By October, Hareth had generated more than 8,000 signatures in support of prosecutorial relief for her dad. As she collected letters and cards in support of Mario from those who knew him, she also began to pay more attention to her parents’ lives. She’d known about their sacrifices, of course, but it was one thing to hear her father complain about back pain at night or tell little Claudia he was too tired to shoot hoops; it was another to go to see one of the buildings he was working on, hear how it had been nearly destroyed, see how he was slowly and carefully reattaching cables, see the crawl spaces he had to contort his body into so as to install electrical wiring and the heights he had to climb, sometimes without a harness, to install the cables.

  As a teen, she had turned to her mother, confided in her, shared jokes, romantic woes, and even tears over her father’s drinking. Sometimes Mario seemed almost an enigma. Hareth was amazed at how quickly his colleagues rallied to offer their support, how the team showed up to finish the job when he was in detention, how they deferred to him on the more complex jobs, how much they seemed to admire and trust him. Some days, she felt as if she were seeing her father for the first time.

  She brought dozens of supporters to his immigration hearing. It was a five-minute event to turn in her father’s file, but even the presiding judge asked Mario’s attorney, Vanessa, why so many people were packing the courtroom and the outside hallway. “They’re here in support of my client,” Vanessa responded.

  A few weeks after the AFL-CIO convention, Ana Avendaño received a call from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. Leaders at the network had seen Hareth speak. They wanted her for a music video up-and-coming artist Aloe Blacc was filming. Hareth was at a United We Dream national training for DREAMer moms when she got the invitation. Days later, she found herself in a studio near Hollywood, California, appearing in a video for an acoustic version of Blacc’s hit song “Wake Me Up.” The electronic dance mix version with Swedish DJ Avicii had already topped the global charts.

  The video told the story of a young girl taken from her mother by a border patrol officer as the woman attempted to cross the border. The young girl grew up to be an immigration activist, and Hareth played her as an adult. Many of the actors in the video were undocumented immigrants as well.

  Hareth insisted on wearing her own T-shirt, a Dream Project shirt, in honor of her friends back home in Virginia. The video garnered more than 19 million views, not even close to the EDM version’s success but enough to get media attention. People Hareth didn’t know approached her, telling her she’d brought them to tears.

  At a United We Dream national summit that year, people treated her like a celebrity, and she began to hear through the grapevine that some were too intimidated to talk to her. Her own shyness among her peers didn’t help things. She ached a bit for her anonymity. In December, her internship ended, and life returned to something resembling her version of normal. She had been working with fellow students to successfully push for in-state tuition in neighboring Maryland, less successfully in Virginia. Now she joined Gaby Pacheco’s new Bridge Project, which had begun lobbying Republicans on immigration reform. The small group of undocumented youths put into practice the president’s call at the National Council of La Raza to build a movement that bridged party lines. Gaby and the others at the Bridge Project believed they could no longer rely on Democrats to move forward on legislation. If they wanted to get a bill passed, they would have to make a better case to the Republican lawmakers who led Congress.

  By now Hareth was used to telling her story to friendly lawmakers. They might hedge their bets politically, but personally they often seemed to agree that the country was benefiting from the labor of people like her parents and that the government had tacitly allowed them to live in the United States while denying them most civil rights and protections. She was used to telling her story to people who believed the situation left these immigrants vulnerable, while creating unfair competition for legal immigrants and US citizens, and that the best solution was to create some kind of process to allow them to work legally.

  With the Bridge Project she was quickly jolted awake to a parallel reality. She spent her days talking to people who, instead of seeing citizenship as the answer, felt that Hareth and millions like her must leave. Otherwise, they reasoned, it would set a precedent for future groups of undocumented immigrants to ask for the next amnesty, and the next.

  Away from the cocoon of sympathetic lawmakers, Hareth quickly realized that just telling their stories was not enough. Slowly she began to learn the grunt work of lobbying: building relationships, listening to the other side, talking baseball when necessary, trying to figure out what the undocumented immigrants could offer that the lawmakers with whom they spoke needed.

  The veteran Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund had agreed to sponsor the group, helping open congressional doors and giving it some political cover and gravitas. Hareth soon realized lawmakers and their staff sometimes didn’t even realize she and her colleagues were undocumented. Some days she felt like a spy on a reconnaissance mission to discover which lawmakers would support a comprehensive immigration reform bill if it came to the floor; which lawmakers were willing to learn more; which might not support the bill but also wouldn’t oppose it; and which were quietly working on their own legislation.

  Some days it was exciting. But every morning she felt as though she were walking into the lion’s den. For a while, things seemed to be looking up in Congress. Polls showed Republicans were supportive of some kind of broad reform.6 Senator Marco Rubio had finally signed on to the idea, helping lead the so-called Gang of Eight, four Republicans and four Democrats, who negotiated a compromise bill. Once again John McCain, Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Bob Menendez, and now Democrat Michael Bennet of Colorado hashed out a compromise that included a path to citizenship. So much had changed since the 2010 DREAM Act vote. Now it was the Senate pushing for reform as the Tea Party–infused House backed away.

  LIKE THOUSANDS of other undocumented immigrants, life in Cambridge had changed in subtle and not so subtle ways for Dario after DACA. He stopped looking for obscure part-time jobs and landed a position at a campus-affiliated bar. He joined the Boxing Club and began to take part in more of the privileges of school, even a party at the Delphic Club, one of Harvard’s exclusive Finals Clubs.

  He began to delve more seriously into film. He moved from the bar gig to a job in Widener Library’s audiovisual department, watching all the obscure and classic movies he could get his hands on in his spare time. He immersed himself in film-related classes. Armed with DACA, the other undocumented students on campus became more willing to talk to him. Dario and his freshman roommate, Alex, sought a grant from Harvard Law School’s Immigration and Refugee Clinic to restart their project.

  But even with this new freedom, or maybe in part because of it, he also headed for a sophomore slump. Dario joined the Latino Men’s Collective and earned a less-than-stellar reputation among his Latina classmates for having a few too many one-night stands and contributing to the group’s spreadsheet, which listed many of the women by “hotness” and physical attributes. He got drunk enough one night while walking home from a party at MIT to slam his face into the sidewalk and break two teeth. He wondered how it was that everyone else seemed to have it together.

  A few months after the Boston Marathon bombing, Dario made a short film in which he pulled out the rest of a broken tooth on camera and had Alex, wearing an actual Boston Marathon number, stand on the rail of Weeks Bridge and appear to contemplate jumping into the Charles River. His dean hauled him into his office for a chat. That spring his low grades landed him on academic probation. Dario feared that he might fail out of Harvard, and for the fir
st time in his nineteen years, he wondered if he might also be failing at life.

  It was Dario’s father who came up with the idea of a road trip, something to provide perspective and freshen his mind. Maybe he thought it might jolt his son back to reality. Dario loved the idea. He and Alex decided to drive to the California-Mexico border over spring break to film scenes for their documentary on Harvard’s undocumented students. He still couldn’t cross it without additional permission, and he hadn’t been anywhere close since he and his family had crossed nearly two decades before, but he was fascinated by the power that mysterious line had over his life. His father encouraged him despite his mother’s misgivings about their taking the Mustang. Go to the border and see for yourself the difference between the countries, Dario Sr. encouraged. See what it means to cross. DACA would protect him, and the Mustang was the perfect road-trip car.

  Alex flew out to Dario’s home in Carson. They left early in the morning, along with Dario’s younger brother, Fer, and another friend from home. Dario drove more than two hours, elated to be back behind the wheel of the Mustang, legally at last. The Argentinean group Los Fabulosos Cadillacs blasted them down the freeway. It seemed only fitting to play his father’s favorite rock en español band. Dario took the Exit 1A, San Ysidro Boulevard, the last exit before the border. Adrenaline pumped through him as if he were headed into the boxing ring. He drove along the main drag looking for parking. Giant palms lined the streets. Men with backpacks hanging across their shoulders sat with women and kids in Burger King. They passed strip malls galore. They were still in the United States. Every sign was in English, yet it was as if someone had switched out all the actors. Dario glanced at Alex, wondering if he noticed he was the only white guy around.

  Above the roofs of the check-cashing joints, banks, and vitamin supplement stores, Dario could see the hills rising on the other side of the line, the brush dry and untamed. That was Mexico, but the neighborhood of San Ysidro where he stood didn’t feel all that much different. He wasn’t even sure where the border was. What if they accidentally crossed?

  Now that they had arrived, he wondered if his mom might have been right about the car. He’d heard enough about the gangbangers and the narcos along the border. He wondered if he and Alex looked like easy marks.

  They found a parking spot. Dario grabbed the video camera and tripod and set out for a bridge along the main entry into and out of Tijuana. So much security on one side, long lines of cars, and only turnstiles on the other. They watched those headed back to Mexico: men dressed in jeans, T-shirts, and work boots, some as if they’d just come off a morning of hard labor, women with groceries, families with luggage.

  It didn’t take more than a few minutes for the officers to approach the boys. They wanted to know what Dario and Alex were filming and whether they had permits.

  “We’re just filming for a school project,” Alex said. Dario tried to emulate his friend’s confidence. Never act like you don’t belong, like you shouldn’t just be there. They flashed their school IDs, and Dario was glad he was wearing his Harvard Boxing Club T-shirt.

  The officers told them they couldn’t film the border due to DHS security regulations and shooed them away. The officers didn’t appear to be armed, and, all things being equal, they seemed pretty cool, Dario thought, just doing their jobs, though he wondered how they would have been treated if he hadn’t been wearing his Harvard T-shirt. As they walked away, Dario’s mind flashed back to the year before, when he’d gotten a speeding ticket while driving in the Mustang. After he’d flashed his Harvard ID, it hadn’t even occurred to the officer he was undocumented.

  “You should know better, you go to Harvard,” the officer had commented while writing up his ticket.

  Dario knew sometimes Alex and his friends scratched their heads about his careless attitude. He knew the risks. He knew he had to be safer, more cautious—always.

  Dario couldn’t answer why he did some of the “stupid shit,” at least not an answer his friends would accept. In so many aspects of his life he was careful. He’d always been a top student, at least until college. He helped his parents, looked out for Fer and Andrea. Sometimes he just didn’t want to be reminded it was more dangerous for him to mess up than for any other American teen; he didn’t want to think about how much he had to fear.

  They decided to drive someplace where they could get a clearer shot of the border for the film, something more explicit. They decided on the beach. At Border Field State Park they all got out and walked down the dirt path toward the sand. The place smelled like dusty sage. In the distance they could see the wall or the fence or whatever it was called. On the other side of the fence, sloping up into the hills, the houses were jumbled concrete rectangles, all on top of one another. As they finally hit the beach, the smell of sage turned to the stink of sewage.

  The metal pilings stretched out maybe a hundred feet into the Pacific, creating a border well into the sea. Despite the “Danger,” signs, Dario wondered if people ever just swam around them but decided it couldn’t be that easy. The poles on the beach were two stories high but far enough apart that small children could squeeze between them. But again, Dario didn’t see anyone try. By now clouds had covered up most of the sun. It was cold, and the water was dark. Save for a Border Patrol agent sitting on his ATV on the dune above them, the US side of the beach was empty.

  On the Mexican side, there was a full-on fiesta. Small kids kicked a worn soccer ball back and forth, running up and down the beach in too-short pants, T-shirts half falling off them. The kids playing soccer ran up to the pilings to get a closer look at Dario, his friends, and their camera.

  The wind picked up, blowing sand into their eyes. The group was hungry. They headed back to the car. They’d gotten the footage they needed. It was time to go home.

  As they drove north, Dario thought about how to work the shots he’d captured of the kids playing soccer into the film. He thought about the fence. He knew the stats, knew thousands crossed every day, yet, seeing it up close, the barrier felt so final, so official. This here, folks, is the end of your ride.

  They made it back to Dario’s house by dark. That night, as he lay in bed, Dario kept thinking about the kids playing soccer, how happy they had been, wondered if that was what life had been like for his cousins growing up in Mexico. Had they been that poor? He wondered if he could have been happy, too, playing soccer if his parents had never left. Except they had. He didn’t want to be on the other side. Sure, he spoke the language more or less, but Mexico was not home.

  His dad had been right. The trip to the border cleared Dario’s head, at least somewhat. By the end of sophomore year, he began to try to mend fences on campus. On the last day of Harvard University’s Arts First weekend, hundreds of students and their parents strolled beneath the lush elms and towering oaks of the Yard. They snapped pictures of the statue of John Harvard and the majestic Widener Library. Few noticed the crowd gathering across the green, atop the marble steps of Memorial Church. Some fifty students were huddled together, not the descendants of the Winthrops or the Quincys but the sons and daughters of recent immigrants, many of them immigrants themselves. While the rest of the campus took in the annual festival’s jazz ensembles, symphonies, and Bhangra dances, these students geared up to present their own quiet show, their own coming-out. And for the first time, Dario joined them.

  As he waited for the event to start, he sat apart from the other students, scrolling through his speech on his iPhone. Many of the others had already practiced telling their stories, shared them in small groups or even to an occasional journalist, and were able to explain the duality of living in the country illegally, fearing deportation, yet being a privileged Harvard undergrad. Dario had rarely spoken publicly about his family’s history.

  On the steps of Memorial Church, the spiritual and physical heart of the university, the students began to speak. One senior recalled how his mother had died while he was in high school and how a teacher volunteere
d to take him in. He spoke of how his scholarship to Harvard wasn’t enough to pay for his books or toiletries and how his sophomore year he danced in an all-male club because his illegal status prohibited him from getting a work-study position on campus.

  Another woman stood up, a friend and mentor who had avoided Dario of late, frustrated by what she viewed as his “bro” attitude. She told the group about how her father had never hit her growing up because any mark could trigger a visit from child services—which in turn might prompt a visit from immigration officials. “But my mom was fair game,” she added.

  Dario sank lower in his seat. There was nothing so tragic about his life. His dad had spent so many years telling him not to worry about money, even buying him that crazy Mustang. Jesus, he was an ungrateful ass.

  Finally his name was called. He stepped up to the microphone. The wind was picking up. People were getting tired of sitting. He regretted not printing out his speech, too hard to read from the iPhone.

  “Some of my worst memories of childhood were when I went to work with my dad. He’d wake me up at six in the morning on weekends . . . and drive me half asleep to construction sites in Beverly Hills or Palos Verdes or Bel Air,” he began.

  “No quiero que crezcas sin saber hacer obra de mano. No son of mine is growing up without knowing what manual labor is,” Dario Sr. had told him.

  The crowd laughed with recognition.

  His parents had encouraged him to stick to the books only when they realized how bad he was with a wrench, Dario continued. He recalled his little sister asking why their dad made beautiful houses for people in Beverly Hills and Palos Verdes but couldn’t fix their old bathroom. He remembered telling his little sister that their dad had been laid off during the recession, with few protections because of his immigration status, and that he was now cleaning more houses than building them.