My parents worked Monday through Friday, with no time off for federal holidays. If I did not have school on a given day, I would have to accompany my mom to work. She would do physical therapy with her patients while I watched TV in the employee break room. Before streaming or premium cable, daytime network programming during the week was terrible. I would surf through five broadcast channels and a lot of court shows before I found one station that at least had reruns. When I first saw Ricky Ricardo in I Love Lucy, it blew my mind. Ricky’s angry Spanish rants sounded just like my dad’s! I had no idea American households sounded like mine. It was, like, Oh, Latinos have been in this country all along. Of course, the heartbreaking thing was that I Love Lucy was it for the Latino community in Hollywood for quite some time.
The Ecuadorian who ran the medical reports company that employed my parents made a pact with my dad that he would not take part in any shady business deals as long as my parents were working for him. But it was only a matter of time before he reverted to his old ways. No matter how much my dad tried to convince himself otherwise, the FBI raided the Ecuadorian’s business the first time around for a reason. Reviewing some medical reports one morning, my dad noticed his boss was committing insurance fraud. My dad confronted the old man, and he was surprised when the Ecuadorian threatened him and my mom with their immigration status. The whole time they worked for him, he never brought up the fact that they were undocumented—he had kept that card close to his vest. Now they realized that the Ecuadorian had planned to use this leverage on them all along. The tension between my parents and the three other family members the Ecuadorian employed kept building at the office, until it came to a boiling point. The Ecuadorian started screaming at my mom one day for no apparent reason. My mom had never been screamed at by a man in her life, except for maybe my grandfather, of course, so she was frozen in shock. Hearing all the commotion, my dad ran down the stairs, shoved the old man against the wall, and threatened to kick his ass if he ever screamed at his wife again. The Ecuadorian fired my parents on the spot. It did not matter because they had already decided that they had to leave anyway. The Ecuadorian was raided by the FBI again later that same year. My parents, of course, kept all of this from me, which allowed me to have a completely different experience from theirs. One that was annoying because of the constant moving, as opposed to being crippled by the fear of almost being apprehended by the federal government.
My dad lived by the motto that you always had to keep two jobs while in this country, so by the time he left the medical reports industry, he had already begun working in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). He found a joyous Chinese businessman that was impressed by the fact that my dad was a doctor in a foreign country. The Chinese man was a doctor himself, and went by the awe-inspiring name of Dr. Ninja. It was rumored that Dr. Ninja was trained in the dark martial arts of ninjutsu. It might have been a rumor that he himself had started since the license plate on his new Ferrari stated: DR NINJA. Also, let’s not hang a lantern on the fact that ninjas were Japanese and that this man was Chinese. What mattered was that Dr. Ninja was a fellow immigrant and that he gave my dad his first job in MRI.
When the Ecuadorian fired my parents, my dad turned to Dr. Ninja and asked if he had any full-time positions for him and his wife. Dr. Ninja’s MRI business was growing in Thousand Oaks, California, so he agreed to hire my dad full-time. Plus, his medical center was also in need of a new physical therapist. My mom was a perfect candidate. On top of everything, Dr. Ninja also had an available two-bedroom unit at an apartment complex he owned. It made perfect sense for him to give my parents full-time employment so they could then turn around and use their salaries to pay him rent. The deal was made and we moved to Thousand Oaks.
Thousand Oaks was in Ventura County, which was located neatly between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. Driving around Thousand Oaks, I noticed that it was whiter than San Clemente, if that was even possible. That made me feel slightly uncomfortable. It was truly a beautiful place to live, unless, of course, you valued diversity. When I’d wondered what America would be like as a child in Ecuador, this conservative city was exactly what I’d imagined. I would be remiss not to mention that Thousand Oaks was one of the many cities in California that was founded on white flight (the phenomena that occurred when white folks took their wealth out of metropolitan cities when too many Black residents and other minorities moved in) and redlining (Federal Housing Administration policies that encouraged real estate interests to concentrate people of color away from white homeowners). On top of that town history, my parents and I landed there to remind them that they could not escape us no matter how hard they tried.
Aspen Elementary was fantastic. It was a well-funded school with really attentive teachers. The biggest surprise came on my first day when two of my new classmates asked me where I was from. It must have been my wardrobe that had tipped them off, because I had pretty much gotten rid of my accent in San Clemente. I replied that I was from Ecuador. One of the girls immediately got excited.
“I’ve been there. I went to Quito and Guayaquil with my parents two years ago. It’s beautiful.”
This was the first time I had ever met anybody at a public school who knew where Ecuador was, let alone had visited it, who wasn’t my cousin. Most students in Southern California just assumed Ecuador was a state in Mexico. That was how I knew I was dealing with different kinds of white people in Thousand Oaks. These school students were cultured and well traveled. They were not just white people. They were rich white people.
I joined the local soccer league and was happy to discover that some of my classmates were also on the team I was assigned to. We all became friends, and our friendship spilled into the classroom. One of the kids was Nate, a short white kid with glasses and red hair who looked like the prototype for Dexter on Dexter’s Laboratory. I liked Nate, but he would always make comments about the kind of car my mom drove, which was nowhere near as fancy as his mom’s Lexus. Whatever, I had kids to hang out with at school for the first time in a long time, and that was all that mattered. Subsequently, I started thriving as a student. I was happy. It had only been a few months, but Aspen Elementary was already the best experience I’d had in school.
After soccer practice one evening, I jumped in the car and asked my mom if we could go to McDonald’s. My mom told me we could, but that first she wanted to tell me something.
“We have to move again,” she said apologetically.
“But we just got here,” I pleaded, hoping that my whine would change her mind.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. We have to. Your dad and I lost our jobs.”
I was disappointed. My poor mom felt terrible, but what could she do? Being immigrants in this country was not easy, and good-paying jobs were very hard to come by for them. I, on the other hand, hated not being able to make any real friends wherever we went. That night as we were having dinner, I noticed that my dad did not want to speak about anything. Just from his brooding alone, I knew it was time to pack my bags.
On one of my last days at Aspen Elementary, only three months in, we were all asked to join a school assembly. We sat on the floor as the principal went over important announcements. Information I assumed didn’t matter to me because I would be leaving. One of those announcements was for Student of the Month. The principal shockingly stated, “We are proud to announce that the first Student of the Month award goes to… Rafael.”
I was surprised to hear my name. A little startled, really. It had been a long time since I had been recognized for anything. In Ecuador, I was always asked to give speeches as the head of my class. But the same was not true in the United States. I’d felt like I was slipping between the cracks in all my previous schools. First it was my lack of English, then it was my lack of friends, but ultimately, it was my lack of stability. We moved so much that I couldn’t catch up in most learning environments. I was always the new kid in the corner who went unnoticed. It was hard to be engaged. I did pretty well with my grades throughout, but in Thousand Oaks I really hit my stride. I was noticed, I made friends, and my teachers were attentive. Well-funded schools just hit different.
The students all clapped for me. I walked to the front, grabbed my certificate, looked out at the audience, and was surprised to see my mom and dad. Apparently the school had called them to let them know I was receiving the award so they could be in attendance. After the ceremony, I ran up to my parents, happy to see them. Nate, my white friend from soccer, walked by and said, “You only won that ’cause you’re leaving.” I was taken aback by Nate’s comment. He might have been right. This all could have been Aspen Elementary’s very thoughtful good-bye present to me, but why did Nate feel the need to point that out? It was not the possible truth of what Nate said that bothered me. It was the sense of entitlement with which he’d said it, almost as if he was certain that the award was his if not for my leaving. Maybe I did not deserve the Student of the Month award, but why would Nate simply assume it was his to begin with?
With no jobs, my parents had no choice but to take up an old friend’s offer to move in with him and his family. I could tell this was hard on them. They looked wearier than in past moves. Like my parents, the Espinozas were also doctors from Ecuador, which was where they had met originally, so going from being medical professionals in South America to taking any job just to survive in the United States was something they understood. Of course, the Espinozas had three children—all around my age. As previously at my aunt Teresa’s house, I was allowed to sleep inside the house with the kids. My parents, however, supported monetarily in the construction of an attached room to the house, which they then lived in. The Espinozas did not ask my parents for any rent money. All my parents had to do was buy all the food for the household. It seemed like a great offer to two immigrants without work.
Panorama City was not like Thousand Oaks. The streets were not as clean. There was more delinquency. Parents did not feel safe letting their children outside of the house after a certain time. There was more smog than Thousand Oaks, and there was a lot more noise pollution. It was like night and day for me.
I was still slightly down because of the move. In the past, we would move into another apartment building, but this time around we had to move in with another family. A family that I barely knew. On our first Saturday with the Espinozas, in an attempt to cheer me up, my mom surprised me by saying: “Put on your soccer clothes—we’re going to your game!”
I was elated. I had given up on the idea of attending any more soccer games. Thousand Oaks was so far away that I figured we would never return. I quickly put on my shorts and soccer cleats and jumped inside my mom’s car. We hit the road. We drove an hour and a half in traffic from Panorama City to Ventura County, singing Paula Abdul all the way there. When we got to the field, we were stunned to discover that it was completely empty.
“What’s going on?” wondered my mom.
One of the field workers approached the car and told us that we had missed the game by four hours. My mom looked at her calendar defeated, feeling like she couldn’t even do this one thing right.
“Don’t worry, Mom,” I said. “Let’s just go to McDonald’s and crank up the Paula Abdul.”
My mom smiled and the two of us hit the road again. I missed an awful lot of soccer games that year, but I didn’t care because I got to spend most of the weekends in the car with my best friend singing “Straight up now tell me.”
Picking up where I left off in sixth grade, I was enrolled in Panorama City Elementary with my three new roommates: Andres, Paco, and David. We all liked each other, but I always felt like the odd man out, given their tight brotherly love. The teachers and staff at Panorama City Elementary were nice, but they all seemed overworked. Classrooms were too full and there didn’t seem to be enough counselors for the students. My new teacher was a balding white male with bifocals who still looked to be in great shape. There was a big, intimidating kid in class who stood out. Andres, who was in the same class as me, and I never spoke to him. In fact, all the kids in class avoided ever making eye contact with him in fear they might set him off. One tense morning, when the teacher had us each read out loud from our textbooks, the intimidating kid refused to do so. The teacher pushed back, triggering the kid to throw a tantrum. He stood and flipped his desk in defiance. He screamed profanities at the teacher and started flailing his arms wildly. It was abundantly clear that I was not in Thousand Oaks anymore. The teacher rushed over and physically restrained the poor kid, who was clearly pleading for help. But nobody would help him—teachers would just restrain him. It was a terrible situation all around.
At least recess and lunch were fun. Andres, Paco, David, and I would meet up on the jungle gym to play. Everything was going well until we heard loud gunshots go off on the playground. The principal shouted for us to duck and get down on the ground. We all did as we were told. After a few moments, it was evident that the gunshots were not aimed at the school. There were immediate debates as to whether they were gunshots at all. In any case, we were allowed to stand and go back to playing. Sadly, the bell rang and recess was over.
When I was home alone, I would watch a lot of American television to pass the time. I discovered a show called Full House, which didn’t seem that full compared to our current living situation. There was also a show called Family Matters, where the main character was a minority teenager who was nerdier than I was, which instantly made me feel better about myself. And then there was ALF. A high-concept family sitcom about a puppet alien living with a suburban middle-class family (the Tanners). ALF stood for “Alien Life Form.” I loved all things puppet-related back then. So between my affinity for puppets and my love of American TV, ALF was the perfect show for me. In one episode, ALF tried to convince the president of the United States to slow down the American nuclear program or suffer the same fate as his home planet of Melmac, which exploded after everyone plugged in their hair dryer at the same time. That was the kind of good family fun you would expect tuning into ALF.
One ordinary evening, I was calmly watching a new episode of ALF when the Tanners suddenly got a phone call from the government saying that they knew they were harboring an alien. The entire family freaked out, as did I! None of us wanted ALF to be captured by the government’s Alien Task Force. The Tanners tried to hide ALF the best they could, but it was to no avail. The government descended on the Tanners’ home and said they knew they were harboring an alien… an illegal alien. The laugh track kicked in. The government was in search of illegal aliens, not aliens from outer space. This was all one big misunderstanding. The government was conducting a routine immigration raid and ALF ultimately had nothing to worry about. The federal agents left and ALF came out from hiding. The Tanners and ALF laughed out loud as the show faded to black with the audience applause.