American-Latino Immigrants Proudly Assisting the Community

The third week of class you start to get a gist of the personalities of the
students. Mari is a housewife. She has a nice personality. Hugo, who
looks almost exactly like Stewart Wood of the Bay City Rollers, is very
quiet and reserved. Flor looks like she will be providing entertainment for
the semester. She's a little wacky. She's always smiling, and she has some
crazy looking eyes. Edelmira is the quintessential Latina beauty that makes
a single guy thank God he's a man men. As I gaze at the students, I
wondered whether any of them would turn out to be lifelong friends like a
student in the first English class I ever taught.

Delia is a rather unusual friend for us to have. She's an alcoholic who
has, in the past, earned money via prostitution and drug dealing. She's
lost an untold number of jobs due to her drinking problem, and that's just
since I've known her. But at the same time she has some remarkably good
qualities.

She is a friend, and she is a very good friend, a loyal friend and a
trustworthy friend. She was in my first English class. I signed on as an
assistant but ended up teaching the entire first month because the teacher
was out of town. One time this other woman was saying how she worked at
McDonalds. I asked her if they permitted employees to take free food to
their friends. Delia spoke up and said she worked at a restaurant too. She
asked me if I like barbecue ribs and grilled shrimp. Of course I said that
I did. The next class she brought in a rack of ribs and a dozen grilled
shrimp with grilled vegetables. I didn't expect that. One Sunday morning I
passed by her restaurant on the way to church. People were lined up in the
rain waiting to get a table for brunch. That summer we had a class picnic,
and she cooked up what must have been ten pounds of ribs for everyone. A
good cook.

A lot of students go on their merry way, but Delia seems to have ensconced
herself into our social network. She gets invited to all the birthday
parties, Thanksgiving, Christmas dinner and other events. She likes to
laugh, and she'll sit there with the ladies telling funny stories.
Occasionally she'll tell a story about her life.

Delia has had it tough. She's been on her own since she was a child. In
fact, she had her first child when she was a child, at age 13. It didn't
turn out very well. She was very poor at the time and couldn't afford
diapers, and one day the baby pooped while on the bed soiling the bed
sheets. The father, after returning from work, kicked the baby. It took two
days for the child to die.

One story she tells about when she was still illegal. She was applying for a
job at a new restaurant, and she was afraid that they would not accept her
false ID (chuecos). She was first in line and told them that she left her ID
at home. They wouldn't hire her without checking her documents. As she was
leaving she noticed that most of the applicants had chuecos, many of which
were sorrier looking than hers, and that the restaurant was accepting them.
So she went back and got the job.

She spent several years in Mexico working in restaurants before she
illegally crossed the border into California. For years she drifted around
getting one job and then getting fired for being drunk. She'd rent a room
in an apartment or house, and she moved frequently. But at the same time
she is a remarkably loyal friend and trustworthy person. One time she
needed to borrow money for her son who was in the hospital. She approached
everyone. We loaned her a few hundred bucks. She still needed another
grand so she asked me for my wealthy parents' phone number. I wanted to
spare her the humiliation of going to my parents to beg so we managed to
scarf up the rest of it. She worked two jobs on her feet for 16 hours a day
for a year to pay off all those loans, and she paid back every penny. So
you can understand why despite her shortcomings we respect and admire her.

The past couple of years she's been trying to sober up. She's been going to
AA meetings, and she's held the same job now for at least two years. She
got her own apartment, and she furnished it and is making payments on the
furniture. She is renting rooms out to other people now. She had us over
for dinner one night. I think she was proud of herself for having
accomplished this. It might not seem like much, but to her it is a big
deal.

A couple of weeks ago she said that she was invited to visit her youngest
son who was living with his father on the East Coast. Evidently she's still
illegal so she didn't want to risk flying. She got a ride with a coyote
(coyotes not only transport immigrants across the border; there is also an
available coyote network that transports immigrants throughout the country).
She called a friend from Chicago saying that the van was involved in a
traffic accident but that she was ok. The last I heard she had made it.
Maybe she won't come back. Maybe she'll be invited to stay with her son,
and hopefully she'll live happily.

I'll remember her.