tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54789940584699417742024-03-13T23:05:21.623-07:00White ElephantRaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-68484875303878651122014-12-05T19:21:00.002-08:002014-12-05T19:21:27.055-08:00breast cancer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M92Fnw2RCr8/VIJx_OiRVnI/AAAAAAAAANQ/-zItPc-9icA/s1600/glands-lymph%2Bnodes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M92Fnw2RCr8/VIJx_OiRVnI/AAAAAAAAANQ/-zItPc-9icA/s1600/glands-lymph%2Bnodes.jpg" height="175" width="320" /></a></div>
If I knew then what I know now, I would have went to the doctor immediately when I felt the lump instead of waiting a couple months assuming it was just milk - because we have all been told that breast-feeding is a preventative measure - and I was nursing at that time.<br /> The green on this photo is the lymph node system - they help with infection fighting. It was described to me as a "string of pearls" that was somewhat <br />
draped over the breast area. At one point in early treatment, ink was injected into the nipple area. This ink travelled to the "gate keeper" lymph node - the first lymph node that anything leaving the breast comes in contact with (remember the string of pearls). The ink that was injected pointed out the gate keeper lymph nodes and they were then surgically removed and tested for cancer. (in my case, negative)<br /> If you look on the actual breast, there are ducts that lead from the milk-producing glands to the nipple (for baby). Ductal carcinoma is formed in the ducts. Lobular carcinoma is formed in the milk-glands. Invasive carcinoma means that it has grown into the surrounding tissue, and noninvasive (usually benign) is more of a contained type of cyst. So you get a diagnosis of Invasive ductal carcinoma: it means that it started in the duct, and is now grown into the surrounding tissue. If you have lobular carcinoma, that is when the cancer has formed in the milk-glands (those big sac looking things on the picture).<br /> Sometimes women have two or more tumors in a breast. If it is unifocal, that means there is only one tumor. If it is multifocal, that means there are two or more tumors that have formed because they broke away from the original tumor. They are usually close together then. Sometimes there are two unrelated tumors that formed on their own and one did not originate from the other. That is called multicentric. This is what I had. I had a tumor that was invasive ductal, 3cm+ that was the originally found tumor, picked up on a mammogram. Later it was found that I also had an invasive lobular tumor, 1-cm in size, missed by the mammogram, but found only through a breast MRI. The first and larger tumor (ductal) was like an acorn under my skin. I could feel it and wiggle it around. It was located half-way between nipple and armpit over on the upper side of my breast. The lobular tumor was on the underneath side close to the nipple and close to the surface of my skin.<br />
When a surgeon is to surgically remove a tumor, either through a mastectomy or lumpectomy, there is a suggested one-centimeter margin to be considered between unhealthy and healthy cells. That is to ensure that when cancer tumor is taken out, none is accidentally left behind to keep growing. For me, the larger ductal tumor was found to be really close to the chest wall, or muscles, and is why I had to have chemo treatment prior to surgery. The hope was to shrink the tumor away from the muscle to produce a larger margin before surgically removing it. The smaller lobular tumor was close to the nipple/skin. Although I insisted for the surgeon to keep my body in tact as much as possible, which he agreed to, three days following my surgery (bilateral, or double, mastectomy) my skin died. This created a need for an emergency surgery to remove the dying skin which was turning purple. The reason it was dying was because when the lobular tumor was removed, the one-centimeter margin for the surgeon to successfully remove the tumor came too close to the skin's surface. Ultimately there was not enough tissue left behind for the skin to survive, so it died.<br /> Cancer can move from the breast via the lymph nodes pretty easily. After it has, there is a bigger fight to survive. It can also move through the surrounding tissue, like the bones in the rib-cage or the muscles of the chest wall, or even the blood stream can carry little cancer cells and they end up growing elsewhere in the body. For example if it travels to the skin, that breast cancer original cancer on the skin is diagnosed as untreatable, whereas a skin cancer with origins of an actual skin cancer is treatable. Once it is in other parts of the body, there is a lower survival rate. <br /> The cancer itself is graded. It is done with what is called a Nottingham Score which is comprised of three parts - all separate from each other and one does not affect the other. These three parts are tubule, nuclear, mitotic<br />
- each getting three possible points. So when the cancer is rated, there is a possible score of 3 (one point each) or a score of 9 (each part having 3-pts each). Having a score of 3 is good, and having a score of 9 is bad. My Nottingham Score was 7/9, tubule 3, nuclear 3, mitotic 1, moderately differentiated.<br /> The tubule score is determined by examining the cancer cells and how they nest together - if they are forming clusters around a tube like opening, typical of what normal breast cells do (forming ducts, etc) then they get a score of 1. If the tumor cells are forming nests of solid cells without an open, tube-like center, then they are performing unlike the normal breast cells would. Those will get a score of 3. It is showing that these cells are not behaving like they are supposed to, and have a mind of their own. This is a measurement of how different the cancer cell is behaving from its original cell that it mutated from.<br /> The nuclear score is determined by looking at the tumor cells' nuclei. In a score of 1, the nuclei are all dark black uniformed in size and round shape and are patterned in somewhat of rows of cells (the nuclei is the center of the cell). In a score of 3, being yuk, the nuclei are varied in color from black to grey, they have holes in them, they have no pattern because the cells that surround them are also messed up. They have various shapes and are obvious cells turned into little monsters. This is a measurement of how ugly the cancer is.<br /> Then the mitotic score is based on mitosis rate, which is the rate at which a cell is being split apart. If this gets a score of 1, the rate is like 10 splits and the score of 3 is 20 splits of mitosis in cancer cells. This is a measurement of the rate of growth.<br /> All of these are taken into consideration when determining the cell differentiation grade. Grade-I is well differentiated, grade-II is moderate, grade-III is poor, grade-IV is undifferentiated (which means basically that the cancer has its own life now).<br />
When combining the grade of cell differentiation (which means how different is the cell from its original cell it mutated from and how tough it is) with the cancer "stage" it determines a cancer patient survival rate.<br /> Basically, as far as my research project on differences of Black women's health disparity in breast cancer survival rate - a subtype called triple negative (called so because it is unresponsive to three hormone treatments - example I am estrogen dominant as is my cancer so I take estrogen inhibitors now for another 5-yrs). This subtype has a Grade of poorly differentiated or undifferentiated cells, and the mitosis rate is rapid. The tumor is usually detected then after it is large and has already spread to the lymph nodes. The chances of survival are not good due to those biological facts. When it is combined with the disparities in healthcare access, the lower survival rate is compounded by the lack of potential for early detection and access to aggressive treatment. Also, the triple negative subtype attacks younger women who are not expecting to be diagnosed with breast cancer - also complicating an early detection. I recommend preventative measures such as awareness and yearly mammograms performed on young women. (even though an MRI is far better at detection - obviously my second tumor was not even detected in the mammogram at 1-cm in size). <br /> It is not always an older woman health issue. I was 43, diagnosed with ductal cancer avg age of 50+, and lobular avg age of 60+. Those averages tend to lull women into a false sense of assuredness at a younger age.<br /> Most important, don't ever assume the doctor is going to explain any of this to you as a patient because google is how I figured out what was happening to me most of the time. For example, I was sanitized, ready for surgery in a few moments, handed a consent form for silicone to be put into my body despite the risks. Right at the last minute before my double mastectomy. I said well isn't that supposed to be bad for me? Be proactive with your health<br />
<br />RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-76922165915246153612014-11-29T11:06:00.002-08:002014-11-29T11:06:32.688-08:00Responsibility of Poverty
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The
Responsibility of Poverty<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Child
and Family Advocacy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">November
5, 2014<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Poverty
expands the globe and stretches over time through economic changes and
historical eras. There has always been poverty, and we can assume that there
always will be poverty. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Attempts to cure
poverty that are documented in our legislation seem to only prolong it with a
bit of reluctant temporary relief for some of the needy. The United States’
social programs provide career spaces for intervention. Media taboo at covering
the truth of poverty’s effects on families serves to keep the majority ignorant
and distracted while covering for behind the scenes pocket-lining. As a result,
our societal support for public policy that aids poor is met by loathing of the
so-called sloths.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The
exploration of what it is like to be poor tends to bring pity, but the action
to solve poverty has a different character. The dominant decide the fate of the
dominated without fully understanding the affected poor person’s struggle. The
foundation for public attitude towards poverty begins with the government
policy, with media that is created by the political and economically elite, and
then it goes into the minds of the average person. Those living in poverty are
the bottom class status, with a narrowed version of quality of life and limited
capability—the hopeless who survive but not thrive. Poverty creates the desperate
gleaners of society: ultimately they get what is left over, if even.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Following
the War of 1812, America began to grow due to immigration and trade. In New York
this marked the beginning of the tenement housing. This lifestyle is documented
in the Jacob Riis classic, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How the Other
Half Lives</i>. The first tenement house was called the “rear house” and was a
home that used to belong to the wealthy aristocratic Manhattan family, the
Knickerbockers (Riis, 2010). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of the
homes along the river were once inhabited by the wealthier crowd, but were now
rented out to the poor as tenement-housing. Tenement houses were once a
blessing for a hard-working poor family to have a home, and that was the case
until the corruption of the landlord losing sight of healthy living conditions
and tolerance of misbehavior of the tenants (Riis, 2010). Around 1857 (when the
Republican Party began) these homes were remodeled by their real-estate and
boarding-house agents, to accommodate for more families per home. This required
drastic partitioning of rooms into smaller rooms (sometimes window-less). The
wealthier were taking an opportunity to make the most money on the poor. The
conditions of these homes were dilapidated and the landlords blamed the
conditions on the tenants’ destructive behavior which went without
accountability (Riis, 2010). The landlords were only after the rent and
overlooked the needs of the people. Poverty creates a vulnerable group of
people based on the desperate fashion of survival and their lowered
expectations of their own treatment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">At
the end of the 1800’s, the Settlement House movement began. “Inspired by the
efforts of Canon Samuel Barnett’s Toynbee Hall in London to bring the
privileged and underprivileged together to overcome the effects of spiritual
and social disintegration, Stanton Coit and Charles B Stover founded the
Neighborhood Guild of New York City in 1887” (Stern & Axinn, 2012, p. 107).
The plan was to help integrate the immigrants by living with them in a
settlement house. These educated people felt that society would benefit from
their efforts. Then in 1889, came Jane Addams with her Chicagoan-established Hull
House (Stern & Axinn, 2012). The success of Jane Addams was not just the
historical initiation of social work as a profession. She also balanced her
protection of them by ensuring their autonomy and dignity. In her book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Twenty Years at Hull House, </i>Addams
writes about how “heart-breaking” unemployment was for the neighborhood that
she worked with. Addams (1910) describes how these people were taken advantage
of and became victims of the “padrone who fleeced them unmercifully” (p. 221),
or how they became the “mere sport of unscrupulous employment agencies”
(Addams, 1910). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Hull-House
made an investigation both of the padrone and of the agencies in our immediate
vicinity, and the outcome confirming what we already suspected, we eagerly
threw ourselves into a movement to procure free employment bureaus under State
control until a law authorizing such bureaus and giving the officials intrusted
with their management power to regulate private employment agencies, passed the
Illinois Legislature in 1899. (Addams, 1910)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Addams (1910) references
Tolstoy’s story “What to Do,”<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>which
describes his efforts to “relieve the unspeakable distress in the Moscow winter
of 1881” (p. 260). His conviction was that “only he who literally shares his
own shelter and food with the needy, can claim to have served them” (Addams,
1910). Addams (1910) discusses her point of view that the resident “social
workers” at the Settlement House were impatient with the cooperation and
methods of society for dealing with the problems of poverty, but through the
twenty years, they saw the “charitable people, through their very knowledge of
the poor, constantly approach nearer to those methods formerly designated as
radical” (p. 306). This real solution for poverty has the benefits of accountability
of the poor, guidance, and exact resource links alleviating the guesswork.
Addams approached legislation without hesitation because she knew exactly what
is genuinely needed to happen for those without a voice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In
the worst of environments today the poor suffer poverty-stricken conditions in
a nation of a wealth of resources. In a long-term study by author Jonathan
Kozol, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Fire in the Ashes</i>, he
describes people living in appalling poverty. This was a twenty-five year study
of tenement housing in New York by documenting the lives and struggles of the
tenants and their children. Many of the tenants were displaced by broken
marriages, due to death, divorce, abuse or other causes. The story of Alice
Washington, for example, a 42 year old woman with positive outlook even in her
hopeless condition, offers a sense of stability to those around her. She ended
up in the deplorable tenement houses due to an abusive husband and was somewhat
of a mother figure for many of the young mothers in the same living conditions
of filth and poverty. Her healthcare was limited and available only when she
was near death, which occurred several times over the years. She suffered from many
ailments, but in the end died from a combination of cancer and HIV/AIDS (Kozol,
2012). There were problems in these tenement houses that were mainly a result
of the lack of aid. There was no one responsible or accountable for these
people’s existence. Drug-use and crime went without consequence. Health care
and health maintaining resources were not offered. There was nothing but the
use of raw survival skills among these people. Some of the children, like
Silvio, another character in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fire in the Ashes</i>,
didn’t fare so well in the tenement houses due to the pressures of gangs, street-life,
inequality of opportunity, lack of resources, and other issues related to
poverty that caused him to have a violent death at a young age (Kozol, 2010).
The experiences show are so traumatic in cases of extreme poverty that the
people involved seem to lose hope in the system. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Within
these two books, Jacob Riis’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How the
Other Half Lives</i>, and Jonathan Kozol’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fire
in the Ashes, </i>there are several similarities, yet one documentation is in
the 1800’s and the other is in modern-day times. The similarities are the
decrepit housing conditions, the unavailable aid and links to valuable,
operational resources, and most important, someone responsible overseeing the
entire program. Jane Addam’s Hull-House, however, is a success. The
hopelessness of eradicating poverty is a reality, deterring people from
becoming radical about the issue because of the common sense that wealth is not
evenly distributed, so why bother? There will always be poverty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The
stereotypes of families living in poverty are substance abuse, domestic
violence, child neglect, lack of goals, and, the eugenicist’s favorite, lesser
intelligence of those who are raised in poor areas. “Strong families have
troubled lives also. To be a strong family is not to be without troubles, it is
much more: it is the presence in the family of important guidelines for living
and the ability as a family to surmount life’s inevitable challenges when they
arise” (Stinnett & DeFrain, 1985). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>America has some people who feel that they are
more deserving and have a need to have their own people separated from the
poor. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Bell Curve</i> is based on a Social Darwinist type of eugenicist
view. The main point of the book is to promote the idea that “the isolation of
the cognitive elite is compounded by its choices of where to live, shop, play,
worship, and send its children to school” (Herrnstein & Murray).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The
Census determines who is considered to be poor by the material possessions that
a family has, such as an X-box, a microwave, or cable TV (Smiley & West, 2012).
What this implies is that possessing material items, even if those things are
used or dug from the garbage of another’s house, constitutes a level of wealth.
The rich are not going to be willing to give up the fight against paying taxes
to help the poor when the Census suggests that being poor is what one makes of
it. Compare America’s poverty situation with Brazil’s. At the turn of the
century when all of the immigrants were flooding into the Americas, European
immigrants were encouraged to settle to increase the white vote over the black
natives, and slowly the black natives were pushed to the Northeast of Brazil
where it was already economically declining anyway (Penn, 2005). Today, Brazil
is home to some of the world’s poorest children, even though their country is
in the upper third percent of the world’s per capita income (Penn, 2005). This
shameful inequality among the people in Brazil is due to the same factors as
the United States and every other country have—the social and political elite,
who only care about their own. The conclusion then would be that there will
always be people living in poverty. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">There
need to be relief efforts set into place that are significantly stronger than past
attempts. Past failures need to be examined to prioritize how modern concepts
are formulated. United States must strive to make its safety nets for families
better than those of other nations. A study in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Journal of Public Health</i> determined that any inequality in
income distribution of a country causes the life expectancy to be lowered. The
rich do not want to put any tax money into valued community efforts for public
services like hospitals and schools (In Ore, 2011). This does not hurt them,
but it hurts the rest of the country. There is lack of funds to attribute to
what the majority of the country needs to maintain health, but the inequality
of income distribution creates lower life expectancy for the entire country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Throughout
the 1800’s power and control of America’s wealthiest over the poor created problems
in the society of poverty. Solutions to social issues were experimental. The
Orphan Train, founded by Charles Loring Brace, was a back-up plan to place children
when their parents were financially ruined. This was done instead of just
ensuring family unity with financial aid. Jane Addams brought harmony to the
immigrant poor population by establishing the Hull House in Chicago, as well as
legislation initiatives for those poor. The Charity Organization Society made
their best attempts at setting fine examples of moral behavior as they visited
the poor. In the 1800’s, the rich were getting richer with industry and paid
their workers the poor wages (Smitha, 2014). Their rationalization was that the
workers could work hard enough if they wanted to change the way that they lived
(Smitha, 2014). The bottom line of the relationship between the rich and poor
in the 1800’s was that there was no responsibility to aid made into law, so
that was it. The rich were not made to do it, so they did not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The
wealthy have maintained those same basic characteristics in attitude towards
the poor over the generations; however, there has been great progress in
awareness of poverty’s needs too. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A New Framework for the Study of Power</i>,
Lowi describes the antecedents of progress, such as the Sixteenth Amendment
that authorized income tax in 1913 when World War I began. Then in 1933, Franklin
D Roosevelt introduced the New Deal to raise individual taxes and formed
several programs to initiate some wealth redistribution (Lowi, 1970). “The
poverty line was first set by the government in 1964, when it was determined
that an income of $3,000 for the year was considered adequate to meet the needs
of an urban family of four” and that salary was divided up into expected
expenditures, accounting for a third of it to go towards food (Burton, 1992).
Taxes were a way of accommodating the deficiencies in the lives of the poor. In
1986 however the Tax Reform Act enabled the rich to achieve loopholes (Lowi,
1970). By the time Clinton was put into office in the early 1990’s, the
technology boom produced an economic spirit. In 1994, when the Republicans
captured congress with their anti-Clinton initiative, the White House became
conservative and measures like the 1996 Welfare Reform were passed. Meanwhile,
back on Wall Street, the rich were collecting all of the money (Phillips, 2002).
By the end of the twentieth century, the gap was established between the rich
and the poor as the infamous 1% began. At every milestone of the poor people in
need, the wealthy population was using their position in society to make the
decisions about the poor’s survival. In an interview with Frank Norris, the
author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Octopus</i>, he says:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">When a new road penetrates a new country or a new locality it is
necessarily in itself a trust. That community through which the solitary road
runs takes on new life. But in time, if another road does not penetrate the
same locality, the original road, the trust, will get the better of the shippers
in that community. If a second road enters the locality, however, and competes
with the first road then there is a war and the farmer benefits thereby. As
soon as the farmer begins to get prosperous at the expense of the competing
roads the latter combine and the farmer or shipper gets the worst. (Norris,
1901)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In other
words, the poor have the power to accept or reject the power of the wealthy,
but instead they trust them because those wealthy bring opportunity due to the
potential inherent in their resources. The problem, or the resulting
maltreatment of the poor, is that the power that the wealthy accumulate
attracts conflict for them from competitors who want the same power. The end
result is the poor get railroaded, literally. The wealthy find ways of keeping
their seat safe from the competition. This can be done by promoting the needs
of other wealthy to create their own safety net. Then the wealthy are one
moving system running over the needs of the poor who originally gave the
wealthy their power in trust and in hope. Power and control over another human
inevitably leads to abuse, unless someone accepts responsibility for the needs
of the powerless.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The
media has shown bias in the favor of the wealthy, white, Republican men and
their opinions (Peck, 2012). The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was pushed
through Congress from the lobbyists represented by the wealthy station owners.
Those wealthy owners increased their control. As the local programmers lost
control, broadcast came under control of the wealthy (Missmollyana, 2011). What
used to be fifty corporations dominating the media are now only six
corporations who control what America is exposed to in the media (Snyder, 2010).
One of those corporations is owned by Mr. Rupert Murdoch, an immigrant from
Australia. Murdoch’s media empire includes Fox Television, the Dow Jones (Parent
Corporation of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Wall Street Journal</i>),
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Boston Herald</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The London Times, The New York Post</i>, and
more. “<span style="color: black;">Mr. Murdoch may be best known in this country
as the man who created Fox News as a counterweight to what he saw as a liberal
bias in the news media” (Becker, 2007). Murdoch pays out eleven-million dollars
to his army of lobbyists (Becker, 2007). An article written in a business
magazine captures the drama surrounding the results of the Nielsen Media
Research showing sharp drops in ratings by minority viewers for Fox Television
programs. Murdoch did not want to hear that, so he launched a smear campaign on
the Nielsen Research and their CEO, Susan Whiting. In the end, Nielsen’s
research only concluded that the drop in ratings for Fox channels was due to
the fact that the minorities chose to watch local channels instead (Bianco
& Grover, 2004). Murdoch gets his own way by force, almost bullying, his
way through corporate America. His anti-liberal media goals reek of power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among the biggest fans of Fox Television are
the Tea Baggers, a group that identify themselves as Conservative Republicans.
“In this iteration of conservative mobilization, Republican elites [and Tea
Baggers] have been able to rely on powerful conservative media sources, led by
Fox News” (Williamson, Skucpol, Coggin, 2001). According to the article The Tea
Party and the remaking of Republican Conservatism, the Tea Baggers rely on Fox
News for support and for connection to their conservative topics. The majority
of the group is white, high-income men with a primary concern in America of
government spending on social welfare (except for their own Social Security,
the highest amount of expenditure dispersed in social welfare). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Opposition is concentrated on resentment of
perceived federal government ‘handouts’ to ‘undeserving’ groups, the definition
of which seems heavily influenced by racial and ethnic stereotypes . . .
particularly ‘welfare’ mothers” (Williamson, Skucpol, Coggin, 2001). The entire
topic becomes ironic when the total amount of government subsidies that News
Corp, owned by Murdoch, accumulated since 2005, was found to reach </span></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">$33,090,399 (Good Jobs First, 2014). An Alternet article
describes how Mr. Murdoch successfully found loopholes to escape 2 out of 4
years of taxes with the other two years being incomplete payments, with
domestic pretax profits topping $9.4 billion. The article also makes the point
that Murdoch’s empire advertises for corporations like General Motors that have
had government bail-outs with tax-payer money (Howard, 2011). In America those
that are against assisting the poor in surviving, apparently are not ashamed to
admit it—even on television and media, which they actually use as a tool to
emphasize that perspective.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Throughout the history of the United States there have
been both the greed of the rich and oppression of the poor. Iniquities come
with rewards of power, and someone has to lose.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Recommendations
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The
greed and power of wealth have found ways of keeping their seat in society over
time using the oppression of the poor. The resolution in this conflict is
obvious if historical failures and successes are explored. Finding loopholes
and weaving socioeconomic webs produce individual power, but harm the overall
economy for the majority. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">I
recommend that legislation to end loopholes be held accountable by a dedicated
task force. During the 1990’s the government passed several reform acts
affecting population segments (in particular 1996) allowing the wealthy to excel.
It also caused those who value equality to be distracted by the detail of the
many reforms for socioeconomic and social welfare which allowed for backdoor
economic corruption.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">I
recommend responsibility for poverty at the legislative level in form of special,
unnegotiable taxes for those individuals who have used their financial wizardry
to accumulate most of our country’s money. This responsibility holds the
population accountable as a whole system and eliminates the abusive powers
associated with economic monopoly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">I
recommend tenement housing for those who live in poverty. Past failures must be
examined to avoid deplorable conditions. The success of Jane Addams can be
taken as an example. Tenement housing with guidelines could benefit a family
better than the current TANF system of welfare. The barriers associated with
tenement housing are only in circumstances of neglect and irresponsibility. The
National Social Worker Association should be given control of this rather than
the direct control of government agencies working alone because they obviously
are acting on behalf of another population. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Providing
protection with tenement housing offers a person direction for their
independence if done correctly. A program formed that categorized a person’s
position using formulas would then place them in a track to achievement while
providing guidance and accountability. Categories can be accessed by using a
formula that included racial disparities, education level, sex, dependent
children, legal barriers and other types of barriers to create a plan for
individual potential to be maximized. House laundry, childcare, classes,
training and planning exercises could be programmed with parent-like guidance
over planned time-lines. The working would have to save their money and turn in
weekly bank statements proving they are not spending their money (unless
authorized to do so). At the end of the time-line of the program, the saved
money is used for the next step to independence. A person is not released from
the program until all barriers are relinquished such as educational and
training so that a stable future is possible. Social workers will live on site
and oversee all activity, including curfews, drug free zones, daily room
checks, and weekly paperwork turned in from the tenants. A weekly grocery trip
with their social worker present will assure nutrition to each member and
accountability to the funding for food subsidy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inequality is a part of the cons of having
freedom, but there is at least an expectation of the dignity and worth of
everyone. If equality is not available, demonstrate what has been learned by
history and create legislation requiring the top percentage of wealthy to give
back to the poor. As the wealthy have fully displayed their skill at acquiring
the wealth of our country, they need to expect to be required to support those
people that have been subjects of their financial and social brilliance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<u>
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RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-86483173048844708522014-10-03T04:41:00.000-07:002014-11-03T03:42:16.670-08:00Family advocacy class homework: Write a (fake) letter to an office including personal position on a bill of choice.<br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">September
24, 2014<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p><span style="color: black;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">President
Obama<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">The
White House<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">1600
Pennsylvania Avenue NW<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">Washington,
D.C.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p><span style="color: black;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">Dear
Mr. President:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p><span style="color: black;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">I
am writing to you in my support of H.R. 3431. This is a bill that aims to
preserve the family unity between United States Citizens and a foreign national
given a ban from entering our country due to prior undocumented status. This
bill is not a loophole for immigrants to enter the country, but is an advocacy
effort for family unity. The family is the key component to which all of our
laws and customs are provided for. Our country can do better in our current
immigration struggles, especially in this specific area of
immigration—hardships dealt to our own citizens. These families deserve to have
their rights honored and respected.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p><span style="color: black;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">Our
nation prides itself in protection and intervention efforts to support children
and families in times of need. The United States has traditionally provided a
safety net to families in distress that distinguishes us from third world
countries. The families that are affected by the current immigration law are in
need of intervention. I am asking for your personal intervention in the lives
of these citizens of the United States.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p><span style="color: black;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">The
pending bill H.R. 3431, or “American Families United Act,” is for the purpose
of preservation of United States Citizens families with an immigrant family
member. These are United States Citizens lives that are being torn apart. There
is no relief effort available. The emotional comparison for these families who
have their family member deported or detained is death; however, there is no
option to grieve, so these family members are stuck in emotional limbo. Their
only relief is to fight for the safe return of their loved one. There are
children who maintain a phone relationship with their parent. There are fathers
who attend the birth of their child via Skype. There are mothers who struggle
to not only survive as single moms, but deal with deep emotional scars as they
fumble through the complicated immigration law. If these affected Americans
want to keep their family together, sometimes their only option is to move with
their American children to a foreign country to live with their deported
spouse.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p><span style="color: black;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">The
United States has been deemed the Melting Pot thanks to Israel Zangwill’s turn
of the century Broadway play that depicted the romance of two people with different
nationalities living in the United States. Zangwill also said, “If they would
but suffer to be melted in the pot, then they would become just as American as
anyone else,” (PBS Online, n.d.). There is no justification for the separation
of families due to lack of immigration reform.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p><span style="color: black;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">As
an American Citizen, it is difficult to imagine that a marriage is not honored
by our government. It is hard to fathom that the weight of a person’s
citizenship is not enough to pull in their immediate family member—but it is
not. The Illegal Immigration Reform Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996
(IIRIRA) has become a nemesis for families. Before 1996, the requirement for an
unauthorized alien to marry a United States Citizen and acquire a legal visa
was to simply pay a fine. Due to the IIRIRA of 1996, the action of obtaining a
legal visa by paying a fine has been replaced with an automatic 3, 10, 20-year
or lifetime ban from the United States regardless of marriage to a citizen.
This ban is applied to the United States Citizens where there is a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">family</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p><span style="color: black;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">The
bill specifies in section two that Congress is to protect the rights and
interests of the United States Citizen family members. It also seeks to provide
the immigration court with discretion in proceedings in which a United States Citizen
is an immediate family member. To place an immigration ban from the United
States on a family member causes the entire American family to potentially be
dislocated from our country. That is a denial of rights of protection for those
citizens. “</span><span style="color: black;">In many cases what triggers a banishment
of three or ten years, even life, is a trivial or even wholly technical
violation. It can be as inadvertent as being the passenger who nods when the
driver is asked a question in a language not understood,” (AFU, 2014). </span><span style="color: black;">Asking
the United States citizen to choose between their spouse and their country is
not a choice, it is an abuse.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p><span style="color: black;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">These
grieving citizens who have experienced a loss of spouse due to detention or
deportation are desperate for relief. The 1996 IIRIRA bans that are placed on
citizens’ spouses are making people vulnerable to unscrupulous lawyers. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The new electronic visa application
submissions are “forms [that are] easier to fill out [that] would keep people
from turning to fraudulent lawyers, also known as ‘notarios,’ who trick
immigrants into paying high fees for services they either do not or cannot
deliver,” (Wilson, 2014).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p><span style="color: black;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">The
private prison industry is benefitting. Each year billions of dollars are made
in immigrant prisons. This is wrong. This is profit made through the abuse of
human rights. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“It took 596 days for them
to give Pedro a day in court and finally give him permanent residency. Every
one of those days was a profit for CCA (Corrections Corporation of America). In
the first quarter of 2011, CCA’s net income was $40.3 million and with each
quarter their income increases. Each time there is a new anti-immigrant law
like SB-1070 in Arizona or HB-87 in Georgia, their ‘beds’ fill up with
immigrants and their profits increase…. CCA was at the original planning
discussion to initiate SB-1070 because they profit from harsh immigration laws”
(as cited in Bring Pedro Home, 2011). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">My dearest friend Emily is only one of thousands of United
States Citizens whose spouse was taken from them. Today the annual profits are
at a minimum of three billion a year due to the Continuing Appropriation Act of
2014 that requires a bed quota of 34,000 minimum immigrants to be in prison per
day (Lindsey, 2014). How can we justify rich getting richer from arbitrary
policy regarding the family of US citizens?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">United States Citizen children have been affected. Separation
from a parent is indeed a traumatic event not only dealing with the missing
parent, but with the remaining parent’s stress and debilitated parenting
skills, economic status, and legal battle. Laurel Scott is regarded by many in
our family unity activism groups as one of the top immigration lawyers in the
United States as well as advocate for family unification and helping other
lawyers with this extremely complex law. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">“Immigration law as it is written is too harsh. The effect of the law is
often to keep foreign nationals from their children for a period of ten years
or longer. If one polls convicted felons and asks them what the most difficult
part of incarceration is, many will report that the separation from family is
the hardest part. While a common sentence for manslaughter is one to three years
in prison, one to three years away from one's family common
"sentence" for immigration violations is ten years away from one's
family. I'm not sure that's what Congress meant to do, because I don't think
Congress contemplated the commonality of US citizens and unlawfully present
immigrants falling in love and starting a family. There may be some unconscious
racism in Congress' failure to consider just how often Americans and Mexicans
fall in love. I think Congress also failed to consider how difficult it is for
US citizens to move abroad. It is especially difficult for US citizen women to
move to countries with a street harassment problem, which is quite common in
much of the world. As Congress is mostly men, it is not surprising that they
did not consider how inhospitable most of the world is to women. In the end,
the law is very harsh, probably due to Congress' failure to consider all the
factors.” (L. Scott, personal communication, September 23, 2014)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Let us consider the factors of what an
American family would endure for family unity abroad: language and cultural
barriers, financial barriers, health-care issues and educational barriers, to
name a few. An American child attending public school in another country is at
a disadvantage not only in assimilating initially to that country, but upon
return when the ten year bar is able to be petitioned against with a hardship
waiver. Educational barriers for American citizen children have rendered the No
Child Left Behind law in complete disregarded. There is no Individual Education
Plan (IEP) or tutoring offered for displacement upon return. The education that
a child citizen is forced to miss in the formative years has everlasting effect.
I am aware of these facts due to my education in Early Childhood Education and
because of my own first-hand ethnographic accounts with my own children as well
as stories of other families’ experiences shared with me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Health-care is generally a step up from
home-remedy. Giardia, a parasite found in water, is a common illness within the
families living in exile. Exposure to the Chagas bug of Latin America that
creates an incurable, life-threatening illness has become important enough to
be questioned when giving blood at the Red Cross. They ask, “Have you lived in
Latin America?” because if you are infected by this common bug, there is no
cure. Numerous digestive issues are common due to the unrefrigerated meats. The
lifestyle in general is incomparable to what a typical United States citizen
ever will experience within the United States, without question. These are all
experiences shared between affected American Citizens and with my own
first-hand ethnographic accounts with health issues as an American with small
children while living in Mexico.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">How are families to survive when they
cannot speak the language or are at a disadvantage financially because they
cannot function in their spouse’s country? Many have found online work or are teaching
English. Their wages are below American poverty level. They live without conveniences
such as hot-water and large appliances that even our poor in America have. This
is not my opinion, but it is a summarization of years of shared data among the
families that this letter is regarding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Then there are the families that are separated
that simply cannot move abroad due to healthcare dependency for themselves or
their child or for other reasons. Their marriage is completely held over a
phone for months, sometimes years. Parenting becomes transformed into single-parenting.
Any lack in a two-parent income falls onto the remaining parent. Applying for
assistance requires a petition for child support from the missing parent. This
would ultimately destroy their visa petition, appearing as an uncooperative
parent when the order is revealed in the system. The impossibilities of
financial contribution as a father are exacerbated when weekly salaries are
sometimes forty to fifty dollars. Therefore, financial responsibility falls
completely on the remaining parent, most of the time a mother, on top of the
legal fees to file the extremely expensive visa process. It becomes near
impossible for the family to afford to visit each other. I know this to be true
from my own experience and from the shared experiences of other families in
this situation that remain as unofficial published data.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Dear President Obama, “policymaking is a
cyclical process” as Blumer expressed (Lens & Gibelman, 2000). This bill
could help solve major issues within some very special and unique family
situations that are no less deserving of their American citizen rights than you
are. I am personally involved as a friend and activist for these families and
have experienced both living in exile with my children, as well as, living
years of separation from my former husband. It is a very difficult life full of
trauma. The numbers are growing. What used to be tens of us have grown to be
hundreds or perhaps thousands of families in a few short years. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;">According to the
Congressional Budget Office, “1.5 million undocumented immigrants are married
to a U.S. citizen or lawful resident, but have been unable to gain legal status
themselves,” (Altman, 2014).</span></span><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> It
is not a fair situation nor does it express a quality of liberty or justice for
any of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Thank you for your time and consideration
regarding the issue of family unity for immigrants with American Citizen
Spouses and the hardships that they endure due to current immigration law.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black;">
</span></div>
</o:p><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
</div>
</span><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr3431/text">H.R. 3431 Family Unity Bill</a></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span> </div>
RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-19558661826618743222013-04-14T07:48:00.000-07:002013-04-14T07:48:40.871-07:00I started a new blog called Dull Pencil<br />
<br />
If you would like to view it, this is the link...<br />
<br />
http://writingaddictiondontstopnow.blogspot.com/<br />
<br />RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-14674809277499850462013-03-18T21:43:00.002-07:002013-03-18T22:07:14.348-07:00Child Molestors in the Church<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I am hurt by the way humanity is</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
No one cares but yet everyone is so quick to judge</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It is so easy to hurt someone and damage them forever</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
And only keep expecting more as if they are a black hole
of happiness devouring mouths</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
That never stop talking about how everyone else is bad</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
If someone is a victim and you say you feel bad for them, making judgment on the stigma of
the situation only hurts everyone, not just the one that is meant to be hurt,
only to satisfy your own fears of who you are</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I am tired of people making fun of my church as a bunch
of child molesters</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Have you ever been close to a child molester – cared deeply
for one?</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Have you ever been the victim of a child molester and
forgiven your assailant?</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Have you ever had to report someone that you loved, to
protect someone that you love? </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
What right do you have to accuse the whole of my church
in this and laugh about it so insensitively?</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
If a child molester was a marathon runner, should we
laugh at all runners?</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
If all fishermen were child molesters, would we stop
eating seafood because of the stigma?</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
And make anyone who does eat seafood feel guilty for
eating child molester fish?</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
People that say they do not like to be stereotyped are
the worst</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I have watched countless trolls online that hate the
undocumented with some type of vengeance</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
When they are immigrants themselves (but did it the 'right' way)</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Why are you afraid to forgive people when you are not
perfect?</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
What if the person that you love more than anything is
something that you hate and you find out and you have to judge them whether you
want to or not, even if it is the most horrible thing that you have ever had to
do. Because you love them, you see why they did it, you see the innocent baby
that they were born as, and you know their good side, and what happened between
then and now – what broke them into the piece that committed the act that you
now have to judge.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
To know that your judgment is going to break them into
more pieces, to an permanent broken state</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Because they broke someone else into pieces, they must be
broken into more pieces</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Then everyone is broken… all of the innocent babies that
were born of this are now all broken as adults</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
And to not understand where and how to forgive, to begin
to heal, to find where it went wrong</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The basis of Christianity to forgive, conflicting with
judging another as a human</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Child molestation is not what you think. It is not about
sex.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It is about broken people breaking more people </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It is not about the Catholic faith or the Catholic
Church, period.</div>
RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-50717244374333323992013-02-28T06:27:00.000-08:002013-02-28T06:27:22.408-08:00kinetic energy of bullshit<br />
<br />
<br />
to All legislators:<br />
<br />
Kiss my ass.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-90849136806761879912013-02-09T17:30:00.000-08:002013-02-09T18:35:30.115-08:00Journal Therapy for Mary Catherine's 3rd Birthday<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On February 9<sup>th</sup>, three years ago, my third
daughter Mary Catherine Socorro was born in a hospital surrounded by a couple
feet of snow in Western Pennsylvania. This hospital is where my mother gave
birth to me in 1970 and fell into a comma for ten days following. When I was
twenty-three years old, I gave birth to my first born daughter Rachel in this
hospital, then at twenty-six my son Thomas. Julian was born two and a half
years later, and then Leah Rose a year after that. Eliott was born in San Diego
seven years later and in two and a half years more came Mary Catherine. The
women in the maternity ward recognized me, as we had shared these moments when
souls connect in a dimly-lit room while a new person is welcomed into the world. The
time span between my first and last daughters is seventeen years and the women
in the maternity ward and I shared the wrinkles of life in our faces. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rJUbyHCKIuY/URb0nGcvooI/AAAAAAAAAFA/MAreV4k9Gyo/s1600/snow+hospt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rJUbyHCKIuY/URb0nGcvooI/AAAAAAAAAFA/MAreV4k9Gyo/s320/snow+hospt.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Mary Catherine was conceived in
Mexico in our home in the interior of the country in an urban area south of the
capital. At that time we were living a life of trying to achieve residency in
the country for myself and the kids, but to no avail. We had too many Americans
in our family to be an economic dependent of my Mexican husband. However, we
had several burners on in our planning and were opting to find a way to make
everything work out. Hope has a way of blinding a person to the reality and
that hope kept our drive and comfort that our pregnancy was justified, even
with the negative comments. A two week visit to Pennsylvania while 9 weeks
pregnant gave a second lawyer, an expensive, big named lawyer in the heart of
Philadelphia 5 hours’ drive, an opportunity to ask someone directly knowledgeable
in immigration law if the fact that I was sitting there pregnant made a
difference in the outcome of obtaining a visa into America for my husband. The
answer was no. The answer was the same as the previous high-profile lawyer that
I visited in a downtown Pittsburgh high-rise a couple years prior.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Some people say that I do not plan
well. They do not consider all of the plans that I do juggle. Having to live in
two countries without a way to make either life legal and the awareness of the
children’s futures creeping up to an ugly head of reality can take a lot of
planning regardless of the socially-correct aspect of it. I loved him so
deeply, and carried within me the will of the youth of a sassy American, I just
told myself inevitably I will be determined and I will find a way to make It
all work. That is the hope that, like I mentioned, drove me to continue my
wretched torture with a smile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The entire prenatal care and
pregnancy was carried in Mexico – very modified in comparison to the extensive
medical take-over of a woman’s body that American maternity doctors put into
effect. The prenatal care that I did seek was from a doctor perceived as one of
the better doctors in the city. It consisted of a series of monthly ultrasounds…
no other tests. This was my sixth pregnancy at 40-years old, post cesarean. The
reality of these conditions are something that may label me as negligent in
American terms. I am aware of the attitude that I got when I walked into a
hospital in labor and told them that I received my prenatal care in Mexico when
I gave birth to my son in San Deigo on the border. They called child-protection
on me for it. I was well aware of the perceived indications that I was somehow
not okay to want to spend my sensitive emotional pregnancy with my husband in
Mexico, as we were not given an option to be in America. I am not attempting to
diffuse the responsibility in that statement, but that is something that I
mention as to show the weight on my mind at that time in my life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There was a Sunday morning that came
along that when I was in my seventh month of pregnancy that we went to Catholic
Mass at one of the several churches that we visited ritually and faithfully
every Sunday. This particular church was built centuries prior and was crumbled
in much of the rock’s exterior with faded paint and birds living within the
deterioration. The garden surrounding gave the sense of a magical mystical
enchanted purity in this historical building that many considered only to be
their weekly revival. I felt at peace there. We were accompanied by my
sister-in-law, her influential husband, and their three sons. Their family was
well-known in all class statuses of people in our area, so we made somewhat of
an entrance everywhere we would go between their notoriety and our Americanism…
so people were generally respectful to us with an air of eagerness to please.
An old woman all wrapped in shawls with a wrinkly face, tough hands, and less
than four foot ten came up to me out of the crowd and held her hands on my
stomach and chanted some words with sincerity in her stare into my eyes… and
walked away. Her blessing, her message, was that my baby was okay. The worry of
my societal obligations was gently handed to God at that moment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> The plan at this point was for me to
fly to Pennsylvania at Thanksgiving. Mary Catherine was due on January 21<sup>st</sup>
and no one wanted me to wait longer than that like I did with her brother a
couple years prior – as I flew up to the border at the pregnancy’s due date to renew my tourist visa that was to expire the day after the due
date and I could not get an extension. Actually I say my visa was due to
expire, but that also included Julian and Leah who were with me as small
children. Thanksgiving time, and the scheduled departure, came closer and my
belly grew real big with Catherine’s pregnancy. I looked full-term at only
6-months gestation. I had trouble accepting that I had to leave. Our tourist
visas were due to expire in December which left us no other legal option so
that we had to leave the country. We contemplated riding a bus to the border,
or driving our van, to renew my visa and then return to give birth in Mexico.
Again it was not just my own visa that needed renewal but Julian and Leah, as
well as little Eliott who was at that time a couple years old. My father made
it clear with his insisting that we fly to Pennsylvania to give birth and my
husband sided with him for the safety of me and the baby. It was settled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The day came for me to be at the
airport and I became physically, mentally, and emotionally unable to function.
I could not pack the clothes that would be necessary for Julian, Leah, and
Eliott, and myself in the suitcases. I could not think straight. I was dragging
my feet so much that we were so late to get to the bus-station that took us on
the two hour drive to the city’s international airport. We were involved in a
minor traffic-accident on the way due to the hurried, frantic mode of travel
that we were in. I sat in the passenger seat crying and began to hyperventilate
at the thought of having to leave my husband, my home at heart, my comfort. We
missed the last bus that would have arrived in the city before the scheduled
airline flight. The flight was cancelled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My father was angry and my older two
kids that were living in Pennsylvania with their father, my first husband, were
planning on meeting us that day at the airport, were terribly sad. It was the
day before Thanksgiving, but we rescheduled for Christmas Eve. I needed more
time to process the tear that I experienced in having to break away from my
husband and my home that we built together. Guilt surrounded my every thought
in not being able to please and provide contentment and consistency to all
those who I loved so dearly and it tore me in half.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Christmas Eve came and by the time I
was focused on staying calm. I had an entire month to stabilize my emotions. I
was now in my ninth month of pregnancy and absolutely huge. I accepted what had
to be accomplished and separated that plan from my emotions, as one would do
when the responsibility overrides the desire. We placed emotional blocks on the
building Christmas spirit that was in every aspect of our lives at that time,
with friends’ invitations to holiday parties that we turned down and decorating
that was not a part of the season for us as a family. We told ourselves that it
was just another day that year… there would be next year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4zOLyqEC7aM/URb0FLEBMjI/AAAAAAAAAEY/0ZlnqhtHZaA/s1600/julesleeandeliottairport.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4zOLyqEC7aM/URb0FLEBMjI/AAAAAAAAAEY/0ZlnqhtHZaA/s320/julesleeandeliottairport.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The next year never came
incidentally as we spent the following two years in immigration law limbo
purgatory while getting that visa secured, and yes my sassy American attitude
did make it work after being subjected to the torture of being a family that
was considered to not be important enough by my country to give relief to, or
protective outreach at best. Yes, I made it happen, without their help, at the
price of my emotional stability and possible future mental trauma for my entire
family. Does it sound exaggerated or dramatic... Maybe… I am accustomed to
expecting less it seems in order to deal. If my words carry an exaggeration
that is nothing more than a typical situation of a woman who cannot accept
proper societal role, than my deepest apologies for writing it out for it to
reach another’s eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I sought medical preparations for my
daughter’s birth. I assumed that the birth may have to take place in my father’s
home due to there not being insurance established. My son was born on the border
and because I was not a resident of California, I was personally billed for the
entire amount, ruining my already ruined credit. His birth also included the
cost for his newborn first days for a week in intensive care. This fact caused
me to aim for a home birth to alleviate any more debt than I already had. The local
association of mid-wives could not handle my pregnancy through because I was
already at 38-weeks and that was an unacceptable part of their procedures,
especially that I was considered high-risk at 40-years, with prior cesarean
birth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I went to the hospital to ask if
they could be so kind as to help me receive the necessary preparation of
prescribing to me the prescription that eliminates the possible bacterial meningitis
contracted in a natural birth, because my intentions were to just do it alone
at the house. The hospital then connected me with a program to aide in pregnant
mothers living in poverty. At that time I was put into their system and the
multiple testing and ultra-sounds were conducted. I was continually informed
that there were complications, that the baby was very large and I had too much
amniotic fluid, along with the previous cesarean and my age and the abated
prenatal care… they pleaded with me to get an immediate cesarean. I was sent to
a prestigious woman’s hospital in the nearby city of Pittsburgh and was told by
everyone that I needed to deliver right away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I wished to be out of that society
and back in Mexico with my husband so much. I lived with sadness in my heart.
Back at my father’s house were my children that were pulled out of school to make
this trip. They missed three months of school. We kept up with their studies
with their cuadernos and libros that they brought. We had contacts on the phone
with friends in the school to coordinate what lecciones were covered. The
cyber-school here in Pennsylvania was arranged the first of our arrival, but by
the time that they got it together, it was time for us to go back to Mexico.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I remembered the old woman in the
church with her message that my baby was okay. It was enough for me. I told the
doctors that I was in control of my body and I would not be prey to their
influences. I assured them that I knew my baby was okay and would be delivering
her when she was ready to come.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She finally decided to come at two
weeks post-partum at 42-weeks gestation on February 9<sup>th</sup>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She was ten pounds of God’s
blessing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5pz-_6SEM1E/URbz1eUXRQI/AAAAAAAAAEA/qMgoZU62c4Y/s1600/first+day+018+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5pz-_6SEM1E/URbz1eUXRQI/AAAAAAAAAEA/qMgoZU62c4Y/s320/first+day+018+%25282%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-U3t0H0qphsQ/URb0gXbHh5I/AAAAAAAAAE4/9bPZi_r-HTM/s1600/Rachel+and+Cath.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-U3t0H0qphsQ/URb0gXbHh5I/AAAAAAAAAE4/9bPZi_r-HTM/s320/Rachel+and+Cath.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I was able to be with my family, all
of my children were with me. My oldest two children lived beside the hospital
and walked through the two-feet of snow to come visit us while we lay in the
hospital after her birth. My first born daughter Rachel is the Godmother of my
youngest daughter Mary Catherine. We conducted the ceremony at St. Paul’s Catholic
Church a week before we went back to Mexico when Catherine was six-weeks old to
meet her father.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XxkhhLIgF0o/URcGoUzkaDI/AAAAAAAAAFo/5cNPyI2Aw1Q/s1600/catherinedress.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XxkhhLIgF0o/URcGoUzkaDI/AAAAAAAAAFo/5cNPyI2Aw1Q/s320/catherinedress.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WbLCxNUV0LE/URbz-VPBiJI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/F3ncsrMWsR8/s1600/airport.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WbLCxNUV0LE/URbz-VPBiJI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/F3ncsrMWsR8/s320/airport.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h0CuBEHrTfQ/URb0ZV4gsYI/AAAAAAAAAEw/PF8cYrkurnI/s1600/me+and+the+babies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h0CuBEHrTfQ/URb0ZV4gsYI/AAAAAAAAAEw/PF8cYrkurnI/s320/me+and+the+babies.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1FuU4oPYMpM/URb0rTrCaiI/AAAAAAAAAFI/br--dEnA8mY/s1600/sombrero.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1FuU4oPYMpM/URb0rTrCaiI/AAAAAAAAAFI/br--dEnA8mY/s320/sombrero.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> When we arrived in Mexico, my
appendix ruptured a couple days later… but that is another story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Mary Catherine is three today. She
was born in the 95-percentile for her sie and is now in the lower half of
percentile for her age, varying between five and thirty percentile. She is a
tiny little girl, but chubby. She has above average intelligence and I know
this in comparison with her gifted sister’s same attributes at her age. She has
big blue eyes and strawberry, wispy hair… and she has been on ten international
flights during her lifetime… plus three international flights while in my belly…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ASeMGOSLQ3g/URby8WEHZrI/AAAAAAAAADg/NCy84J56tRE/s1600/catherineduckface.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ASeMGOSLQ3g/URby8WEHZrI/AAAAAAAAADg/NCy84J56tRE/s320/catherineduckface.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_MgAoAaKRJE/URbzFqUIDbI/AAAAAAAAADo/Q6cNQOlbGYU/s1600/aug+Puebla+2011+033.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_MgAoAaKRJE/URbzFqUIDbI/AAAAAAAAADo/Q6cNQOlbGYU/s320/aug+Puebla+2011+033.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She is a blessing to the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dac0ZzevTGk/URb0KqVQHhI/AAAAAAAAAEg/ZTFp4vZJIu4/s1600/kidshayrde.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dac0ZzevTGk/URb0KqVQHhI/AAAAAAAAAEg/ZTFp4vZJIu4/s320/kidshayrde.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-59946876883693604952013-02-06T06:15:00.004-08:002013-02-16T20:23:02.676-08:00Home<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Where is your home?</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Proof in <i>existence </i>is asking yourself where you home is...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A home is important and establishes a safe place.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It can be the focus of a woman in labor as she stares<br />
at
that concentration point on the wall...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
pushing her child into the world..</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
while her mind is focused on her home<br />
for clarity of her existence....</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It can be a man that is ready to endeavor </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
on major surgery to save his health</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
as he is wheeled on the stretcher,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
he focuses on his home<br />
for confidence that he has a<br />
reason to live. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Marriages blossom within a home, forming families...<br />
and routines... </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
... even broken marriages hang on to each other</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
for the love of their home that they share...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Children find their base in life in their home...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
visiting their parents when they become adults,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
at their childhood home at Christmas-time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A home can be pretty important, no matter what is considered
to be a home... </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
even if their only home be within the arms of their beloved.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A home is where you desire to be,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
where you find comfort. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Presently, there are thousands of families that have been
displaced...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
from their homes...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
from their loved ones...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
from their lives...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And it is all on the USA Government's shoulders </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
in their meetings </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
dressed in suits</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
talking statistics </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They say,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
get in this imaginary line</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
with this imaginary solution...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
to get your home back,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
if you will.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You my dear government officials with all of your
disassociation from the real guilt in the matter,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
are going to have to do better than that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We are organizing</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We are going to convince the American public</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
eventually</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and we will...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is no "you" in America,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
but there is an "U.S" in America.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We the People, matter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Pg5fkyAFGPA/URMVpwTiVeI/AAAAAAAAADA/5zzfUa0RMnQ/s1600/home.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
Family unity.</div>
RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-81842568893676235192012-11-13T09:24:00.002-08:002012-11-13T09:50:14.581-08:00Edu<!--[if !mso]>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> We had two
different school experiences in Mexico. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">First one was at a private school that
last a few months, called Moderno Americano run by a woman named Miss Lupita
from Tijuana/San Diego area… </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> ...the second, which was basically their elementary
education was the public school. The school's name was Otilio E. Montana. It was
within the condominium complex that we lived in, but it was at the top of the
hill/small mountain. As far as a school system bus transportation –
non-existent. So everyone will walk up the hill together or get a ride from one
of the plentiful taxis or if, like my one friend who lived in the next town
over, jump on the route (bus) that was stationed at the bottom of the hill on
the corner, then walk up the hill. It was approximately a mile walk for us.
School started at 8am and ended at 1pm in the mid-day heat. I believe that most
of the education system in Mexico is fairly similar to this type of scenario. I
went through two pregnancies so there were times when I gave the kids a few
pesos, actually it was 3 pesos each, for the bici-taxi, exactly what it sounds
like, a cart pulled by a bike, so that I could stay home and not do the walk.
The neighborhood generally looked out for children and most knew who my kids
were, so we were okay with them being out alone to a point (safety has changed
since those times as of recent there have been an increase in kidnappings with
money demands due to the rise in poverty in our area, might be worse now that
Nieto is president). We had a mini-van that I originally drove into Mexico from
Florida. I was 3 months pregnant at the time. It took 4 days. Our van was broke
down pretty often mostly due to the flooding, but once it was my fault because
I tried to "gun-it" through the high water that was collected under
the overpass from the run-off of the watered crops nearby. It was late, I had
just dropped off clothes to my husband at his sister’s store that he slept on
the floor some nights because he worked across the street at 4 am and it was
easier that way. So I got the van stalled in the middle of the overpass in 3
feet of water... needless to say, I never heard the end of that big attempt at
being super mom because our van was broke down for gosh like a year. I did not
see much of Ricardo ever that first year because of his job was more like an
ownership of his life… he worked from 4am till 10pm every day but Sunday. So I
was basically on my own with the kids. The kids and I did not know 10 words of
Spanish between the three of us. I tried my best to teach them with pictures
that I would draw and look up in the translating dictionary and write the
English and Spanish version of what the picture that I drew was and taped these
pictures everywhere for them. I enrolled them in a private school when it came
time for the school year to begin. In the months before-hand they learned a lot
of Spanish from the kids (friends outside and their cousins). They all played
out in the parking lot every night. I stayed in the house mostly because I was
getting bigger by the day with my 5th pregnancy. I had two kids in the States
that were to a previous marriage. So… lots of emotions to challenge us all. But
we did okay. We figured out how to purchase food to eat and we ate a lot of
tortillas with cheese and spaghetti because we were not only unable to
converse, but we were also unable to cook Mexican cuisine. <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><img alt=";)" height="1" src="file:///C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.gif" width="1" /></span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> We were very poor in the
beginning and we did not have furniture. There was a refrigerator that the
people before us left behind because it was broken and we had it turned on its
side to utilize as the only thing in the room to put the TV on that Ricardo had
stored in his sister's house while he was in the USA. But we could not afford
beds for over a year. When the kids were enrolled in the private school, it
cost a lot of money. People assumed that we had money because we were American.
We generally had to be really careful about who charged what for what. I can
say this because we were there long enough that we became part of the
community, thoroughly assimilated, so I can compare how it was at the beginning
as opposed to later as we lived like typical Mexicans. My father agreed to send
the money for the private school because we were in a difficult position with
securing their education in a land that we were not yet bilingual. The money
went from him to us and right out of our hands into the hands of the “directora” of the
school. It was difficult to live under those conditions when the amount of money
that we paid for their school could have changed our quality of life at that
time. I washed our clothes in a sink with a scrub brush for nearly 3 years and
eventually we were able to buy a washing machine. We withdrew them from the
school in November of that school year and my dad did not send the money
anymore which is what the in-laws were assuming, but only right I could not
scam my own father even if we were that poor. I flew up to San Diego a day
before my due date, gave birth while staying at my sisters, and flew back as
soon as they released my new son. He had to stay a week in ICU because of a
bacteria level. So we returned, we enrolled the kids in public school - the
Otilio Montana school in our neighborhood which was nice because with the
private school I had to drive them across town and the directora was always
trying to get me to "be seen" with her since I was American it was
good for her business because her school was supposed to be bilingual (but it
was not really that bilingual, but who would know that really, but I could tell
because I speak English you know?). But you know when you are pregnant and in a
strange environment ugh... so fragile. I read to the preschool kids there
though... The rest of the years we spent there the kids went to the public and
when the school wanted money for things like toilet paper we just told them we
were broke. They had to have uniforms. I remember the director of the public school,
he spoke a little English, he was going over all the different things with me,
and he said, "are you going to make (sew) their uniforms?" as if it
were assumed that I would agree... I probably laughed out loud but don’t
recall. We had a neighbor make them. That principal left the school a month
after we enrolled. The rest of the time there we never had an opportunity to be
able to communicate from parent to teacher except with either my son's
translation or my choppy attempts. It got better as time went on and the more
soap operas that I watched I started to learn Spanish. Once the school gave
Exams for a check on progress, my daughter was not as quick to pick up the
Spanish language during the initial year as my son was - he is a year older
than she is... her progress-exam was into its third day... the teachers called
my son in to the room and had him finish it up for her. If that gives you any
indication of the level of concern as our USA- NCLB type of laws are... there
is basically nothing to compare to. My children were a B average throughout
their years in elementary in Mexico. They are now both fully bilingual. Upon
our return to the States, we had many cultural hurdles. Of course they still knew
how to speak English as I only ever used English, but no one else on a daily
basis. I brought with us a collection of about 300 children's books and
workbooks from the States with so they had books. They knew how to read. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> We
made it back in the middle of the school year in their “fifth and sixth”
grades. I asked the principal of Meridian school here in PA if he could put
them into the “fourth and fifth” grades instead. I remember back when I was
their age and I what I learned in school at that age and they were not close to
what they should know. I was extremely aware of their faulting areas especially
in comparison to how I could remember my days in that same Meridian school....
they basically were behind or completely faulting of history, English, reading,
spelling.... science and math were even different. The principal said no, that
it would damage their confidence, which was sort of dumb. You know when you
know what needs to be done but no one will listen to you? That was one of those
moments. I had many battles with things and the school. The kids did not
receive extra help but it was sort of blamed on me for taking them out of the
country and they made a point to make me feel like I should be dedicating the
time in teaching them at home because they had their own full classrooms. Of
course during those times I have the babies and I was working and the whole
mental thing with the immigration battle and FB and oh so many excuses but all
of them made it genuinely difficult for me to give my kids any type of
additive... especially when I did not really know what or how to do it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> That
was some of the incentive for going to school for teaching because I am angry
about that whole thing... but also because it seems to be the best occupation
to influence so that we have less of a mass of people without empathy walking
around in the States. Plus it is a good position to change the world... And, I
realized that if anyone was going to take what I have to say seriously, I had
to step it up a notch and get a degree in something…anyway, so now they are both in the JR
high. My daughter cries because she is really smart, but she is in a reading
class that is her present reading level, and she said she is the only typical
child that the entire class is challenged... <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do I respond to that type of thing? You
see... I have a lot of anger at myself, especially in comparison of the “what
is and what could be”… Then I find out that there are laws that protect the
child from falling behind. Like IEPs and free tutoring that was never discussed
past the blame game… I start to get super angry because all of this time I am
beating myself up about it. I keep pulling my college teacher aside after
class to ask her about something that I am wrestling with or reflecting upon... she is the professor of education for my class that I am learning all
of the history and laws regarding education in America... she knows like
everything... I am sure she has noticed the tears in my eyes on several
occasions during class...Everything that I have learned in the past two years of college has been absorbed through this "how can this apply to immigration" type of filter in my mind... every expression in class has a underlying tone of the needs to create diversity appreciation or directly to my experiences. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> There is nothing in legislation that pertains to
children that are in another country like my kids were, like many kids are
about to do or the multitudes that are already gone of course because we
just deported over a million people, so yea of course this is a totally new
playing field. But if you go back in history, every single little step in
education ends up effecting how the country is run; it is quite obvious in the
connection. I guarantee that there is a way to press for recognition to this
amazingly unique and new area. No child left behind is a LAW and these children
are American with guaranteed ties to that law. By 2013-14 all students are to
be proficient or better in reading and math. When we returned, my son was
reading at a 3<sup>rd</sup> grade level in 6<sup>th</sup> grade. His teacher
called me towards the beginning of our transition. She said, “he knows English
right?” I said of course he does, I talk to him every day… She said that when
she is talking/lecturing the class/ teaching… she can tell by his eyes that he
is just not getting it. She said that she will approach him and say Julian do
you understand what I said? And she said he was always so confused. I said
well, maybe he is not used to hearing someone else speaking English and maybe
there are a lot of words that we do not generally use at home that he has to use
a little more concentration on. He got E’s and D’s that first year that we came
back… he is now getting A’s and B’s only because of his own determination. Like
I said we have not received any special attention or supplements.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Let me
stress, that the No Child Left Behind LAW was brought into America by Bush
during his first term and does not mention if the parents are of particular “worth”
that the child will be considered in their no child left behind… This law
pertains to EVERY American child, without exclusion in the discrimination of
the parent’s living situation or class status or ability to provide… it is a
law that is completely focused on the child’s inclusion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> My kids
have worked so hard for every amount of catching up that they have had to
accomplish in both countries.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> I have
highest of hopes that we can make some kind of difference. I know that my
situation is not experienced in the exact same way as every family that goes
off to live. Many of these families now have access to the internet with our FB
groups and whatnot, that was not part of the scene before with us, but right
now it is so these ladies have an advantage with that resource. Also there are
some ladies that are educated before they go so they are aware of their child’s
needs, many of them teachers of English in the foreign school systems… </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> I would
love to initiate a Charter School in DC that is Federal instead of State, which
includes the American children living abroad. This guarantees a free and
appropriate public education to EVERY American child. It can be funded through
a non-profit organization.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In this
there lies a law that is not being taken responsibility for…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Not just a
claim to our pain, but an actual law.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Can there
be a scientific approach to this? Yes. In a scientific approach, there can be a
control and an experiment. Compare what happens to a child who lives in another
country and comes back to a child that is able to go school in his own country….or
compare a child that goes through the public education in another country to a
child that is with the ability to be supplied with an American education even
if living abroad (military-base children). Proof of a law being thrown to the
wayside during their deportations and exclusions that what answer is there for
this?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Suddenly I
see a loophole for family unity.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-flGyPztM_W0/UKKCE-lA78I/AAAAAAAAACs/0buygRMbz_w/s1600/Julian+and+Leah+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-flGyPztM_W0/UKKCE-lA78I/AAAAAAAAACs/0buygRMbz_w/s320/Julian+and+Leah+photo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 1.0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And people will probably call me nuts... its okay I'm getting used to it. </span></div>
RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-64830357660863313902012-07-19T17:29:00.000-07:002012-07-19T17:29:35.015-07:00sold<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Plans.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My husband laughs at my “plans, plans, everything is plans”...<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He tells me to just live my life – that life is not about a
plan.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Really?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe that is why I feel so twisted and angry at my lack of
control or frustration at the attempt to control everything in a nicely
packaged squared off fashion.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That notch in the shelf… the one that bothers me every time
I look at it. It is a notch that is there naturally by way of a knot in the
wood that broke out leaving a cut out in the straight edge of the board.
Naturally there or not I do not appreciate it breaking up the straight-lined
edge of the shelf where I stack my cups and plates in my kitchen. It bothers
me. It bothers me because if the board was cut to nestle in that corner shelf
with that notch “planned” for the wall side instead of the side I had to look
at, I would not be bothered by it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That is a control issue. That is what I am talking about. I
do not like to see that things “could be” one way, if only there would have
been a plan. So I plan endlessly…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The entire immigration mess is all about absolute loss of
control. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nearly impossible to have a concrete plan… or rather “one”
solid plan without thinking through the 99 back-up plans that need to possibly
jump in to rescue us all from the one plan that we were following.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is a hard way to live.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When you wake up each day with somewhat of a direction it
clears up energy for just living and enjoying. That is normalcy really. Having
something of a handle on what is going on in your circle. Of course total
control is impossible. Life makes its own mind up as to what it will do with
you. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Presently my emotions are somewhat teetering between
appreciation and happiness for the possibilities that could happen to my family
and the extreme fear of that opportunity being so close to being swiped away
and we get sucked back into the time vortex of immigration separation life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is a serious life issue too. It is not about a table
cloth sale or we could go even bigger with the sale of a car – heck let’s make
it the sale of a house. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is huge… it involves lives and time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My life and my time. My family, my children, my husband…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That is more important to me than anything.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have a lot riding on Ricardo’s interview.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If he gets his visa, we start our life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If he does not, we continue to die inside while we play this
idiots game of who gives a shit about the illegals.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Someone said in a discussion this morning that people need
to “own up” for what they have done – that no one held a gun to your head… <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Really?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We sold our van to pay for his appointment. It was the only
option.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We sold it to family so they paid for it before the
appointment so that we could have the money for the appointment, but because I
am in Mexico now without my husband, they delayed “collection” of my van until
he returns.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Over the years that we have had our condo, I have brought
many suitcases of things down from the USA. There were some things that are not
something that I want to part with, but yet cannot take up to the States at
this time, so we took a trip to his mom’s house to store them. This would
include 2 oversized suitcases of 3-400 count English children’s books, my
grandmother’s Singer sewing machine with multiple attachments, and a few other
things. I already have a dozen suitcases going up to Pennsylvania full. Most of
our things we are giving away to family and friends and neighbors.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We were gone for 4 days to his mom’s house to take these
things there and when we returned, Ricardo was let go from his employment of 4
years. They did so because the boss’s son in law needed work and were too
chicken to tell Ricardo to his face, so we got a text message while we were out
of state.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He threatened a lawyer and they paid him off $4000 pesos… He
could have got much more, (like 15,000) but we needed the money now (for food
and bills) not later in the amount of time a true pursuit of the claim would
take.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So when he comes back from the appointment we need to have
closure on this part of our lives because our life here has caved in
financially as our concentration has been put on the future with our visa
attempt.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If he is denied, the only way we will keep our home from
foreclosure here with him living in it, is if he can find another job, or I pay
via bank transfer from the USA, which in itself is heartbreaking to imagine
more time without him in our lives…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The kids and I fly back on the 19<sup>th</sup>, his birthday
weekend. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My college classes start 8am on the 20<sup>th</sup> – full day
ending in a 3 hour biology lab afternoon… starting with a speech class –
hopefully without a first day in front of the class introduction… really.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That is after the flight lands at midnight and getting home
and in bed at lucky 3 am…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With or without my husband by my side….<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But that sleepy emotional consequence was a sacrifice for
waiting till after his birthday to fly back.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After missing three of my six kids’ birthdays this year
alone…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is SHIT like that that I am so worn from… just years of
no plan- just living without any stability, flying all over the place with
these kids…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All of our hearts breaking all of the time…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Having to leave some children in the states and having to
leave him by himself…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just all of it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t want to live without a solid plan anymore.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Life stuck in the immigration web does not offer an
opportunity for plans.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just survival.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He better get his visa.<o:p></o:p></div>RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-26629589390452143762012-07-18T23:08:00.000-07:002012-07-19T18:10:29.212-07:00Responsibility-ability<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I drove here from Tampa area in my mini-van with 2 small
kids and pregnant... it took 3 days to get to the border with 2 hotel stops so
we could sleep. It was nice because we cut down into New Orleans which I was
there years prior, “for lunch in the French Quarter”, but to see that the devastation
from Katrina was still evident in the missing windows and such. I met Ricardo
at Matamoros, Mexico, a border city along the Gulf. After 3 days of driving
pregnant, my exhausted emotions were out of control and the confusion
in the street of the culture slap across my face, with my eyes flipping through
the faces and none of them being Ricardo’s, broke me. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Directly passed the border entry, a middle aged heavy woman
went walking by in the heavily populated street with a pole across her
shoulders, selling the upside-down whole chickens that were tied to it, and it
was strange to me, dramatic, like time
travel. A scruffy man walked up to my van at the stop sign and
sprayed water out of a plastic pop bottle to squeegee clean my windshield. My
concentration was on Ricardo’s frustrated Spanish on the cell because we could
not find each other. I rolled up the window real fast and the man started flipping
out, waving his arms around for money, so I shot two quarters out a little crack
at the top and sped off…. That is when I made the U-Turn and headed back to the
border parking lot in somewhat of a panicked shock.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I felt pretty good about myself before that. The effort that
was put into getting there took a considerable amount of determination, all
while raising the children, maintaining my health and job… Our passports were
in hand, all expedited, everything I owned was sold off in the front yard, I
left my great job on good terms and the kids finished their school-year – all of
which I did while missing Ricardo and anticipating what living in Mexico would
entail with our nightly phone calls via the press 100 different numbers first calling
card. The drive alone to get to the border started with peeling away from my
parents that stood in my rented home’s driveway crying that it was the last
time they would see us alive… To be so brave as to go driving off to the land
of the no return with nothing but an adventuresome soul… yep… I was feeling
pretty damn confident at that point.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I guess that I pictured just a continuation of the highway
that took us through Texas… <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mexico is not just separated from the Estados Unidos by a
line on a geography map, or a place for exotic beach vacations, or don’t drink
the water jokes, or men with huge sombreros sleeping under a cactus with his
pet donkey parked close by…<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mexico is a personality.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I say that with discomfort as not to judge this part of me
that is foreign to my childhood, but is my children’s short lived knowledge of
the world and life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My beloved Mexico with your deep sense of survival and ability
to simply look at a person and realize if that person deserves that extra coin,
or guiltless denial, according to the standards of simplicity of life. Coming
in from the giant presumed money tree USA, I am permanently tattooed as I am
not only here by marriage as opposed to blood, which holds weight, but my
heritage awards me a status of responsibility to give, whether I have it or not
in realistic terms.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because I grew up with HBO and Jordache Jeans, rode in cars
with boys without a care in the world and finished my free high school
education with every hope of making my life as big as I dreamed… because I was
ignorant to the fact that my life was economically coveted by most of the world…
it suddenly did not matter that we were only able to afford beans for meals…
simply because... Who I was and what experience in my life surmounted at the
same knowledge level as those who surrounded our town, family, and friends that
were of economic upper class – that alone made our financial issues MY problem
and so was my responsibility to help others if we wanted to make it work here.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sure… I could have secluded our little poor family. I could
have smiled nice at the neighbors and kept to myself with polite giggles and
waves and shifted around at the local tienda with my broken Spanish. I could
have had an island inside my mind with my family living in paradise in the land
that I claimed as my own with virtually no problems only because that is how
protected we chose to live… <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I did not do that.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is how it is – the land of survival… the people here seem
to realize your intentions in a way that revolves around their own survival. I
cannot fool myself into thinking that I will bring my American heritage here
and make dreams for my children to soar above it all. That way of thinking is
taught in the dubbed American sitcoms and frankly why so many choose to venture
to American soil through days of desert commuting. It is simple really.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If we are to live in Mexico in our lifetime as a couple, as
a family, in any event, will have to involve my American heritage. It is not because I am spoiled in need for
myself, or that I want my children to be spoiled, but it is because I am
spoiled within the society that I claim to want to be a part of. It is a responsibility.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One day when I grow up I want to scrape enough money
together to buy a cart to push up and down the street and sell seafood on ice,
or fancy bread under a table cloth, or pillows that I sewed together…<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What words are there to explain how that is not for me or
the children that I will raise? <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is not about self-glory or conceit, imperialism of my
country or poking fun at another. It is not for me. It is a responsibility.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then again, it is on me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And THAT is not something that can be passed off with a
polite smile. This is who we are in our separate family kingdom’s hierarchy placement
and in this country that holds importance. There will be no settling for less
than struggling strives “just because” we want to choose to settle for content,
relaxing, happiness instead. There will be no American attitude of “money is
not important, love is” because that is not the reality here. It is not about
love in that sense of individuality as a part of the Mexican society. It is a
responsibility that is placed to do more than to simply keep our heads above
water… it is to swim hard.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JDMyQWf1eXQ/UAevxkmbfsI/AAAAAAAAACU/IKc2bJaq0Eo/s1600/CIMG9190+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JDMyQWf1eXQ/UAevxkmbfsI/AAAAAAAAACU/IKc2bJaq0Eo/s320/CIMG9190+(2).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
... and enjoy while doing so.</div>RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-33436196374008164802012-05-21T21:33:00.000-07:002012-05-22T16:41:08.827-07:00tears for separation fears<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
A man died this month in the <state><place>Arizona</place></state> desert on the way to his American family of five children and wife.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Her husband will never have words from his mouth - no more laughter, no more memories, no more tasting food, or holding hands.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
No more looking up at the sky out a window from his bed in the morning as he rolls over to ponder the day before it happens.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
It is over. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
His time is completely finished. Only his five children and wife will remember him now. His American family with five American children that depended on his financial contribution and care, his fatherly hand in love and correction, his arms, kisses, and presence will be forever without him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
The failure to initiate comprehensive immigration reform in the United States kills family members.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
It kills them physically, as in this extreme story of a father trying to return to his needy children and wife.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
It kills family members daily, little by little -</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
when there are papers to file </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
that can take years to accomplish </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
and only to hope</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
that after all of it </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
the end result</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
is an approval. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
…and for some families, the only offering is a lifetime ban with no other option.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are children without fathers that quietly talk to their sister about how they miss their papa, while the mother over-hears the conversation and dies inside... a four year old boy’s observation of his emotions to his two year old sister of why his father has been only randomly visited since the end of 2010.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oNOSM_4yHKI/T7sPBMLDLoI/AAAAAAAAAB4/6JGShaKP_KE/s1600/richard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" kba="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oNOSM_4yHKI/T7sPBMLDLoI/AAAAAAAAAB4/6JGShaKP_KE/s320/richard.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Tonight on the phone, my husband cried. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I knew he was crying. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I could hear him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I tried to be extra happy and we put the speaker phone on and I tried desperately to amuse the two little ones so that they would entertain his happy side to try to snap him out of what was eating him up.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Finally it got to be too much for him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I could tell there was a difficulty in maintaining his composure, as my macho man.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
This is not something that happens to him, ever.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
We are all breaking down inside.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
He had to hang up, crying…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I said the things we always say every day... </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
“Okay, Good-night”</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Good-night...See you tomorrow”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“See you tomorrow… I love you”</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I love you... Be careful baby.”</div>
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Why do so many die in the desert?</div>
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<a href="http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/exclusive-vista-father-of-five-dies-in-arizona-desert-after/article_46185bd0-3c04-5d81-b24d-7f6c99d21eed.html">http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/exclusive-vista-father-of-five-dies-in-arizona-desert-after/article_46185bd0-3c04-5d81-b24d-7f6c99d21eed.html</a></div>
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<a href="http://immigrate2us.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-93541.html?s=67aa298397d440fd55f97d40101c114f">http://immigrate2us.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-93541.html?s=67aa298397d440fd55f97d40101c114f</a></div>
<br />RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-2431877799108182722012-05-19T18:33:00.003-07:002012-05-19T18:40:45.510-07:00hitting bottom - a stage of the immigration process<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Alcoholics loose their driver’s license and sometimes family members… </div>
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Addictions to drugs and gambling require tough love and a cold shoulder... </div>
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Criminals internally cry for punishment by leaving clues to be relieved of their secret... </div>
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I am married to a Mexican guy who I love with all of my heart.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This year started out with the babies and I in <country-region><place>Mexico</place></country-region> with my husband for a “visit”- as some have wrongly stated a honeymoon-type of visit, as if some assumed virgin moment of enlightenment takes place. I returned to my home, everything unchanged, unmoved, but relatively clean as my husband takes care of himself and our home when the kids and I are away. We do not pretend that life is perfect when we are together, or do we over-treat ourselves as would be presumed. </div>
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There is only a short period of time that we are able to be family, so we fight, we love, we cook and do laundry, and we find that some of our best conversations are when we are sitting in the bathroom together. We are just like a normal marriage, a normal family. That is until it ends, the flight date approaches, and that is when normalcy goes and pain overwhelms not just us, but our children. We do not discuss this moment until the day it arrives, we do not linger in the sadness, and we just live. </div>
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Then, the big girl pants are put on, so that I can get through life until next time while I am without him. </div>
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This is when my husband takes a deep breath and holds it, as he waves goodbye to his life on the other side of the security check, heading back to <country-region><place>America</place></country-region> – where he is not welcome.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The past five months my world has been more hellacious than ever. Concentration on living has become difficult. I lost our baby and I lost some of my closest friends. I started to doubt my abilities in my education and found it a real challenge to push myself through my assignments. </div>
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In the past, words of encouragement to women in this similar situation was an opportunity for me to feel as though that all that I had lived and learned had counted for something, that I could help others who were moving abroad as I did previously without being afraid or lonely, or to comfort those who were enduring separation that could be so traumatic…</div>
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Suddenly it was I who turned to the internet crying out for someone to help me as I fell further and deeper into depression. I drove people away with my sudden loss of humor and strength. I was lost and I lost so much because of it.</div>
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Hitting bottom… what happens to a person that hits bottom? </div>
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There is a feeling that your life is not really yours. </div>
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When there is a lack of control over almost every aspect of your life, you begin to search for a way out. </div>
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Do I attend an AA meeting, an NA meeting, or do I walk in to the jailhouse and say please, take me, I did it, I am guilty? Do I run from my friends, from my family, from my school, and from society?</div>
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Who and what do I look to that will bring solution to this life, this annoying person that my friends hate, that my family does not respect, that my children pity, that my church ignores, and that society cannot stand… </div>
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No one wants you when you loose – there surely is a song somewhere for this moment.</div>
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And then there is my husband on the other end of the nightly call, where we get to love, respect, and comfort each other because we are both enduring the same hell.</div>
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This is the bottom.</div>RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-82168543477529659112012-04-29T17:22:00.001-07:002012-04-30T10:45:06.723-07:00Sponsorship<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dear friend,</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am in search of a sponsorship for my husband, Ricardo. In order for him to live in the <country-region><place>United States</place></country-region> with our family, he will need to have a legal visa. The process for this visa requires that a person sign a contract that will sponsor him to come into the United States and live, work, and drive… everything that a United States citizen can do except for vote. This will enable us to be a family united. It is potentially saying that you will vouch for his need to be here.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We did attempt to live in <country-region><place>Mexico</place></country-region> together as a family; however, the best we could do was to obtain tourist visas and travel to the border every 180 days to renew the visa. This made our life difficult because we have two kids in school and two babies. Ricardo could not assist me in this travel with the children so I traveled as the only adult. We tried this lifestyle for years. It became harmful to the education of the children, not to mention the cost of flights. We were unable to obtain permanent residency in <country-region><place>Mexico</place></country-region> due to our family size. Also, I have two teenage children that reside permanently in <state><place>Pennsylvania</place></state> that we were separated from while we attempted securing our family in <country-region><place>Mexico</place></country-region>.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am looking for a sponsor so that we can be together. The sponsor must make a certain amount of salary in order to qualify. This is not asking for money from the sponsor, it is to establish that they are able to qualify to vouch for Ricardo to live in the <country-region><place>United States</place></country-region>. The amount depends on the potential sponsor’s household size. My household size is six people; therefore the amount of yearly salary would be $38,713. That salary should be on the previous year’s income tax. I do not make that amount. I have initiated my education and am presently half way into obtaining my Bachelor’s degree so that I may have opportunity for better employment one day.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the meantime, our family is in need of someone to sponsor my husband so that he can help with our family. He is a wonderful parent and husband. He is a hard worker, a faithful Catholic, and he only asks to be with his family.</div>
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The following paragraphs are from my lawyer, Laura Fernandez:</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The main purpose of the financial sponsorship is to prevent new immigrants from becoming a public charge. That means that once Ricardo enters the <country-region><place>United States</place></country-region>, he cannot accept means-tested public benefits as long as he is a permanent resident or for ten years. If he becomes a <country-region><place>U.S.</place></country-region> citizen in three years (which is possible as the spouse of a <country-region><place>U.S.</place></country-region> citizen) the I-864 contract dies entirely, as a USC does not need a financial sponsor. So that is one thing.” <br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“In terms of the income, first of all, you are only sponsoring Ricardo, not a family of 3 or 4 or 5. You are not sponsoring Raquel or the kids. You are not signing off that Ricardo will support Raquel or the kids. You are only ensuring that Ricardo himself, only him, will not become a public charge. Even if Ricardo were not making any money, he is ineligible for any of the public benefits that you are sponsoring against getting, by nature of welfare and other entitlement reform. However, the immigration laws have not been updated to reflect these changes."</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you feel that you can help, I would be forever indebted to you. </div>
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This means more to me than words can truly express. Thank you.</div>
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Kindest regards,</div>
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Raquel Magana</div>
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The amount of yearly salary to qualify for sponsorship for your household would be you, your household, plus Ricardo, equaling an amount of total household size.</div>
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For one person living single to sponsor Ricardo, the yearly salary should be $18,913.</div>
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For a two person household to sponsor Ricardo, the yearly salary should be $23,863.</div>
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Three person household plus Ricardo, $28,813.</div>
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Four person household plus Ricardo, $33,763.<br />
Five person household plus Ricardo, $38,713.<br />
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Six person household plus Ricardo, $43,663.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hB-w2BaVM-k/T56K-buDzsI/AAAAAAAAABA/h48JsRXPS6I/s1600/eli.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" oda="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hB-w2BaVM-k/T56K-buDzsI/AAAAAAAAABA/h48JsRXPS6I/s320/eli.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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"I'm American, and so is my little sister... and so is my mom, and my 4 older brothers and sisters. Please help my Mexican father come to the USA to watch me grow"...</div>
</div>RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-39374644921477356612012-04-28T23:07:00.001-07:002012-04-30T11:57:44.343-07:00Default<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
It’s just as it should be.</div>
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I am in the <country-region><place>United States of America</place></country-region>.</div>
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I am a fifth generation German/Irish descendant, at least by the standards of my father’s male bloodline, but what may apply when counting in my mother’s line, and all of the wives and mothers of each generation and where they came from, and for how long they have been in the United States, or from where they came, is only something that can be guessed. As far as I know I am, for the most part German. My maiden name means pastry maker in <country-region><place>Germany</place></country-region>. My mother’s maiden name is very Irish, as was her mother’s.</div>
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My kids are part of me. Does this mean that they can then claim this same status as their own? Does this qualify them to claim the important sixth generation American of the <country-region><place>United States</place></country-region>? It may come in handy for them one day, as this subject of immigration when and how and who is now an act of martyrdom of our own importance – the death and suffering of who we are inside for our belief of <country-region><place>America</place></country-region>.</div>
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Does bloodline matter? The answer is yes. Those who claim that this is theirs, do so because of their bloodline, therefore giving my children the right to claim <country-region><place>America</place></country-region> through my bloodline, because the blood running through my veins is the same blood of the people that helped to build <country-region><place>America</place></country-region>. I have some of the same genes.</div>
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I have inherited these genes from my bloodline. That gives me too the rights to inherit this country through my bloodline. To take a spot of that blood and to trace it into <country-region><place>Germany</place></country-region> would not necessarily offer me a right to <country-region><place>Germany</place></country-region> though, even though my bloodline and my genes may be found there. I was born on American soil. I have a birth certificate. I have photos of my parents holding me when I was a baby in an American lifestyle. I went to school from Kindergarten to graduation day at the same high school that I watched my daughter graduate from. We sang the American Anthem and through out the years, I said the Pledge of Allegiance every year, clear back to when my hand was a little bigger than the doll’s that I played with, as I held it across my chest, saying words that I did not understand. Over the years I was taught the many patriotic loyalties, the reasons that I was to feel them, along with the blood that spilled as the genes and bloodlines of others ended so that mine could survive. </div>
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The appreciation of others for the survival of my bloodline is what patriotism of living in the <country-region><place>United States</place></country-region> may be stated as then, put simply.</div>
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It is just as it should be, then that my children and myself are in the <country-region><place>United States</place></country-region>, living protected, receiving an American education and the installation of the knowledge of patriotism is being given to my children, the sixth generation immigrants from <country-region><place>Germany</place></country-region>... that appreciation of others so that they simply can live in the United States, as a United States Citizen.</div>
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It is just as it should be that my husband is not here because he is from <country-region><place>Mexico</place></country-region>. There is no way that he would be able to understand that appreciation of others that gave up their lives so that <country-region><place>America</place></country-region> could be a place for someone like him to live in the <country-region><place>United States</place></country-region>. </div>
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How could he ever live in the <country-region><place>United States</place></country-region> like I do, without knowing his bloodline was formerly already here for five generations previously? How could he ever be confident in claiming that he would have the right to be breathing and eating from this place? How dare he not take his own bloodline into account and stay faithful to his own past, because that is important!</div>
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What is important is where your bloodline is from, that is how it works here. We are petty. We want proof. We want to play house under the big apple tree in the fields of the <place><placename>New</placename> <placetype>Republic</placetype></place> and as children that play, we choose the rules that suit to please the moment, to accommodate our pleasures of instant near sightedness and selfish desires. It is our call because it is our story. </div>
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Believe in your dreams because in <country-region><place>America</place></country-region>, we are destined to become anything that we strive for. We are able to overcome the hazards of life that in the other countries across the world have difficulty with, because we are given an endless supply of opportunity and guidance. ‘While the uncertainty can be stressful, we have endless possibility’…. all because of our bloodline.</div>
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As a single mother of the next generation, the fatherless, the ‘we may have to live in exile’ children of tomorrow that will be with the right to play house too one day, I will teach them what I have been taught from my bloodline... to never give up.</div>
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But I need to teach them to also accept when you are wrong, to admit when you are wrong… so they do not grow up as crooked crooks.</div>
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I was wrong to marry someone that was not a United States Citizen.<br />
I was wrong to ruin his life, to make him miss us every day bringing him to the edge of depression. To keep his hopes high when the odds are not going in our favor, who exactly is at wrong here? It is <place>I.</place> It is my fault.</div>
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It is my fault for believing that I should follow my dreams and to strive for a destiny that I would be able to overcome simply because of my accustomed American attitude and privilege.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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It was wrong for me to birth children before stabilizing a citizenship in one of our countries. It was wrong for me to bring babies into this world that have to be without a parent and to suffer the heartaches that a child should never have to endure.</div>
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My guilt…</div>
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Fine lines are being drawn in this child’s play about who should be allowed to play tomorrow. Did I dare to take initiative that was not a part of the rules and hope for mercy from my playmates? It depends on who the players are. </div>
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On a given day the American life was of fair rules to those who played by the rules. Now I am marked, because I am married to a Mexican.<br />
I have forfeited my bloodline…</div>
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in the name of love.<br />
Default the child's game to that of a woman’s need – to love who she is meant to.</div>
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It is in my blood.</div>RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-41647686076204841872012-04-23T22:28:00.000-07:002012-04-23T22:52:52.985-07:00Immigration Reform, the Mass Atrocity<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Obama gave a speech today, <date day="23" month="4" year="2012">April 23, 2012</date>, at the <place><placename>Holocaust</placename> <placename>Memorial</placename> <placetype>Museum</placetype></place>. It reflected on the honoring of “the presence of men and women whose lives are a testament to the endurance and the strength of the human spirit -- the inspiring survivors” of the Holocaust.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“For the Holocaust may have reached its barbaric climax at Treblinka and <place>Auschwitz</place> and Belzec, but it started in the hearts of ordinary men and women. And we have seen it again -- madness that can sweep through peoples, sweep through nations, embed itself.”</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He spoke of the incidences of genocide across the world,</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“…they shock our conscience, but they are the awful extreme of a spectrum of ignorance and intolerance that we see every day; the bigotry that says another person is less than my equal, less than human. These are the seeds of hate that we cannot let take root in our heart.”</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Obama speaks of unfair killings and death across the world… but his words touch the part of me that has read of families suffering through immigration reform and the lack there of…</div>
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"Never again" is a challenge to societies. We’re joined today by communities who’ve made it your mission to prevent mass atrocities in our time. This museum’s Committee of Conscience, NGOs, faith groups, college students, you’ve harnessed the tools of the digital age -- online maps and satellites and a video and social media campaign seen by millions. You understand that change comes from the bottom up, from the grassroots. You understand -- to quote the task force convened by this museum -- "preventing genocide is an achievable goal." It is an achievable goal. It is one that does not start from the top; it starts from the bottom up.”</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Obama talks about his newly formed, first-ever White House position that would be dedicated to the task of preventing and responding to mass atrocities with the creation of the new Atrocities Prevention Board…</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We’re making sure that the <country-region><place>United States</place></country-region> government has the structures, the mechanisms to better prevent and respond to mass atrocities... The board will convene for the first time today, at the White House. And I’m pleased that one of its first acts will be to meet with some of your organizations -- citizens and activists who are partners in this work, who have been carrying this torch.”</div>
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Education on qualifications of mass atrocity: <a href="http://www.operationbrokensilence.org/?p=6205"><span style="color: purple;">http://www.operationbrokensilence.org/?p=6205</span></a><br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obama goes on to end his speech with a few words that to me, felt like he could see us sitting in our living rooms, knowing what we are all faced with and it was if he was saying it to us personally “I did not forget you… I am formulating a plan…” </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is absolutely nothing that can diminish our truths of extreme atrocities watching our childrens' fathers ripped away as we the mothers feel our way through the darkness of legalities, money, forms, while raising our children. Couples to be separated under an iron fist lacking compassion or tolerance. These laws are neither the future, nor the past, but are an unnoticed atrocity of today...</div>
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Obama:</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Even with all the efforts I’ve described today, even with everything that hopefully we have learned, even with the incredible power of museums like this one, even with everything that we do to try to teach our children about our own responsibilities, we know that our work will never be done. There will be conflicts that are not easily resolved. There will be senseless deaths that aren’t prevented. There will be stories of pain and hardship that test our hopes and try our conscience. And in such moments it can be hard to imagine a more just world. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can be tempting to throw up our hands and resign ourselves to man’s endless capacity for cruelty. It’s tempting sometimes to believe that there is nothing we can do. And all of us have those doubts. All of us have those moments -- perhaps especially those who work most ardently in these fields. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So in the end, I come back to something Elie said that day we visited <place>Buchenwald</place> together. Reflecting on all that he had endured, he said, "We had the right to give up." "We had the right to give up on humanity, to give up on culture, to give up on education, to give up on the possibility of living one's life with dignity, in a world that has no place for dignity." They had that right. Imagine what they went through. They had the right to give up. Nobody would begrudge them that. Who’d question someone giving up in such circumstances? </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, Elie said, "We rejected that possibility, and we said, no, we must continue believing in a future." To stare into the abyss, to face the darkness and insist there is a future -- to not give up, to say yes to life, to believe in the possibility of justice. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To Elie and to the survivors who are here today, thank you for not giving up. You show us the way. (Applause.) You show us the way. If you cannot give up, if you can believe, then we can believe. If you can continue to strive and speak, then we can speak and strive for a future where there’s a place for dignity for every human being. That has been the cause of your lives. It must be the work of our nation and of all nations.”</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> ...</span>If we keep on believing in family unity, if we do not give up, we can show them how human we really are.</div>
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<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/23/remarks-president-united-states-holocaust-memorial-museum"><span style="color: purple;">http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/23/remarks-president-united-states-holocaust-memorial-museum</span></a></div>RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-40897485888851681902012-04-22T15:18:00.001-07:002012-05-15T19:40:10.460-07:00No advantages for the wrong way!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They should not get an advantage over those who do it the right way…”</div>
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Politicians have the power to make the country what it is and we assume that they are intelligent humans that are educated and perhaps have served some type of humanity internships along with many legal degrees. We assume that during these years of potential presidency preparation that somewhere in that journey that they would have gotten their hands dirty, served food to the homeless in some soup kitchen for a day or prepared graph charts for a class on why it is important to be concerned with a particular group’s welfare – the end result being a developed responsibility level for compassion…</div>
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Who does it the right way?</div>
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A bit hypocritical really-</div>
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IS that how you got to run for president?... the commander of all?... because you know what is best?...</div>
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The right way is to not separate families that were initiated because two people met while living daily under the protection of our government in our land.</div>
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What escapes the mouth and thoughts are the fact that now there are security and crazy nuts walking up and down the border actually looking for something to shoot at.</div>
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If giving those who have made it in “the wrong way” an advantage so to speak, gives the impression that this wrong way might be easier and may cause others to follow and not do it “the right way” that is really not looking at the fact that who in the hell would want to sneak in here now anyway?</div>
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In the long run the wrong and right ways are in the past tense, because there is actually a “no” way to do it now. Families are destroyed and no one seems to care…</div>
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Right, Mitt?</div>
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Be real.</div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_rr6-CcOJPw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_rr6-CcOJPw</a>RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-61571077640961978352012-04-18T08:44:00.000-07:002012-04-18T11:30:27.133-07:00Split Self<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">
Life in two worlds</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Daily moods can interpret the dual life into two extremes. You may find me telling myself how lucky I am, how exotic and different and cultural, and what an opportunity of adventure that has escaped the boredom of monotony. The other hand holds the darkness of the insecurities, the failures that lie within the instability, the loss of control in decision of my own… Regardless, I am Sybil, the multi-personality deemed multi-cultured woman that happened this way from abuse of my freedoms, in spite of my freedoms, to split my entire life into two separate facets, in order to preserve thy self.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Explaining my life is the difficulty, unless the specific questions are asked. For example, when I am in American I eat American food and when I am in <country-region><place>Mexico</place></country-region>, almost everything is accompanied with a warm tortilla and salsa. In it this subject can be detailed to the exacts of how the food is gathered, cooked and served or enjoyed – how much time it takes to prepare and what time of the day do meals take place. There are remarkably many differences in all aspects of food and how it is consumed between the two countries, but they both provide the same basic results of sustaining life. You eat and then digest.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How I feel when I am in the States presently cannot be compared with my life when I was the cultural virgin, for that cherry is gone, along with the entire orchard. Life in the States has now been somewhat reduced, vacuum packed and freezer dried to be given longevity for future use. On the future visa-awarded holiday planned, that life will be thawed, heated, and prepared appropriately, releasing its aroma just as fresh as the day that it was stored… in theory. For now I sit on the internet with internet nets, pretending that I am living in this suspended state of self preservation.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A bird in a cage at the window, watching life happen without me, afraid to go outside because I am in the town of los gatos and they are ready. Would Picasso find the ability to capture this hell? Who lives like this? Surely I know no one but us, and yet we are expected to carry on our normative societal standards of the community without interruption or alarm, because it hurts their ears to hear it… our fears. Few can understand what it is like to be stalked like prey, to have to run and hide and occasionally stand and fight... while raising children. As imagination can muster, the bravest warrior too becomes tired eventually from the constant flow of adrenalin and one day will expect an end to the battle. That end for me is resolution with immigration and is what webs the entirety of all the time warps into one drink of mixed poisons. When Ricardo is able to live in the <country-region><place>USA</place></country-region>, we can move away from my stalker ex husband, how much more clearly can that be stated.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I am in the States I dream fondly of <country-region><place>Mexico</place></country-region>… wanting to smell the sweet smells and the cry of sales and blows and whistles outside. I wish to hear the music and the people talking that I barely understand and find it easy to not try to. I find my mind living in <country-region><place>Mexico in certain memories often</place></country-region>, while in waiting deployment from the States. Maybe it was a drive up the mountain on our way to the park and I can replay it over and over in my head watching my husband’s confident smile from the passenger seat as he drives the children and I on our way to one of the greatest family adventures for the day, the kids laughing in the back of the van, the music on the radio, the windows down and the culture blowing in from the streets… I relive scenes of our life, of our time together, over and over and sometimes I feel as though I am actually there and not here. My mind can dwell for days in my home in <country-region><place>Mexico</place></country-region>, organizing my home décor, washing my clothes and folding Ricardo’s shirts and pants. I remember the broom, the mop, and the sink, and the smell of the soap and chloro in the buckets as I remove the polvo from our home, while preparing the meal that we will share that evening. Ricardo goes to work early and I kiss him with an I love you as I lock the door behind him and open that door when he knocks in the early afternoon. He bursts in like sunshine with a huge smile and arms out for the kids to jump in, every day. He hands me something, if it be roses or sunflowers, or a bag of sugar-cane, or warm tortillas… I am there with him in my mind, living in those memories. Every day that I am in the USA, I am in Mexico with my husband in my surroundings of my decorated home, living as it should be as a couple in love, equipped with the Snow-White song, and blue birds flying and squirrels jumping to partake in the fantasy.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The door to the bird cage is left open next to the window, and instead of being devoured by the cats; I book a flight to <country-region><place>Mexico</place></country-region>. Naturally my whole self is engulfed with hormones of excitement to be soon reunited with him, my love, my prince of charmings, my husband and mate for the remaining days of our lives… the right arm returned, the parent to share in the accomplished growth in the shared perception of pride of the children. Off to <country-region><place>Mexico</place></country-region> we go as we pack our suitcases full of hopes of the best memory investments yet to come and all of the sudden I feel right again. The flow of blood returns to the corpse and would be the best time to ask me if I will organize your garage, basement and attic in just a couple days time as if I could harness the energy I could give electricity to a city. I am living again! I will soon be retuned to beautiful and undress from the costume that I wear while in the USA posing as the tired beat down woman in the robe with sunken eyes and greying hair in a bun – and metamorphism replaces her with the real me, the energetic, sexy, life loving me, the me that is supposed to be.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>AND then I have to say good-bye to my kids when I straddle the border and guilt finds itself another wrinkle to reside in. Although the anticipation does not fade, the responsibility and pressures grow, not overshadowing my need to be with my husband, but flexing my maternal instincts to repair the split life, condition and trim the ends – strive for a visa and hope for a home and a new beginning with a strong direction into contentment… in other words, to be normal.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><country-region><place>Mexico</place></country-region> life is something that I have mastered, assimilated, culturally adjusted to... I cross the border and I exhale. Expectations have become normative standards; it becomes life and not a concept or postcard… with appreciation for more than the image. Never assuming that I am a Mexican, but holding my own self and where I come from with pride, I am the American in a strange land, with rosy colored shades. That comfort did not come without scars, without bumps and bruises, without a question to my ability to accept diversity in human existence. Left in the past like the innocence of youth are the emotional closures of loosing my own perfected customs of lifestyle. I am no longer a star status American in our town, but just another face that people recognize and are able to greet with questions about my personal life updates, and not to bother charging me more than they should at the stores and street vendors.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every minute is magnified in its appreciation when you know that there is not much time, and that is how we live now when we are in <country-region><place>Mexico</place></country-region> as opposed to before when it was assimilation. We are timed like mice in a maze, an experiment by the mad, to how well our hearts can uphold our sanity and our endurance for our marriage and parenthood. It is a sick experiment that surely the results go unrecognized. Conditioner is applied and the split becomes bearable… Ricardo grabs up my hand while we are walking down the sidewalk and in comparison, my own strong hand is dominated by yet a stronger hand, that of my husband…</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love my days, my minutes, and my moments when I am with him in his country. I am beautiful in the mirror and in my being. Smiles and laughter and excitement rein the children and the television is suddenly not a staple in the day. We pile into the minivan and go – wherever, it never matters, because we are together, laughing and feeling life in our bodies. There is happiness in our marital bliss and our romantic passionate quarrels, we talk without talking, and we feel without touching, we know that we are a combined pair at those moments… not the solo sock that looks great but is useless without the other.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course though, without a doubt, my children who are waiting in <country-region><place>America</place></country-region> for our return are in my mind all day, bumping off of my other thoughts that are circling around in my head, causing contradiction with the happiness because we are so far apart. Never has there been an ease in that, never a day that goes by without it, always the broken chain that could be really awesome if repaired.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then we have to say good-bye to <country-region><place>Mexico</place></country-region> and go back to the <country-region><place>USA</place></country-region>. Our residential timeline is a rollercoaster… we are living the life of split cultures, two residences, two homes, two places that are completely different in nature and attributes that are within the same life – Sybil, the dual-multi-split and then only to repress what is normal.<br />
<a href="http://youtu.be/-Ko9nGrGtAY">http://youtu.be/-Ko9nGrGtAY</a></div>
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Thank you government bodies for the opportunity to be a phenomenon, it’s hot.<br />
<br /></div>RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-49835854742449368812012-04-11T18:10:00.000-07:002013-03-13T17:18:21.941-07:00t i m e<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Today’s mail consisted of two letters.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The kitchen was cleaned and dishes washed from this evening’s dinner of split-pea and ham soup that I made from the ham bone from our Easter ham two days ago, and I swiped up the letters off the table while my hands were still damp. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My eyes focused on the addressee of the first letter from the Church: </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Mr. & Mrs. Ricardo Magana”</div>
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…and I let out a little whimper, a bitter-sweet emotional release…</div>
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This was a new one for me, to see our marriage in official title name form like that.</div>
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It was a hope of a future as a family in the <country-region><place>United States</place></country-region>.</div>
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I smiled with a tear…</div>
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Stupid and silly, but nonetheless, it was precious at least, in this worn out life.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Second letter was addressed from the hospital; I figured an unpaid bill from my recent visit…</div>
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Out fell a single ultra-sound photo of our late pregnancy, nothing more… </div>
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With no explanation or paper of description as to why it was mailed to me.</div>
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Appreciation of the little things <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Getting ready to call my husband as I do every night about this time – maybe I will tell him about it.</div>
RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-20803232401621981272012-04-03T00:31:00.000-07:002012-04-03T06:46:02.953-07:00Painted photographs<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I noticed 13-year old Julian, my son, was with facial expressions that were new to his demeanor… not emotional differences or attitude, no… it was simple expressions, like the way that he held his chin with his thumb and forefinger or a certain way that he smiled – it was his father’s traits.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last night we were talking and I noticed it again, something hit me and I asked “Is there something secret that I should know about? Have you spent time with him?” </div>
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Mind you it has been like eight years…</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He stared right dead on at me and stuck his arm out with his cell phone in his hand. I said, “What is this about?” He told me to read it… so we sat together on the couch from <time hour="23" minute="0">11pm</time> to <time hour="1" minute="0">1am</time> and read through all of the text messages and discussed them…</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What was there to discuss really, I mean it is a text… things like “I spent all afternoon fixing up your room” caught my eye of course. Like is that room for when you go live with him after he kills me or what exactly is the plan here?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have had to relive and repeat this story so many times today on the phone to the cops and abuse hotlines and God how many times in the past… to make it simple lets go over highlighted areas only:</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First thing comes to mind, I really could kick myself now for not taking up the offer when the shelter wanted to move the three of us and change our identity. They gave me a week to decide. I chose to stay and fight… noble but really not the best plan in the long run, obviously, because here I am again, 8 years later. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vengeance does not die until someone is dead, and yep I am still alive, the winner, the hated, the faulted, the walking investment of threats and thoughts of evil projections of strangling my neck or holding me against a moving tire or whatever form of torture suits him… perhaps that reoccurring dream that I have had for years would please him most… the one that I am in a parking lot and he comes walking over and shoots me. I have felt the bullets while sleeping through that dream many, many times… so I guess it is just a matter of time until it happens, till it becomes reality.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Drama you say? Wish. It could not be that simple of course. He has stalked me for years. I guess I should have had a red flag when we were kids of 10 years and he pushed me down and jumped on me kissing me with me screaming underneath and a crowd of his friends and my friends standing around us. What was thought to be the boy next door crush turned out to be a sleeping with the enemy lifetime saga.</div>
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Owned.</div>
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Property.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Living in <country-region><place>Mexico</place></country-region> was a blessing in that I was for the first time, not looking in my rear-view mirror to see if he was following me. I knew I was safe there, ironically… He would never go there or never find us, the ‘stupid bitch’ that he is.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is exactly what Ricardo called him once over the phone which promoted a chain reaction of death threats, car stealing, apartment stake out, police reports, overnight moving, and pulling the kids out of the school without saying goodbye – a suggestion from the abuse shelter to protect the other children and teachers – and being thrown into a new school under such precarious conditions as the “new children” with the secret issues… drama, sick of it.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our “case” was nothing short of a spotlight from a helicopter on a brawl in a crowd. There were at least half a dozen organizations with their hands rubbing all over the kids’ and my emotional break down, our fear, our panic.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can still remember every second of every luxurious moment. While living in the shelter I actually pushed a dresser in front of the door because I felt he would surely come busting in the door and kill us eventually. Our lives were on cameras at the ends of every hall, every parking lot, and meeting room… there were always 24 hour guards and gates, and questions and concerns and counseling a few times a week – all for over a year. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will never forget the little room I sat in across from the toughest personality of the 5 or so ladies that worked at the shelter. She was not tender and loving and comforting like the others. She was not trying to make friendly connections like a few of them did. She did not give out ego boosts or encouragement as I had received from all of the other ladies but her… then it was her and I who were to fill out the restraint order petition. I was a mess as I had to relive and describe at least a few abusive incidences that we could use to put on this paper for proof. So I used the time he threw me across the room in the chair that I was sitting in with Julian watching. I was calmly telling him that it was probably best that the kids and I leave to <state><place>Pennsylvania</place></state> because of his drug issues were causing us to be in an unsafe environment. He had recently locked the kids outside while I was visiting my grandfather in the hospital which incidentally died that day, because he was smoking crack with one of his hoochy mamas in the bathroom. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This woman, this tough lady counselor, looked at me with all of my teary faced slobber going on, all broken and deranged, and she said “Do you have any idea what is normal anymore? Do you realize that you have no identity of your own? Do you know that the different things that you tell us are not how life is supposed to be?” I understood, but I was also feeling as though she did not know that I survived. Then she said, “You know what? The other girls and I were talking about you today and we see girls come in here all beat up with broken bones and all kinds of situations every day. You are the worst case we have seen in three years, we all agreed. You are a true blue abuse case.” I cried. I cried hard. Her words ring in my ears often. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three years prior to my stay at the shelter there was a story that was told of a woman who had children that the father killed on Christmas even because of court ordered visitation rights. He wrote her a letter from jail afterwards that told her that every time she would look in the mirror that she was to know that it was her fault that the babies were dead. It happened in the same city. I processed this as the case we were compared to. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We didn’t take the change in identities because I was reluctant to give up WHO I WAS…Raquel, ‘the me’ side of me…</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a bit of irony in that in hindsight as I sit among my suitcase-dressers while my kids sleep on the floor next to me and my husband is in another country. What did I trade for our freedom and that possible new start? This?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, that is what I did because I wanted to be near my kids one day. And here we are tangled up in an immigration comedy skit with the brunt of the joke aimed directly at the kids and I – hardy har-har, how fucking hilarious!</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was very important for the half a dozen government organizations to jump in and rescue us from dog breath and secure our safety at all costs, even offering to relocate us, wow. But now that I am married to my loving non abusive good parent Mexican, well fuck us right? Basically that is what it amounts to.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of the sudden the kids’ safety is not so important. So their education, health and whatever else the imagination can tack on there have been sacrificed – who the fuck cares. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The government apparently only protects from psychotic American assholes when it comes to the American children… once the line has been crossed and their step father is not allowed to come to the beloved USA to protect them from the American asshole, lets just say it is “better for everyone if we just go live in Mexico” Right? Is this not the basic intention for our lives and for our safety? </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am getting off track glory be, back to the present day and focus. I find out then that while I was on one of my “husband visits” with the babies for a month in <country-region><place>Mexico</place></country-region>, Julian established an ongoing “secret love affair” with this long lost turd of a man. Now I have to put my immigration issues aside and save my son, and the rest of us, from futher ruin.<br />
I told Ricardo last night on the phone about this new extra problem that we now face. Instantly he asked to speak to Julian. They talked for thrity minutes with Julian's tear streaming down his cheeks and many one word answers as Ricardo was speaking very fast on the other end. When the phone was handed back to me, Ricardo said a few things to me about how he felt. He is Julian's father. Ricardo has been Julian's father for most of his life and has done so with the best of parenting skills as a father. Now he is there and we are here and Julian is confused and we have a stalker and there is nothing, absolutely nothing that I can do about it all but "WAIT" some more, pretty LAME of my government with it's many "jump in to fix things up" organizations. WHERE are you all now?<br />
He has actually been picking him up and taking him places while he is out on his paper route... messaging him, and disregarding the restrait order or loss of parental rights. I do believe this constitutes a mini-kidnapping. Would I want a stranger taking my child places without me knowing about it? Certainly not. But what about a man who has threatened our lives and who has blood given influence over curiousity of my children who are stuck in this shitty immigration world of loss with the silver tongue of false promises. <br />
All in the name of winning his loss back - the man he used to be... the God.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tell him, do you realize how much I would welcome some help in parenting? I mean do a reality check here. I would benefit greatly if I had more help. Buy the kids some things, take them on vacations and get them out of the house, great! As a matter of fact, this summer I would like to go see my husband in Mexico, but the kids don’t want to go and quite frankly I don’t have all that money for 5 tickets. If they had another parent to stay with would not that be the perfect set up for me?</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do not take that “option” because it is not an option.</div>
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I will not sacrifice my children. He is a psychotic on paper, a soul owner and an identity thief. They will cease to exist as themselves once he gets to weasel in because they will become his puppets and they will be lost. No way </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The room he is building for my son apparently is for after he kills me, which has been promised on several occasions.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This threat coming from a man who has been involved in 3 murders that he has told me about in drug or alcohol induced moments… a man who had to have his tendons sewn back together up his forearm which is scared like a cat-post. This is a man who has between three to ten arrest records in 6 or 7 different states each on the eastern coast… </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is going to figure it out soon. I am either going to die, or be in for a huge ride, or another overnight move or something… I am so numb that I cannot even find the energy to imagine it, I don’t want to tonight. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just want my life back and my husband here and enough is enough already. I may consider moving back to <state><place>Florida</place></state> while we wait out the next however many YEARS till the waiver shit is finished. So fed up with all of this STUPIDITY you cannot even imagine!</div>
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Well if he kills me, it’s been real. Please make sure Ricardo gets his kids back.</div>RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-61231024725165401472012-03-18T12:24:00.000-07:002012-03-18T13:57:27.998-07:00Saturday, Three/Seventeen<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Good-bye for now...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I waited to see your lifeless body…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">for four days following the visit to the hospital.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Your life began on a Sunday night<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">out of passion two became one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">You were confused and you were on your own <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">and mommy could not show you the way,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A part of you went the wrong direction<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And I’m really sorry that I could not change that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We loved you - your father and I and all of your brothers and
sisters,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">and one day we will be together again <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">souls reunited,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">and you can find comfort with your mommy again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Saturday morning…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Pain woke me up... now holding my breath and rocking,
hurts... I am picturing the scene from the ‘Blue Lagoon’ when she is alone in
the woods giving birth, screaming “RICHARD”, only it’d be in Spanish of course
and switched to Ricardo. The pain is very intense, alone, not knowing...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Not sure what to expect right now. Is this labor, and it all
just happens at once? Should I get a bucket or something? Or is this just the
beginning of a drawn out painful period? Oh God it hurts like hell. If he were
here he would be making me hot tea. His look would be comforting and strong. I
would hide inside his arms up against his chest and cry, nice and safe and warm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Is this that private of a moment that I should be alone? I
am confused. I guess logically, it is nothing more than a really bad day on my
part. That is if it is only a day. I am hoping a few hours tops because in a
few hours everyone will be awake, then what? The kids will want breakfast. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Its slightly worse than cramps, close to a contraction. It
is in my stomach and stretching around like a belt into my lower back. Yes same
but different. It is coming and going…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I chose to do this instead of the DNC, they did offer. I am
not one who likes intervention. I rarely take aspirin for pain, etc. My past 5 out of 6
births were without any intervention. I like to do it myself and no one messing
with me. If it were up to me, which I guess it always has been I would have had
all of them at home… there is some kind of illusion that we are not to do that
though.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Even still I wish Ricardo was with me right now. I don’t know
what we would get out of this memory or anything like that, but as far as how I
feel right now, I need him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I figured the DNC sounded damaging, scarring, all of that…
the word scraping and “we’ll go in” turned me off right away. I told them I
would just wait to have things take care of themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I was not told what to expect and I did not think to ask. I
will say that surprisingly it is turning into a round of contractions with
breaks in between, and they are getting worse. The first one woke me out of a
deep sleep. Yup - having one right now it is building up and intense and the
same, a contraction – helps to rock. Okay over… lasted about a minute, two in
between….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Okay had enough, I’m waking up my 12 year old daughter. I
cannot do this alone. It is way too overboard on the physical pain level…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sunday morning…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">That was around 8am… it first started at 6am.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I continued this labor of contractions lasting a minute with
roughly 2 or 3 minutes break in between. Each contraction would start small and
tighten and build up strength to a peak in intensity, then hold there for a
bit, then die back down… I did this for 7 hours drifting off to sleep between these
contractions, with my 13 yr old son Julian checking on me. I remained in the
bed staring at a photo of Ricardo and I with our arms around each other
standing in front of a volcano in Puebla Mexico, and fell asleep for a few
hours bringing my day into the afternoon and I got out of bed for the first
time about 3pm. Awaking somewhat refreshed and decided to take a bath, as I had
passed a lot of blood… also thinking it would make me feel better. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is no surprise. When it is bath-time for mommy, Catherine
usually jumps in… then Eliott will come in to the bathroom to check out what is
going on, get a smirk, and strip down and jump in too - throwing the pile of
toys in before his own body. Accustomed to the crowd during my own bath, I have
learned to let go of the ideal of that relaxing bath moment. This bath was no
surprise for that reason. Bath-time with mommy did not escape the “birth” of my
labor’s efforts throughout the morning. I had my privacy this time, and in that
private moment I met the handful of what my growing baby once was… a little mango-sized
pod that held a sleeping baby inside. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I put her in one of my pair less socks, and buried him under
the chestnut tree with flowers planted on top.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">That was the end of our romantic conception on January
eighth followed by my flight at Christmas to Mexico. That was the end of the
name choices and the small effort to gather up maternity shirts as I sold what
I had previous in my front yard and out of my van in Mexico for extra money two
years ago. That was the end of the October Halloween baby that we welcomed with
a smile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">She will always be loved by her mom and papa. We will never
forget him…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">My husband was told over the phone about my experience after
the fact. He said sorry, I love you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I need him for closure. I physically need him to emotionally
move on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But for now, until then, a temporary wall will be there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am getting to be quite the wall builder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-7271229307096969842012-03-14T13:20:00.001-07:002013-07-16T21:08:07.554-07:00Primary Diagnosis: Fetal demise<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Primary Diagnosis: Fetal demise”… I chose this title for this blog </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The previous title consideration: “God Bless my Lil Mexico Souvenir”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The decision for the ending result title is pretty logical as it seems scientifically cold and calm and comparable to how I feel today regarding the state of my health that has been determined by the ER at the local hospital.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The definition of demise is of course: the death of somebody, the end of something that used to exist, to die… especially when it is slowly and predictably. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Slowly and predictably… that is the hook that reels in the rest of my life with this loss, presumably compounding my scientifically assumed emotional and hormonal pain of loss. It contributes to that ideal image that today I would be hating baby commercials, burning the list of names I had picked out, and rearranging the maternity section of the closet… saying good-bye to someone that “should” have been in our lives soon. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The delivery of 5 of my 6 children took place in this same hospital, average time from coming in the door to baby in arms being three hours, however with a range from 45 minutes to 5 ½ hours. I was there for seven hours, only to receive the verdict in the last thirty minutes of my stay of a diagnosis that of being fetal demise, from a man who made his first introduction to me at that same moment in the ER… there was no emotional attachment in my visit. Walking out of the electric doors at 12:30 am was quite different than being wheeled from a room with a baby in my arms and a balloon tied to the armrest. First words that came out of my mouth when I hit that night air on the walk to the car was “well that sucked” – yes I was talking to myself. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Three full episodes of Law and Order, two front to back magazines, and a psychological evaluation of the family that was parading around the waiting room (that I seriously feel escaped from a mental institution or a local commune) – entertaining to say the least – led to my annoyance of the visit. I was hungry, tired, concerned how my mother was handling the kids at bed time, and a little worried that my usual night-time call to Ricardo in my absence was going to cause him to worry. The IV needle in the nook of my arm was hurting, and the air conditioning above was blowing as if it were a southern state of 100 degrees outdoors, which is so far from reality as this is freezing Pennsylvania. So I pulled my fists into my sweater sleeves, and adjusted myself in my seat a dozen times… there was nothing “baby” about this visit so far.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The rest of the visit was spent as a patient. I was taken to a room off of the ER where the nurse laid out the gown… and she was fumbling a bit, so I said “you need me to strip down right?” She smiled, “Exactly.” So that was cold. I left my knee high socks on and pulled my sweater back on. I was like a little granny all hunched up watching the votes come in on the Republican debate. After thirty minutes I was transported to the Ultra-sound via stretcher.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">She pulled up the sides of my wheelie-bed with my purse beside me and my smock dress wrapped tightly around my legs and even tucked in a bit. There is something about riding through the halls of a hospital that is unnerving anyway, but when you’re wearing a flimsy smock with no undergarments, it intensifies that modesty like a bad dream. Plus it was cold. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">All of the sudden I had this amazing flashback… the last time I was in a stretcher moving through the hallways. The guy was slamming into every corner, reaping havoc on my pain level, and Ricardo my husband who was beside me walking, was calling him a “pinche balboso” as he wheeled me to the surgery room from the ER in Mexico. I smiled at that memory of my husband’s determination of protection of his princess. It was comforting. I broke the silence with the woman pushing me and shared this memory with her. She changed her position from the back over to the side of the stretcher while she steered me through, ending the conversation close to our destination with how she was worried about her daughter’s planned endeavor to travel to Mexico with a MS medical condition. I told her, not all aspects of the medical care in Mexico are as horrible as the experience I had in the hospital. I expressed how on a scale of attention as far as daily life with the involvement of the local doctor and the kids’ frequent illnesses and injuries, it was rather advanced in that the care was quick and cheap, and it was in my opinion black and white.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I recognized the ultra-sound man as he introduced himself, and he said, "Yea, I’ve been here too long,” and he recognized me too, to which I responded, “Yea I have a lot of kids.” Kind of funny… I am not a professional, but by this point I can see the sonar screen and pretty much know what is going on. He started to place little crosshair cursors on lateral sides with an adjoining measurement line on a black circle. Aware that a normal part of a sonogram is first the measurement of the head, I thought okay that is the baby’s head… but he was moving the “mouse” around on my jelled up stomach to such degrees that I knew, that wasn’t the baby’s head, but it was my womb, an empty black circle. He measured a little attached piece sticking out of the side that was not black but was the only material object, somewhat grey-colored on the screen, like a little “nub”. He was quiet, taking multiple views and photos; I watched for a while, then rested my head back and stopped watching because I knew. There weren’t any feet or hands or arms or a face, nothing like a baby. I said, “There isn’t a baby in there is there?” He said “yes, but it is early in the pregnancy, I am detecting a baby’s pole.” I got a little a flutter of hope, and said “What is a pole?” And he said, “You know, the one end to the other of the embryo.” So I tried to show my experience with this sort of thing… “I am 11.2 weeks. I had a sonogram with my son at 13 weeks in which I could see him as a baby moving around with his arms and legs and face and even that he was a boy… this is not an early pregnancy.” He was only allowed to say so much because he was not the doctor. I told him though, “I read about this when the baby stops growing but the body continues to produce pregnancy hormones and women do not know.” I Google my self-prognosis for everything that happens to me or the kids prior to doctor’s appointments so that I have an idea of what is going on. The body will continue the pregnancy and the baby will have stopped growing due to chromosomal abnormalities. It all started to make sense to me at that moment. That is why I have felt less morning sickness, I am not showing as much as I should be, and most of all, despite that there is no scientific reasoning for the last and most important sign… I felt empty and unconnected with the “baby” that was in me. From a woman-with-many-children’s perspective, I knew there was something missing. Quite possibly that edge that pregnancy puts a woman at… that door between life and death, where a soul is exchanged to be placed inside your own body that brings your senses to a point of sometimes heightened discernment of life’s fragility… is exactly what I am referring to. We continued with the ultra-sound…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I sat for an hour on my stretcher following the ultra-sound, only wheeled back down to the ER. My room was taken because it was a busy night for them, so I was parked up against the wall. I was right in the middle of all the action, so I just watched and listened… “so this is what a normal life is like” – the conversations were normal – normal life things that happen to people that I have not experienced in years now… Two people were talking about a car that the other was selling and upon ending his shift with his coat on gave a wave and said “Facebook-message me and we’ll talk more about it.” Wow – reality smack in the face. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I have Facebook messages that are regarding loss… loss of rights, loss of husband’s presence or ability to be with me and our children, just loss… </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This hospital staff, bustling around my stretcher as if I were an invisible part of the scenery, caused me to feel like I was watching a candid camera film that was to show a person such as myself “this is what real life looks life.” I am sure that this is being overly sensitive. But I am incarcerated within my own mind because of the immigration jailers. I have been given an indefinite sentence of guilt for loving a man from Mexico and forming a family with him. I am never going to be able to break free to join the rest of society, or so it seems, until my husband is “awarded” a begged for visa… as if that constitutes begging.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I try to think of the good things, like the fact that I have cried every day of my pregnancy here in PA without my husband in Mexico. I have been so emotional and nuts over everything. At least that would subside without my pregnancy continuing… I mean just as soon as my HCG hormone levels reduce to normal levels. At least now I can be stronger as a person in the many efforts that it will take in the near future to resume the paperwork where we left off on the sponsorship. At least our next family time/visit with Ricardo in Mexico will not have to be revolved around the pregnancy or regard any type of prenatal care issues, or due dates. We are now without timeline pressures that a pregnancy can put on our already powerfully complicated situation.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ricardo is very logical. He is my counter-balance because I am dramatic, and he reminds me of this quite often and says that our daughter is the same. He is my rock and my best friend, and I am extremely lucky to have him and I love him so much.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">His first reaction to my call was “why do you call me now and not before” because I call him every night and it was very late. His voice was groggy like I just woke him up… I said “I was at the hospital Ricardo the baby is gone” Immediately he was at full attention. I think he thought Catherine because I call her the baby – I said “I am not pregnant anymore. The baby did not grow.” I was being lighthearted towards our conversation because he deals with enough depression of our absence as it is, and I know he has this huge protective need for being here with us. I did not want to make it sound like I was losing it or anything, so I was somewhat as upbeat as possible. I finished with “you okay?” He said it was natural and he was fine… just like I expected.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So that is what happened last night. I was secretly hoping that the ultra sound would reveal this little kicking baby in there with a strong heartbeat proving that my spotting was just a fluke… I even prayed in the little room to please protect me and the baby. I felt completely engulfed in Him for a few seconds as he laid his protection on me. I know that is why I am okay right now, emotionally. I just have to proceed with the miscarriage as of right now not showing any signs, yes, no cramps nor blood… I look for it to begin in the next week or something… I am a little afraid about what to expect. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was not God’s decision for my baby to not develop. The baby stopped growing around 6 weeks and its sac had a measurement of 8 weeks, but my HCG levels are high like a normal pregnancy. It was nature taking its course. Sometimes biology is real and that is a part of life. God does however protect the soul from pain when you ask for it. That is how I have been surviving.</span></div>
RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-73185092263542456192012-03-11T17:30:00.001-07:002012-03-11T18:00:51.292-07:00The Wager<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> For those who do not understand the truth behind my desire
to succeed in our marriage being complete in the USA and instead of being
rather adventurous and tearing into life in the heart of Mexico, side by side
riding off into the sunset as the happy couple, let me explain just a small minute
aspect of why and maybe the reality of why this part of my story is not talked
much about by me.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> This above all is certainly not about the fact that Julian
and Leah are not Hispanic however I took them into Mexico to learn close to nothing
throughout their elementary education years… oh, except that of their
comparison to America and what they knew to be missing was huge. That in fact
is not meant to knock the Mexican school system, but as a foreigner with no
ability to speak to the educational staff in their own language… there is no
hope of the PTA assimilation on my part as a mother of two small children who
too did not know the language. Their big advantage that was noted by the school
system, was that the school gave my kids somewhat of a gifted status, because eventually over time
they were both completely bilingual, mother tongue of two languages, dreaming
in each - self taught. Forget math and history… who has need for that when the basic
opportunity to get a great job knowing English somewhat causes the educational
staff to overlook what your child is lacking – especially when they, as opposed
to the forty-five other students in the humid overcrowded and under equipped
classroom, were not native. No, despite Julian and Leah’s education with a certain possibility
of never receiving proper status to live in this Mexican country, and possibly not
finishing the 12 years of regular free education in the USA due to lack of
money and lack of the comparable social security number (CURP) that is given to
residents; yes, the futures of my kids, although dramatic in the dynamics of,
are not enough to necessitate the need for the waiver. We could still go back to live
in Mexico despite these odds and hope for the best.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Upon examination of my first marriage, that came of it my
children Rachel and Thomas, it seems as though it is a basic divorce situation.
Two people looking to be married just to be married and a total lack of respect
and love within the attitudes of both of us towards the other. Not uncommon at
all in society. Personality wise, I was brought up to make an adventure out of
life where he was brought up to control the dreams and funnel them into a small
container that he kept in his back pocket. Trusting his wishes for my signature
due to supposed technicalities of insurance purposes, I signed my life away a
month after separation to him, my house, everything in it, and our children… of
course figuring that it was not as serious as the paper read, but that surely
he would never just cut me out… papers were only for insurance purposes… Nope!
That was the end of my motherhood. Why? - Because I was abusive, on drugs, or
drunk? No. Was I a whore or deemed crazy? No. I was not any of these things. I
was a mother with a very good job who took her daughter to the library once a
week and cuddled at naptime on the couch while the 99<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> time of Fox
and the Hound was playing on the TV. I was a mother that got up to nurse her
baby son that she delivered at 9.3 pounds after forty-five minutes labor, every
hour during the night in a rocking chair and then went to work at five in the
morning. I was that mother who stock piled food and bathroom supplies so much
that he did not even have to buy soap a full year and a half after I was gone.
I was also a mom who took the kids with me initially and he ended up with them
by means of a simple signature. A man who drank his way through the first two
years of our relationship enough to require cold buckets of water to be thrown
on him to no avail. The man that I drove to work every day for the first 4
years of our relationship because his license was revoked was suddenly the boss
and I was without any claims all because of a signature. Still, in my pursuit for an annulment from the Church, I will be claiming full responsibilty because of my personal misunderstanding of the meaning of marriage before I made the commitment in a Catholic sense. In other words, I took the vow without being seriously commited for life. I did it only for my year old daughter. I hold the blame for my own decision to start something that I could not finish, but not the blame for the entirety of our relationship... I gave it all and it was just too much take, in my mind.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Now this is still not the issue of why I feel the need to explain
my waiver desires, as if that needed some type of explanation, but I will
proceed regardless to finish the point. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> This has nothing to do with who was right or wrong or big or
strong, it is simply an explanation of my emotional state following my loss of
my children due to ignorance both on my part for taking a signature so lightly
and his part for not acknowledging my importance as a mother in their lives.
Ignorance very simply put can destroy people. My visitations were limited to
exactly twenty-four hours every two weeks. It was his desire to drop them off
at six on Friday evening, and for me to have them back by six on Saturday
evening. For years I worked as a substitute mail-carrier, even though I worked
six days a week, I was without benefits of the full time. For the first few
years of this arrangement I had to basically find a babysitter. I usually had a
lot of trouble lining someone up to take their Saturday and donate it to this
project. After some time passed, I became a full time mail-carrier and had Saturdays off. He lined
up the total Saturday afternoon to be filled with a 3-4 hour day at the soccer
fields. Now I was glad that they were in soccer, but that was supposed to be
our time… control issues… and he never ever gave me any time extra – even when
begged for.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> When they were still pretty small, I would pull up to the
house to drop them off, and the kids and I would just hold each other out front
of the house in the car. My son was a toddler and my daughter was a bit older…She
was five, then six, then seven…. I missed it all! Once when she was around
five, we sat there crying talking about how we would think about each other
till next time in two weeks, and he came out to the car really mad, and grabbed
her out, taunting me “waa waa waa you big baby” “aaawwhhhh I feel so bad for
you booo hooo loser” My daughter was there. That is the kind of relationship I
had to endure with him if I was to have my small slice of their lives, all
verbal abuse. I have never been able to see a report card or school project,
nothing. My gifts that I bought for them were quickly removed from their sight.
I was not allowed to be a mom. Not to mention the undeserved public humiliation
with that wonderful two and a half newspaper article, describing his fatherhood
being perfect with no mention that they had a mother… he gloated, “ya like
that?” As if it was a game. He stole my children from me. I was suicidal for
years following.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> My second husband was abusive and we moved far away when
they were nine and six years old, yet another blow to my children. Our
relationship remained strong over the phone, which they were old enough to do
this now. Before when we lived in the same town, I would call very often but he
would never let me talk, "They're busy."- Click.... and they never knew the difference… but as they aged,
they became wise to the little things like phone calls. We visited once or
twice a year. Then I was put into the abuse shelter and the system and was not
supposed to leave until the court case was completed. I found great opportunity
in my new job… then I met Ricardo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> I consistently bugged Ricardo, my new found love, to move to Pennsylvania with me. I
needed to go back. The kids were getting older and it was my opportunity to try
to get more visits. Now that I was away from the abuse with two years of
counseling to strengthen me, I wanted my relationship with my kids back.
Ricardo made me strong and content with life. I dreamed of the fairy tale. He didn’t
appreciate that pressure when he missed his own family so much. He left for
Mexico assuming that I was dead set on going to Pennsylvania with or without
him, because that is what I told him. Pressure tactics are not always the best
option.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> I can remember as if it were yesterday, the call I made to
the kids from Florida. They thought I was coming back to Pennsylvania, finally… I said, “I am
going to Mexico, I need to know what it is like there at least to tell the baby
where his father came from,” as I was newly found pregnant. “I promise I will
not stay. I promise. I will be back. I just want to know what to tell the baby
about his father.” I was figuring Ricardo would come back with me. I was
figuring he would satisfy his need for his family as he missed them so much
that he broke down crying upon reuniting with them (our mutual friend who
took him told me later). It was how things would work out in my imagination. We
would come back together. I had no idea that there was even such a thing as
papers to apply for. So naïve I was. I figured it was a simple basic formality
that could be worked out somewhat like any application for anything that we do
here in America. Nope. I left everything I owned behind, drove off in my loaded mini-van for a three day drive to the center of Mexico, pregnant with two kids in the back - knowing under ten words of Spanish.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Over the years with the traveling back and forth on tourist
visas because our attempt to get our permanent residency status there became
impossible, we of course spent time during many of those transitions in
Pennsylvania with my kids. Every time I would see them they were taller, or had
braces, or boobs, or casts or stories… growing up between visits and changing
naturally like the way the landscape does when left unmanaged. One day they are
little babies and the next they are pulling up in a car. Sadly, I was only physically
part of that change in small amounts, all visits. The entirety of my
relationship with my two first born revolved around this visit and next visit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> This is where it starts to sound familiar to my marriage to
Ricardo and all that we have been able to offer our growing babies: this visit and
next visit. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> So you see, my need is not to appease the crowd, or to conform to what
the bandwagon is doing, or to avoid simply giving in to supposed natural causes
of marriage to a Mexican and label myself tough girl for surviving the
adventure. Nope. I am in need of a waiver for my husband to live in
Pennsylvania with me, simply because I am very tired. I am very tired of visits. I am
very tired of having to say goodbye and having my heart ripped out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> I only wish that I could somehow describe listening to my
daughter sob so much that she lost her breath in my father’s car on the way to
the airport at four in the morning a few years ago. We got in line with all of
our bags and we had to snap out of it so that we could go our separate ways….</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">...Just like we
did when we she was five… my son the brave smiling soul teared up as he handed Eliott
over to me after carrying him to the gate, and away we go....<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A part of life to watch
your babies fly from the nest is naturally painful for a mother. Soon they are
out of their father’s control and can make their own decisions in life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> This is
only where my turn begins.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> That is, provided I pursue the waiver to be here…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> You see, this is more than an unwillingness to let go of
aged children, it is exhaling after a long time coming.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> It is more than a not so simple process of a waiver so that
'Ricardo the Mexican,' my beloved husband, can come to live in Pennsylvania with his waiting
family. Maybe to Ricardo and maybe to the kids it is; but for me it is untying
the concrete block from my leg and swimming to the top of the water and getting
my life back after all of these years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If you cannot understand that, be glad. Do not try to
connect with this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-38979322158353435292012-03-09T14:34:00.002-08:002012-03-09T20:02:30.485-08:00Could this be it?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Father Murphy was really not as threatening as the nervous tensions told me to be... those voices in my mind that caused me to picture being struck down as a disappointment to society with my past divorce. No he was kind and real to us, as a true friend would be.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Leah came along
as they had a half day of school, anything to get out of the house for her… but
I was glad she came. Leah and Father Murphy click really well and he introduced
her to a bunch of different ideas for her to be involved with in the Church,
such as the youth group. I could see in her eyes that her wheels were turning …”fun”
was what she was thinking coming from the “I’m bored” eleven year old attitude…
“friends” that are in the neighborhood that are in her youth group’s age –
girls that she knows from school and are already friends with. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Finally – a smidgen of normalcy!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">When it starts to happen, the normalcy, after years of
raising children out of suitcases… I don’t know I am slightly overwhelmed right
now. Wow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I introduced the two of us and expressed that I was not really
sure where to start… that there was probably no other family around town with
our situation… and that my family needs so much help right now.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There was
absolutely no formal approach, I had no proof, copies, papers, photos, nothing
that would be required in all of the other aspects of our marriage up till this
point</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> – including his I-130 & the prep for the hardship waiver – “PROVE” to us
you are REAL… </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The traveling to be with each other with our children between
countries, they say, “now SHOW us your passports and why were you in Mexico”… to
which we always respond, “just being a family.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Walking through life without as
much as an ounce of trust coming from anyone that we are just a real life family so simply, I guess that I have become accustomed to the proof part of who we
really are. I went to the Church without any form of proof. I refused to make
yet one more aspect of my life an instant business deal. This was about the
responsibility that I have to make sure that my family is not living under this
huge horrible weight that has been placed on us, regardless of the fault or
circumstance...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">– we are beyond that “figuring it out how we got here stage” and
we are in the “we need to save ourselves right now” stage. We were simply
asking to be rescued.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Right away he started jotting down information like my kids’
names, which led to past marriages, which lead to our marriage, which led to a
few explanations that are not bragging material to a priest. His expression did
not change; he did not snarl or let out any breath of disapproval… he just kept
talking and asking questions… trying to make sense of my complicated situation
with multiple factors… without judgment – as it should be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Obvious that I love my husband, and without asking for proof
of that, Father Murphy said to me, “Bring all of the papers in that I will need
to take over to the lawyer and I will sponsor you. If the diocese has some type
of reservation, because they have rules about different things, I know people
that will do it.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wondered about
hospitalization - which gave me the opportunity to explain the sponsorship step of
the immigration process. Due to the lack of immigration reform, the immigration
process presently does not reflect on the US Welfare System’s reform of its
benefits policy being unable to be accessed by a non-citizen of the USA,
potentially cancelling itself out. I gave him the hypothetical situation where
if Ricardo were to be here and find himself hurt enough to require medical
attention and say we were not insured, the hospital would not call upon
government assistant in the case of a non US citizen however would bill the total
cost of the visit directly to Ricardo and I at our address. The sponsorship has
no exchange of money. It was basically set up to cover any money that the
government lost in paying for the immigrant.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">He asked what work I have right now or have had and I let him know that I was a full time student in my
second year at an online university to be a preschool teacher with a 4.0 grade
average, and of my past work experience as a mail-carrier for 7 years
and my job in the work comp claims business. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Then he asked me “What does he do for a living?” I clumsily
described Ricardo’s job as a delivery driver for the many ice cream stores in
our Mexican state of Morelos of the big buckets of ice cream products used to
make the ice cream… followed by “he’ s a really great driver” because he really
is exceptional. He said without hesitation that he can get a job easily with
someone that he knows as a driver for an asphalt company, just the
technicalities of getting his license. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">He asked where we were planning on
living, and asked if I realize that homes are really expensive. I said I am not
looking for a luxury home, we would be happy simply having stability in an
apartment. I then said, “I realize there are many technicalities to life, like
him getting the correct license and us finding a home, but when our life gets to
the point where we are facing these questions, that is when we know that we are
experiencing some type of normal life, and that is all we want is to be a
normal family.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">He asked me, “Why did it take you so long to come here?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I told him that we do not have a car and we
do not make it to Church in the city to St Paul’s so we heard that St Fidelis
is Roman Catholic and my sister in San Diego had a baby so my parents left us
my mom’s car to use and because we were so happy to have transportation we went
to church on Sunday and then on Wednesday too because it was Ash Wednesday and
there was a song that they played and it was about Jesus but for me it was
about my husband and it was page 216 and it made me realize that I just needed
to be brave and ask the Church to help us… He got the picture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I want to believe that he is going to take us under his wing I guess…. HUGE project
for anyone… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of course when you are this bruised, even the best news is
too scary to believe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Maybe we will finally get our opportunity though. Maybe I can focus on one sure plan instead of juggling 4 or 5 possible plans each with detrimental outcomes.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Thank God!<o:p></o:p></span></div>RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5478994058469941774.post-91673048350334312022012-03-04T12:00:00.001-08:002012-03-04T12:04:43.984-08:00The Y scene.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One day in the future my 18 year old daughter will be
calling… what will it be like….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Scenario one, I am living in Mexico:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Mom, we are getting
married. I know you will not be there because you cannot make it from Mexico.
No my brother can’t talk to you sorry… I don’t know I guess he is mad because
you left.”…. “Hey mom it was an awesome wedding. Your sisters and their husbands
were there and their kids… so were your mom and dad. Lots of people were
wondering about you, why my mom was not there for my wedding… or my siblings… I
could have used your help with my dress… I was really nervous too. Wish you
could have been there, sending photos.”…… “Mom I’m pregnant”…. “Almost time to
go to the hospital, wish you were here!”….”First birthday party won’t be the
same without you guys… tell my brothers and sisters I said hi and I miss them…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Scenario two, traveling back and forth like now: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Mom I am making
arrangements for our wedding. Do you want me to seat you and my sisters and
brothers with your parents so you have another adult at your table? Dad will be
sitting with his girlfriend and all of the others are coupled off, so I just want
to make sure that you are comfortable.”….. “My daughter is so beautiful, don’t you
think dad. I wish Ricardo were here for the thousandth precious moment of my
life missed”…. “Your baby is so pretty. One day you can vacation to see Ricardo
in Mexico so he can be a part of her life.”….. “Another birthday party goes by without
Ricardo in the photos or in our memory.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Scenario three, Ricardo gets his papers and we are living in
the USA:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Mom and Ricardo…
sit down we have news to tell you – we are getting married!”……….. “Mom and
Ricardo you look so happy. Mom can you help me with my dress? Ricardo isn’t she
beautiful? Let’s dance!”…. “Can you guys come out to eat with us we have good
news… We are going to have a baby. You guys are grandparents!”….. “Ricardo I am
so nervous sitting in this waiting room. Let’s take the kids down to the café until
she is born…. Hey there little baby we are your grandparents… you can come to
our house all of the time.... Happy st birthday sweet angel, do you want to sleep over at my house tonight? Grandpap Ricardo will take us all to the park for some ice cream tomorrow!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>RaqueLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18136109160092009452noreply@blogger.com1