Before I left the United States, I didn’t have a lot of
friends who weren’t US Citizens. There were the Mexicans who I knew from
church, but I hadn’t really stopped to think about where they came from.
When I moved to Spain, I was amazed by how many cultures and
countries fit into Madrid. There were people from everywhere, and since I
attended an international school, there were even more in my classes.
I lived in Spain during the time of the boom. Everyone
wanted to live in Spain because it was doing so well, and because there were so
many opportunities. The immigration system was a little bit different than it
is here. For many of them, if they could last several years without being
caught as illegal, and if they could prove that they’d lived, and served as
upright people in the country, they could obtain their residency. That was an
opportunity that many couldn’t resist. It’s not to say that they didn’t come
with any risks. The main form of transportation, the metro, was always
considered a trap. There would be random checkpoints where everyone trying to
get onto the train had to show their paperwork.
I’m not quite sure when I realized how many of my friends
were illegal immigrants from different countries. For me, they were just my
friends. But after a while, I started to notice that those of us with papers
would go into the metro stations before others, and then we would call up if
they weren’t doing checks.
There was one evening, when we had an activity that ran
over, that two of my friends ran to the metro before they were late. One of the
girls had her paperwork, and the other didn’t, and that was the night when they
were doing checks in the metro. They caught my friend, and she was deported
back to her country.
It was quite a sobering experience for me, since I’d never
had to live with the fear of being deported. I’d never left my country hoping
for a better life, or for an opportunity to live in a better place. The way my
husband described Spain was: “It’s like the American dream, but in a country
where we could speak the language.”
It’s amazing how fortunate we are to have the opportunity to
live in a country where dreams are made possible. Where we don’t feel like we
have to escape to be able to have a fulfilling life. I wish that this
opportunity could be true for everyone.
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