{"id":1714,"date":"2019-08-01T09:30:47","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T09:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/?page_id=1714"},"modified":"2019-08-01T09:30:47","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T09:30:47","slug":"pedro-lopez-on-his-mothers-deportation-2008-2015","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/30-the-recent-past\/pedro-lopez-on-his-mothers-deportation-2008-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Pedro Lopez on His Mother\u2019s Deportation (2008\/2015)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pedro Lopez immigrated to Postville, Iowa, with his\nfamily as a young child. On May 12, 2008, Pedro Lopez\u2019s mother, an undocumented\nimmigrant from Mexico, was arrested, jailed, and deported to Mexico. Pedro was\n13. Here, he describes the experience.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll go back\nright to the day. I was in social studies going into my reading class. There\nwas a helicopter circling around the northern part of town. There is a National\nGuard station up in Decorah so we thought maybe they got themselves a hold of a\nhelicopter. They are doing an exercise.\nPrior to that there was a raid in Marshalltown. Some people saw that as a\npossibility of them getting closer to Postville, making connections and\nwhatnot. When we did find out that it was actually immigration that came to\nPostville, ICE agents, it was a big hit for me. Both of my parents worked at\nAgriprocessors at that time. My dad worked in maintenance and my mom worked\njust on the line, is what we called it, which is where they process the meat.\nMy mom worked from three in the morning until whenever they decided to end the day.\nMy dad would go in around four or five in the afternoon. They tried to do that\nso there was an adult in the house. My mom was working her shift and I knew\nthat she was there for sure. What happened after that was they did arrest my\nmom and she was scared because she heard stories about Marshalltown and how\nthey would go into the houses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Immigrants\ndon\u2019t sometimes know the full extension of the law and they would allow them\nsometimes to just come in not knowing what would be the consequences. My mom said\nshe was here alone. She was not here with anybody else. She said\nI\u2019m here alone, I don\u2019t have any kids. If you are going to take me, take me,\nthat\u2019s all you are going to get.\nThat\u2019s really what they did. She was just scared. She didn\u2019t know what to do, but\nshe knew that she had a family. There are three of us. My youngest sister is a\nUnited States citizen, my older sister and I aren\u2019t, so she was worried about\nus. And rightly so. She came from Mexico, 2,200 and some miles. They both\ncrossed the desert, in horrendous conditions. She wasn\u2019t going to give up all\nof that just because she was going to open her mouth and say oh\nyeah I have kids but\nshe didn\u2019t know that was one of the ways out of the actual process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was\narrested and sent to five different prisons. She was sentenced to five months\nin jail and was deported on October 25th<\/sup>, 2008, which ironically is\nmy dad\u2019s birthday. My mom was taken out of the picture for a year. Us here at\nhome it was very difficult. My sister was 17 years old going on 18. In a flip\nof a coin she had to become a mother of two. My dad had to work double as hard\nbecause we had half of our income cut. I kind of had to step up. I was at the age\nwhere, I was thirteen, so I could do a little bit more, which I did. You kind\nof had to leave some of your childhood behind. What I told Luis Argueta, who\nwas actually here filming today, I told Luis it was hard for me. I was a man at\nthat time. I was expected to be a man. And be a rock. Just going through the\nmotions and make sure everything is alright and not really express my feelings.\nWell that was one of the things that was hurting the most was my feelings\nbecause I didn\u2019t have my mom, I had to give up some of my childhood just\nbecause it wasn\u2019t necessary at that time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were in\nconstant fear of ICE coming back, most of the time we had half of our\nbelongings packed. That was something that would eat at my mind like oh\nno, my dad is going to go and work, alright is he going to make it back? If not\nwhat are we going to do, what is going to be the process? Plus before my mom was deported,\nit was where is my mom? I wonder what she is doing, I wonder what she\nis feeling, I wonder if she is okay, I wonder if she is being treated right? It\u2019s a lot on a thirteen-year-olds\u2019\nmind. Especially when they are thirteen, they are going through their own\nchanges themselves. The fear of going to high school was completely not even in\nmy mind because I was thinking I don\u2019t know if I going to survive\nanother day living in the United States. Why do I have to worry about the next\nfour years of possibly being in Mexico?\nIt was a hard time. It was a time where I realized that my story could do a lot\nof good things, the story of Postville could do some amazing, great things. It\nwas a time of change, it was a time of growth, it was a time to strengthen our\nfamily, but it was a hard time nevertheless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interviewer: When your mother was in the five jails\nwere you able to contact her at all? <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She would send\nme letters. We took the decision of not going to visit her partly because it\nwould be too much. It would have been nice to see her and nice to know she was\nokay. I never could see my mother in an orange jumpsuit behind a glass.\nThinking of her as oh yeah she is supposed to be a\ncriminal. She\u2019s my\nmother. She has given up so much to give me the opportunity to where I\u2019m at\nnow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She would\nsend us cards, and that\u2019s pretty much it. When she was in Mexico we would call\nher of course and get in contact with her, but while she was in jail we just\nkept it at letters. The letters were hard to swallow. She would try to be\nstrong in the letters. She would say I\u2019m fine, I\u2019m doing great, how are you\ndoing? I hope you are doing fine. This is going to be behind us. You are going\nto be fine. Just keep going, keep looking forward and don\u2019t be afraid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was hard.\nIt was hard again, you have the half packed house, dad working two jobs, sister\nuptight with pretty much everything because she is in charge of the house. It\nwas just one more thing, but it was a thing I always looked forward to, it was\na thing that gave me strength. It really inspired me to continue talking and\nwhen people questioned what I did I took that as a sign that well\nmaybe they really don\u2019t want to hear what happened. If they question my story it might\nbe because they are really in the dark of what is happening in the immigration\nsystem. I took that and ran with it, just kept talking about my story, about\nthat story of Postville and what I thought was wrong. \n\nSource: Pedro Arturo\nLopez Vega Interview, in Community Voices: The Postville Oral History Project, 9-12. Available via The Postville\nOral History Project (https:\/\/scholarworks.uni.edu\/postville_oralhistory\/11\/<\/a>).\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pedro Lopez immigrated to Postville, Iowa, with his family as a young child. On May 12, 2008, Pedro Lopez\u2019s mother, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was arrested, jailed, and deported to Mexico. Pedro was 13. Here, he describes the experience. I\u2019ll go back right to the day. I was in social studies going into my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":820,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1714","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1715,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1714\/revisions\/1715"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}