Young immigrant in documentary has more than dreams on his side
14-year-old has become symbol of undocumented children
SALINAS, CALIF. Jose Anzaldo has dreams, and he has probability on his side.
That may not seem obvious, but you can ask his mother, who works long hours in the fields of “the world’s salad bowl.” You can ask his teacher, a son of farmworkers who must see in Jose some reflection of his own childhood. You can ask anyone who’s seen this kid do math.
Jose, 14, is many things. He’s a high school freshman who smiles easily, plans to be an engineer and seems to see the best in every situation. He’s an undocumented child of undocumented Mexican parents, not a citizen like his three siblings. And because of that he is, increasingly, a symbol of something larger — the nationwide debate over immigration, the changing rhetoric and politics of a new administration, the questions over the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program initiated by former president Barack Obama.
Jose’s story is not unlike that of thousands of undocumented children in the Salinas Valley, a breathtakingly fertile lowland once home to John Steinbeck and to the jail that held Cesar Chavez for 20 days while he refused to call off a lettuce boycott.
The Salinas City School District’s Migrant Education Outreach Program alone serves 460 families and includes 691 migrant students. The total number of undocumented students in the area is unknown, and some districts don’t disclose their figures.
But none of those other students has grown up in front of a documentary camera, as Jose has.
East of Salinas, by Bostonbased filmmakers Jacqueline Mow and Laura Pacheco, examined the plight of children from farmworker families by following Salinas teacher Oscar Ramos and Jose from third grade to fifth.
Since the documentary premiered on PBS in December 2015, Jose has become a symbol of undocumented children. Mow and Pacheco are determined to see the story through to college. Ramos has never left Jose’s side, either. Jose’s mother believes as strongly as ever he’ll succeed.
But no one is writing this script, and the path remains full of uncertainty.
A NEW SEASON
As the school year began in August, undocumented students and their families were settling into a new reality.
At the beginning of 2017, amid President Trump’s inauguration and speculation over how quickly he would act on campaign promises, fear and anxiety ran high in Salinas schools.
Trump launched his campaign by criticizing Mexican immi- grants. He widened the list of undocumented people who would be priorities for deportation and vowed to end DACA.
“In the very first weeks (in February) you’d see kids come in with a blank face — it was so prevalent in the news,” said Ramos, now in his 22nd year of teaching at Sherwood Elementary School. “You could see their eyes were still puffy (from crying) because they were terrified.”
In some cases, students avoided going to school out of fear and at times the topic emerged unexpectedly, Ramos and others said.
Rosa Gonzalez, an outreach coordinator for the Alisal School District’s migrant program, says there was a sense of panic at first. School officials held meetings and workshops to provide information to worried parents.
“It was a lot of fear from people for not knowing what was going to happen I remember seeing teachers holding children close, parents were wanting to leave the country right away,” Gonzalez said. “We kept telling them, ‘Just calm down, think things over. Things don’t happen overnight — it will take time to settle.’ ”
A well-publicized case last spring only added to the tension. As a result of a clerical error at the Monterey County Jail, federal immigration authorities detained and tried to deport Salinas resi- dent Juan Martinez, 19.
Martinez is covered by DACA and jail authorities have acknowledged the mistake, yet still allow immigration authorities to be in the jail.
Some of the effects from the rapid changes and ongoing uncertainty linger. Mary Pritchard, director of bilingual/migrant programs for the elementary school district, said there has been a drop in the number of families who qualify for the migrant program, which provides educational services including after-school tutoring and extended year programs that include Saturdays and spring, winter and summer breaks.
“There seems to be a sense of families not feeling the same security and confidence in moving from one place to another, especially from one state to another to follow agriculture as they once did,” Pritchard said.
But teachers and administrators say the mood is calmer now.
“We are in our eighth day of school. I haven’t heard any kind of the fears we were hearing last year,” said Martha Martinez, superintendent of the Salinas City Elementary School District.
Martinez said the district does not disclose information on how many children are undocumented.
AN UNCERTAIN PATH
While this has been going on, Jose and Ramos have focused on the quest to be a U.S. citizen.
Ramos and his wife, Kathleen considered adopting Jose; in 2016 the couple adopted an undocumented child who now is a legal resident. The child is now in fourth grade, and the couple are working on his citizenship.
“Jose had a little inspiration in that,” said Ramos of the adoption.
They also explored the possibility of Jose’s brother, Daniel, 18, sponsoring him. But Ramos conceded both options would take a minimum of 20 years.
“How old are you now?” Ra- mos asks in the documentary’s update, which was shot in the aftermath of the election last fall. “Thirteen,” says Jose.
“You’ll be 33,” Ramos says. The teen buries his head in his arms.
Another option, Ramos says, would be for Jose to become a DREAMer under the DACA program. Signed amid controversy over the extent of the president’s power, that order protects young undocumented immigrants from deportation.
On the other hand “he’s only a freshman in high school,” Ramos says. DACA applicants must be 15 when they apply, and the program is limited to students who have graduated from high school, obtained a GED or been honorably discharged from the Coast Guard or armed forces.
The Trump administration is considering rescinding DACA, a step that would not only close that door to Jose but affect some 750,000 people who already have DREAMer status. Over the weekend, reports indicated the president plans to give Congress six months to find a legislative fix for the program or he’ll end it.
While the White House has cautioned that no final decision on DACA had been made, a possible six-month reprieve would only add to an already-heavy legislative calendar.
“Right now it’s not good news that he’s thinking of getting rid of that program. It would mean Jose has to remain hopeful and positive,” Ramos said. “We are all wishing and hoping for a friendlier administration in the future.”
Jose has seen his classmates get frustrated, angry, and fearful. He is undeterred. “It didn’t matter to me because I was going to go about my day like it was any other day. I was not going to let myself be distracted,” he said.
“You’d see kids come in with a blank face. You could see their eyes were still puffy (from crying) because they were terrified.”
Oscar Ramos
TELLING THE STORY
In 2011, Mow and Pacheco set out to look at the impact of America’s immigration laws and farming practices on children and families. The stories about immigrant farm workers they saw focused on adults toiling in the field.
“We think children are often forgotten, and many undocumented workers have families,” Mow says. “These are just kids with dreams like other kids.”
“I often wondered how this kid stayed positive all the time,” Pacheco said. “This is what he told me: ‘I try to stay positive because if you only see the bad things in life, you don’t see the good things.’”
Jose’s mother, Maria Anzaldo, 32, said the family decided to take part in the film because they wanted to educate the public.
“After the documentary, I felt proud because I knew that people would see that we are good people wanting the best for their children. I hope they see that we are hard workers and that we want to contribute to this country, even if it’s a little.”