BERWYN ABUELITA HAS THE VALUES THAT MAKE AMERICA GREAT
Seven- year- old Mariano Castellanos has a simple question: “Why are they doing this to my abuelita?”
Behind almost every immigrant family’s American dream come true, there’s at least one grandmother from the old country, abuelita for Mexicans, nonna for Italians.
You know the type. They’re often dressed like they never left the village, and they hold fast to the faith and customs they brought with them.
In malls and in parks, they trail American- born kids, barely able to conceal bemused smiles when they must chide in their native tongue or in the shards of English they command. They wouldn’t want the cherished grandchildren picking up any bad habits of this country.
Most all maintain their traditional role at homes that smell of distant lands. They will fret loudly if you don’t immediately scarf down plates piled high with the kind of food they just don’t serve even at the ethnic restaurants.
Outside the home, many of them also plunge into the strange new land’s workplaces. They make sure to save much more than they spend— and they’ll warn you to not waste the wonderful chances they never had.
We called our immigrant grandmothers “yiayia.” Some others here call them nonna or babcia.
So it was especially heartbreaking to see the reaction of family members Thursday after 67- year- old abuelita Genoveva Ramirez emerged from the federal immigration agency’s offices downtown.
She said the bureaucrats of the Trump administration told her she has to go back to Mexico by the end of October, prompting her 7- year- old grandson, Mariano Castellanos, to wrap his arms around her waist.
Ramirez’s daughter, Fernanda Castellanos, was too shocked and upset to discuss her mother’s case with reporters on Thursday. But she later was happy to talk about how central her mother is to the family’s daily life.
A single mom, Fernanda Castellanos and her son live in the same house in Berwyn with her mother and father. The family came from Mexico City 17 years ago, she says, and all three of the grown- ups in the house are janitors.
“My son has been the most affected by this,” Castellanos says. “He asked me, ‘ Why are they doing this to my abuelita? She’s a good person with a big heart.’”
Ramirez works cleaning a store early in the morning, then returns home to help care for Mariano, often making him his favorite-Mexican dish, pozole.
“My little grandson,” she says, chuckling. “He’s very expressive. He tells me, ‘ This is the tastiest food. I would like to know how you learned to make it so tasty.’”
After spending some time with the boy, Ramirez and her husband both are on the night shift. On Friday afternoon, before heading for work at an office building in DuPage County, Ramirez told me how she made her case to immigration authorities the day before.
“I said to them, ‘ This is really unjust. Since we came here, we’ve done nothing but work, work, work,’” she says in Spanish. “We’ve worked so hard. We’ve paid taxes. Nobody gives us anything. We don’t take anything from the government.”
Back at home that night, Ramirez says, “Marianito” told her he was afraid President Donald Trump himself was inside the government building in Chicago, ready to take her back across the border.
She vowed to continue to fight against deportation.
Unable to get congressional approval for his xenophobic campaign proposals, Trump’s minions instead are doing whatever they can get away with administratively to make immigrants miserable and unwelcome.
On the website of U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, under an American flag, is the less- than- welcoming slogan: “With honor and integrity, we will safeguard the American people our homeland and our values.”
It doesn’t say what values our government now holds most highly.
From one grandmother’s point of view, it’s clear hard work and commitment to family aren’t what’s being valued.
MARIANITO WAS AFRAID PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP HIMSELF WAS INSIDE THE GOVERNMENT BUILDING IN CHICAGO, READY TO TAKE HIS GRANDMOTHER BACK ACROSS THE BORDER.