Wanting to continue to learn more about
my mother’s experiences growing up I decided to ask her if she had any
stressors in her childhood. I was glad
to find out that like me, my mother did not experience any major stressors in
her young life. Although there was one
thing I had heard her mention before that could count as a stressor,
rattlesnakes.
When my grandparents brought their 7
children from Mexico to the United States their first stop was Texas. They remained there for about 3 years until they
moved to California. The dry Texan
landscape and weather made life hard.
Temperatures were highest at noon and everyone was always looking for
cool places to escape from the sun, including the rattlesnakes of the
area. My mother remembers being very
afraid at first. While walking to the
bus stop she would walk behind her brother because she was afraid of running
into one. The snakes would hide under
the beds and even come into the shower that was outside.
As a result the children learned to
always look under the bed before going to sleep and always check the shower first
for rattlesnakes before going in. They
never killed them but always kept a broom or stick nearby so that they could
shoo the snakes out the door. They
learned rattlesnake behavior and knew when to stay away. My mother mentioned that her fear went away
because she got so used to living with them and thankfully no one was ever
bitten by one. The family learned to
cope with living with rattlesnakes by accepting that the snakes were just a
part of the living environment.
Although snakes in your home does
sound pretty terrifying there are worse stressors in a child’s life. I decided to research the stress of immigration
on children. My mother and her family
were able to come over with little stress because my grandfather and uncles had
all already been working in the US and were allowed to bring the rest of the
family over because of it. This has
become harder to do because of strict immigration laws making the pursuit of
the American dream difficult and dangerous.
Poverty is at the stem of immigration. So is violence with the drug wars in Mexico
and other countries creating an increase in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
in children. The poverty in South and
Central America is so devastating that families risk their lives migrating
thousands of miles through Mexico to make it to the USA. Even more unsettling is the fact that a lot
of these immigrants are unaccompanied children.
I recently saw a documentary titled Which
Way Home which describes the journey that about 8,000 children a year make
in hopes of reaching the US (USCRI, 2011).
They risk abandonment from their smugglers, dehydration, starvation and
being crushed by “The Beast” the freight train that travels North through
Mexico (HBO Documentary Films, 2009). On
top of all that there is always the stress of getting caught and being
deported. The way the children cope is
by focusing on their dream of reaching America to work and be able to send
money to their families back in the homeland.
There are organizations that set up
safe houses for immigrants where food, water, shelter and medical care are
given. But these houses also provide
knowledge about what obstacles are to come on the journey. The information is given in order to warn and
discourage people but it seldomly works.
The hope is too great which makes the risks seem small. Even after making it into America there is
the stress of living undocumented, invisible, adapting to a new country,
language and the fear of deportation.
References
HBO Documentary Films (Producer).
(2009). Which Way Home. [Documentary
Film].
USCRI United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. (2011).
Emmy-Winning Film Documents the Journey
of Child Migrants. [Web Article]. Retrieved from http://www.refugees.org/refugee-voices/migrant-children/which-way-home-documentary-on.html
