Nearly two decades in this country and Ross would make it difficult for our mom to leave if she had to leave tomorrow. It’s where she found her favorite purse—plum purple, faux leather, a simple yet elegant tulip print.…
The truth is that ten years is no small thing. So my parents, both Mexican immigrants, haven’t applied for residency out of fear of being kicked out of the country for having entered illegally. Now in their fifties, my parents have lived three decades in the US. Despite what anyone might say, this country is their home. A ten-year punishment is a lifetime. To be kicked out is to leave all they’ve known for over half their lives—their home, their work, their friends, and my sister and me. But it also means leaving behind smaller things. The insignificant or the replaceable, as some might say, but let’s be honest, we all have our small things we’d hurt to lose. A wood carving of the Virgin Mary, a moon pin, a letter tucked away in a book.
“Some guilty pleasures on this side of the border” is part of a semiautofictional collection about two gossip-loving siblings in South Omaha, where the Latinx population largely resides. Being the children of undocumented Mexicans, the siblings fear the possibility of their mom being deported. In their worry, they compile a list of things people around them would miss if they left the country. I love lists as a form. I love the way a list gives power to the mundane. The simple things help define a life—it’s what we know, have known, and change is always felt. The tension is less in physical movement and more in the organization of the items. As the list progresses, the siblings look further and further into the neighborhood. A kind of failed denial is what I’d call it. The siblings turn to the small because they don’t want to say what would hurt the most. But despite their efforts, their list is anchored to the act of being forced out of the country. No matter how far the siblings zoom out, at the end of the day there still exists the possibility of their mom being deported.
MOISÉS R. DELGADO is a Latino writer from Nebraska, and holds an MFA from the University of Arizona. He is a prose editor for The Adroit Journal. His prose appears in fugue, SmokeLong Quarterly, Indiana Review, Split Lip, and elsewhere. Find him on Twitter @MoisesTheHuman.
