How I Got Here

By Yoselin Diaz Alfaro
April 24, 2024

“Where are my parents?” This is a phrase that repeated in my mind as a child. People told me that they were far away. I did not understand what la USA, coyote, or el borde meant. Later I learned that a coyote is someone who guides people from one country to another. But as I grew up, my idea of these concepts cleared up and I had to live the experience. As a low-income family, the best option for family stability is to come to this country. They made sure to take this journey, even if it was dangerous. They could leave me with my grandparents while they made their way here. Many families are not so lucky.  A “place where dreams become true” A place where people can prosper.” What did it cost for my family to be here and what did they need to sacrifice? 

These are the sacrifices: 

Saying goodbye to your parents, siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts, friends, and your 12-month-old child.

Go into a car and travel for hours until you arrive in Guatemala. 

Only one hundred dollars for your survival, no phone to communicate with your family, wishes to see them again one day. 

Follow the coyote instructions: sit on a bus and don’t talk with anyone until you arrive at the next stop where someone else is waiting for you. 

Feel the panic of seeing police around you and fearing the fact of them catching you. Enjoy the peace of traveling through all of Guatemala in a car, knowing that the worst thing was waiting for you in Mexico and the infamous “Rio Bravo”. 

Get into garages and hide from the cops with no food and no space for your needs.

Get sick and not take medicine and save the only money you have for your food and water (the most important thing). 

When you finally are there- the dangerous river. You can only think of how this single step is the only thing separating you from your dreams.

Finally, being on the other side, you are on your own. 

Try to survive, go through the desert with no more food, no more water than what you are carrying. No more stores. All your fears around you. 

The dark gets deeper.

How long will this be?

Days and days in the desert.

Running away without shoes. 

You hear the cop’s dog looking for your smell. 

Breaths are shorter.

Don’t know where you are going.

Forget everything else. 

Feeling your heartbeat rise. 

Then you see it.

That car that will save you. 

The car that will take you to the place of your dreams

 Know that you are safe. Now you can work and help your family.

But alone in a foreign place with different everything. 

Becomes another survival path. 

This is what they did for me.

I didn’t fully grasp the complexity of that path until I had to experience it myself. How was I supposed to feel? A question I will never be able to answer. Melancholic, saying bye to people and places that I love but delighted to see my parents after 13 whole years. Being grateful for not having to brave through a desert but afraid of what awaits me. As a child, things were easier than what my parents had to face. A coyote knowing they were getting paid exuberant amounts to take me safely to that river. 10 thousand per person for guidance from a coyote, while also requiring to have enough money to buy food and drinks. We often saw people who didn’t. With instructions to never get too close to these strangers. They were also people who were looking for happiness and a better life. You were only allowed to smile at them. From bus to bus, from car to car, all the way through Guatemala and Mexico. Staying in different houses, with different people every time. Standing in front of the Bravo river, standing in between me and my parents. A step closer to them. Babies crying, men angry, and teens afraid, we had to get a boat to the other side. From there on, there were no coyotes to help you anymore. Walk for hours seeing the sun set, the day goes by. Hearing animals around. Others go in different directions but look for the same thing. After a couple of hours, you see it. Something highlighted over the trees. A big red border made of metal, big enough it fills your vision. Police lights everywhere. I knew what that was. The door to my happiness, to a new beginning, and more opportunities. Running and getting closer. “You finally made it……”

Cop- “Tu nombre? ¿Estas sola/o?”

Me- “Me llamo…. Y vengo sola/o.”