It is always a very exciting but tough process to successfully conduct an interview. I was looking forward to listening to people’s specific experiences to see how they shape their views and thoughts on life—specifically the topic of undocumented immigrants. I began the project with a somewhat hesitant attitude. I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to find a person that would be able to open up about their unique experiences and let me enter their world. What if the interviewee wasn’t able to clearly get their point across? How would I be able to draw those thoughts out? What if someone got too emotional? How would I deal with that? How could I make sure that the interviewee felt comfortable and free to speak to me? My biggest fear, however, was that I was going to go through interviewee after interviewee and not find a person who was able to tell me their story as well as depict true emotion and passion about the issue.

It all came to me one night after dinner. I was helping my mother clean up when our neighbor and long-time friend walked in to have her ritual cup of coffee with my mom. They were watching the news and a segment on Obama and his failed promise to bring about immigration reform in his first year came on. I noticed that she had a lot to say about this and her thoughts and points seemed to be valid enough that I thought she’d be able to sit down in class with us and openly debate immigration policy. It occurred to me to ask her to allow me to interview her and she promptly agreed.

* * *

Me: Tell me a little about yourself. Where were you born? How did you grow up?

Sin Nombre: I was born in the Dominican Republic, in the capital, in a small city called Pedro Brand in el kilómetro 28. I lived there with my big family of nine. Five boys and four girls, not including my parents and the usual people that would take refuge in our home. My parents were both ministers of an evangelical church which was located in front of our house. We had a big piece of land envied by many but in very humble conditions. Through the church, my parents started an orphanage to help the children in the area, so since I was about 8 I was running around with tons of other kids. Actually, two of my siblings came from that orphanage. They were left by their mothers who fled Haiti during a conflict in 1981. The mothers left to find their family in Haiti but never returned from the conflict-torn country. So I basically grew up around the church and the orphanage, helping my mother braid the girls’ hair and teaching them how to read with el libro Nacho. Everyone learned to read with that book back then. As for our living conditions, we didn’t grow up poor or rich either—we were stable enough to have food on our tables and to get funds from the government to help the orphanage.

Me: It sounds like your whole family was very involved in the community?

Sin Nombre: Yes, all of the time. My parents really instilled in us the teachings of the bible and the power of lending a helping hand. We never turned away anyone who passed by the church. On a normal day we’d have about 4 or 5 people who weren’t relatives or friends spending the night. Usually people who needed food or shelter would drop by, stay to sleep in the church for a few days, and then leave. Most of them would return and become members of the church, which warmed my mother’s heart. My mother wouldn’t even let us question why we had so many people with us all the time. We just knew that it was the right thing to do and it became part of us.

Me: What was your life like right before you decided to come to the United States?

Sin Nombre: I spent my days going to school. I was always the shy girl but keeping to myself helped me focus on my studies, which actually allowed me to graduate 2 years early. Right after graduation I went on to work with my aunt in the center of the capital. She was in the tourism business and trained me to become a travel agent. I got to interact with a lot of important people from the Dominican Republic and traveled to tons of countries. My job allowed me to visit Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, and Canada. I felt so alive—I was young and traveling the world, having the time of my life. I still have all of the pictures from the trips in a big album.

A few years after that I got pregnant with my first child with Antonio, my boyfriend at the time, and my whole perspective on life changed. The rest of my life continued here in the U.S.

Me: Why did you decide to come to the United States? How did you get here?

Sin Nombre: It wasn’t really my idea. Antonio had some family over here and he had arrived illegally using his cousin’s documents. It’s kind of funny how it happened—his cousin at the time was brought to the United States to play for an American baseball team, I don’t remember which one. Antonio had to hurry and travel before his cousin’s visa expired. So he arrived in New York in early 1993. Right away he married a family friend to get his permanent resident card.

It was like a dream come true for him. He had been eager to come. He was in love with the idea of a new beginning, better jobs, better futures. We had two kids together at the time; I was 24. It was just the right thing to do. I had to follow him here and build a new life together. It sounded crazy but no one really wanted to be in the D.R. It was hot. Not summer hot, but like a scorching, burn-your-eyes kind of hot. There weren’t any good jobs and you were constantly surrounded by poverty and misfortune. There was just no going forward in my country. At that time it took twelve pesos to equal one dollar. That means people were earning lower than what is considered minimum wage here. It was just time for a real positive change.

Me: And how did you get here?

Sin Nombre: I got here by plane. Despite what people say, not all of us come in a banana boat. It’s a nasty generalization just meant to ridicule us. I had a visiting visa. So I was able to come and return after a few months.

Me: What did you think you would encounter when you got here? What did you actually see?

Sin Nombre: I had these images in my mind of what it would all look like. I thought it would be like what you see in the movies. Tall beautiful buildings, bright blue skies and tons of beautiful people in the streets sipping on their iced drinks as they strolled along. I imagined lots of grass and little houses with big backyards and a mailbox. It was kind of like a dream to me. The U.S. was where everyone wanted to be. I was just excited to have the opportunity. When I got here I was amazed by the skyscrapers and the nice cars, but I noticed something weird right away. The air felt different. I didn’t really know what it was but just different. On the way back from the airport the buildings went from tall and shiny to little and ugly.

I arrived in the Washington Heights area with Antonio to his aunt’s house. For the first few months things were great—everything was new and exciting to me—but quickly everything went bad. I wasn’t living my fantasy. I was stuck in a house cramped with about 6 adults plus my two children. I was having a hard time finding a job and didn’t understand anything going on around me. For months I stayed indoors with Antonio’s less-than-friendly aunt. It was hell. The cold winter was a total new shock to me along with everyone else’s bitterness. I was missing my country, but knew I was doing the right thing.

Me: How did you become undocumented?

Sin Nombre: My biggest mistake was overstaying my visa. When it was time for me to go I never went back, but that was never in the plans. I already had my children in school and wasn’t going to put their futures at risk. They were already learning English and watched the same cartoons as all the other children. It was amazing to see them accommodate to this new place. I just couldn’t get myself to leave. I tried to fix my status by marrying a friend. He was Puerto Rican and we were sure I’d get my papers. We got married in my apartment with my boyfriend present, just like if it was real—priest, cake and all. Unfortunately that didn’t work out. Immigration paid him a visit at his house; they were there to investigate our marriage. They noticed that we didn’t live together and he couldn’t answer simple questions about our marriage. He cracked under pressure and told them everything. After that my case was opened and in 2005 I was called for deportation. I was given the chance to leave the country on my own but I never did.

Me: That sounds awful. What happened after that? How did you feel?

Sin Nombre: I was destroyed. At that time I lived in Pennsylvania and had saved up enough money to open up my own travel agency. Antonio had opened a barber shop and business was great. We both had our cars and were living comfortably. Finally we decided everything was going well and decided to buy a house. Over the years we had accumulated enough money for the down payment—we basically had part of our dream life come true. The day I was set for deportation brought everything crashing down. I still remember that day with fear. I received a letter from immigration saying that I had to go to court. I was horrified; my knees were trembling. Everything had turned upside down. When I went to court I was put in handcuffs and told I was going to be deported. One of my friends had heard what happened. He was a high-ranking officer in Pennsylvania. He convinced the officers to let me go home, gather my things and close my business; he told them I was trustworthy and that I would leave the country on my own.

As soon as I was let go I picked up my children from school, gathered what we could, and took the fastest bus to NYC. There we reunited with my aunt in the same house where we originally arrived. We had left everything behind—our beds, clothes, dog, backyard, that perfect little life we had, all thrown away. My business and hard work abandoned.

At the time my kids were 13, 11, and 9 years old. Their emotional stability worried me the most. It was hard to explain why I pulled them out of school and moved them to a place they barely remembered. Horrible to explain why the dog, their best friend, had to be left behind at the shelter, why everything was so different. The move from suburban Pennsylvania to NYC was a huge shock to all of us.

Me: How did you accommodate to New York City?

Sin Nombre: It wasn’t easy. Still to this day we are still not truly integrated. It’s all different. My kids spent 3 months out of school because I was afraid to place them in school under my name. I was scared that immigration would track me down. I finally found an uncle who did me the favor of placing them in school. We had to start from zero again—after 12 years in this country, I had to start from zero. It was even harder to do it in New York City. The rent was more expensive, people were less helpful, and the pace of the city was too fast. It wasn’t what I wanted my family to grow up in. I found myself living again with Antonio’s horrible aunt, who treated me more like a maid than anything else, but we had nowhere to go. For two years we stayed there until I finally found a job and was able to move into a one-bedroom apartment with my three kids. It wasn’t the life we were used to. We were in a neighborhood surrounded by gangs and drugs along with a lot of homeless—which was nothing that my children had ever experienced before. Every day it broke my heart to see them get up early to take the bus and train to go to school. In Pennsylvania I used to drive them or the bus would pick them up at our doorstep. I wasn’t able to do that anymore; there was nothing I could do to help. My license had expired and I was scared to go to the motor vehicles office, also in fear of deportation.

On top of that I’m stuck working jobs that I am overqualified for. I had an interview a while back to work at a restaurant. The owners told me that I was pretty and would be put to work at the bar. They told me I had to flirt with the guys and get them to buy me drinks. I was appalled by the thought and quickly forgot about that job offer. I was used to working in an office setting. Another time I went to an interview for a corporate travel agency in midtown Manhattan. The job was perfect for me—I would be helping companies prepare packages for the business trips their employees took. They were going to start me off at $24 an hour. I was really excited; I was sure I’d get the job. I was competent, had 22 years of experience, and was bilingual. I received a call later that week saying that they had found someone else. I was in total shock—they seemed so eager to work with me—but right away I realized that something had come up during my background check.

Me: What is your situation now?

Sin Nombre: Still to this day it is hard for me to wake up every morning and have the drive to continue. My father passed away a year ago and I wasn’t able to attend his funeral. Even though he died of Alzheimer’s, my mother tells me he always remembered me and would wake up randomly asking for his daughter. The last few years have been the most difficult. I see my middle son about to go to college, not even eligible for an SAT fee waiver, yet still applying for college hoping that someday some legislation will pass that would allow him to have a brighter future. It kills me to see that two of my children have their documents and one is in the shadows just like me. My eldest, a permanent resident; my middle child, an undocumented immigrant; and my youngest, born a United States citizen. At any moment we could all be separated for life. I live with this fear every day of every month of every year. I’m hoping that I can keep myself and my family in the shadows long enough to keep us safe from the INS until we get an immigration reform that will make everything better. I want to be able to travel, see my family, see my country, breathe that same clean air again and still have the opportunity to live in the United States. I want to have a license and be able to vote and take my kids on a road trip across the country without the fear of being stopped. I desperately want our family to be normal like most Americans—free to chase after their dreams without these kinds of obstacles.

* * *

I really tried to dig deep with intriguing questions to obtain rich answers, but honestly I didn’t have to try very hard. My interviewee was full of stories and her descriptions made me feel as if I was living her experiences. The one thing that interested me most about her was the reasons that convinced her to leave the place where she grew up to move to a completely unknown land. Such a decision can never be taken lightly by any person. Immigrating to a new country is the most dramatic and adventurous trip one can partake in. I wanted to see what she thought were the benefits and how she sees herself today in the United States.

Interviewing my neighbor has to be one of the most enlightening experiences I’ve had in my life. It opened my eyes to the real-life obstacles that immigrants face in this country. As she spoke and went on with every sentence I felt like a piece of my heart was breaking. It is absolutely unimaginable that a human being could endure so much pain in one lifetime. Even though I had a hard time keeping the tears away during the interview it was well worth it. Stories like these need to be heard, because we need to attach human faces and emotions to these stories. The one way to achieve immigration reform is to hit the United States with the cruel hard facts about the experiences of undocumented immigrants in this country. I truly hope that the interview helps many other people speak up to tell their story, and realize that we need to unite as a community to achieve comprehensive immigration reform.