my friend, Fili
In 1972 when Filipe was eleven, he hadn’t liked going to school or studying. He was very much an outdoor kid. One day, tired of trying to make him do his homework, his father told him to decide then and there between studying more, staying in school, or going to work for the family. Imagine the choice!
Fili already knew he was good with the horses and cows, and would always rather be out with the animals than inside studying and reading; so at that early age he gave up school for work. Now try to imagine the lure of El Norte from Mexico back in the 70’s! There was no difficulty getting over the border: we have always loved cheap labor here. Even today with this anti-immigrant feeling, though the border is much tighter, here in Texas in every quickie-mart there are dedicated kiosks and computers for wiring money home to Central America. He came over the border lying among stones in the back of a large dump truck at age fourteen, and he’s been living here ever since.
Fili was trying to sell his Suburban. Every month or so it needed $500 — $1,000 in repairs. The inspection sticker was good until the end of November, so he had a couple months to get it repaired or sold. He’d wanted $4,000 for it, which it seemed to be worth, but he only had offers for $2,000. Over the summer I had loaned him some money, and in exchange he had given me the title of the thing to hold. I had accepted and held it because I knew it was his honor that I was holding. He would not have asked me for money if he had not had something to exchange, and I knew I must take the title for his sake, as a friend.
I read his title and noticed it was still in the original purchaser’s name with Filipe’s name on the back, as it is when you buy a vehicle. I knew he would have to go to the state offices to transfer it into his own name before he could sell it, and since he hadn’t done it in a timely manner (within the thirty days), I expected he would have to pay some penalty. Friends I asked said it would be certainly less than $100 altogether including the fine and the transfer fee, but he’d been told by someone that it would cost him $600! He was naturally hesitant to make the change, which was why he was doing it late. I figured that whoever said it would be $600 was likely a citizen trying to steal from him, saying they would “take care of everything,” so I asked if I could drive him to a title company nearby to see what was needed. I offered to speak and translate.
We went together one day at his lunch time, with permission from El Patrón. We brought the title, his birth certificate, and his current Mexican driver’s license. The place we decided on was a tiny office, some title company that El Patrón used for his vehicles: two little ladies at computers. It was a time warp. Brown wood paneling from the 60’s, the place smelled of cigarettes down into the brown shag carpet, and the ladies were scary, out of step with the march of time since the 80’s, their long computer monitors blasting cathode rays into their torsos for decades. I said good morning and introduced the two of us, showed the front scary lady the title, and asked what was needed to get it in Filipe’s name. I also showed her his drivers license. Complete silence for a few seconds, and then she said in a raspy voice that he was not a citizen of the U.S., as though that was the end of it. When I asked if there was anything we could do, she said that he had never actually owned the vehicle, his title notwithstanding, and that only citizens or Green Card holders could own vehicles here. “Get A Passport!” she vocalized loudly and slowly to Filipe. We left.
Fili has been paying a lawyer over the years to “get his papers in order.” I heard about this a couple months ago. I’ve had European friends who’d used immigration attorneys to become naturalized, and I know the process is opaque to the client. It seemed to me, watching their struggles, that you pay and continue paying your lawyer until an unknown amount of money is reached over an uncertain period, and then through some bureaucratic magic you have a Green Card. Filipe said he had saved all the receipts from his visits and payments over the years, and he said he thought that one more visit in Austin with his lawyer would finish the process. He said that at that next Austin visit, the lawyer would direct him to the federal offices in San Antonio, after which visit he would be a legal resident here. He was animated when he told me this, saying how he would take me to his home town and show me the mountains nearby and how beautiful it would be there. I wanted to go with him to this next visit to his Austin lawyer so I could ask for him what the situation really was. I was doubtful.
Fili was happy to have me come along, but apparently when he told the lawyer over the phone that his friend, señor Jack, would be coming, the lawyer cancelled the meeting. No other appointments have been scheduled. As I had suspected, that lawyer had been taking Filipe’s money over the years and doing nothing, knowing that any time Fili complained, the lawyer could threaten to have him arrested and deported. What pressure can an undocumented person apply to any professional person here? People think it is laziness or unwillingness that keeps undocumented people from getting their papers. I think you do not understand the sharks in these waters. “Get A Passport!” the scary lady had said.
This totally reminds me of something I learned reading W. E. B. Du Bois. Did you know that after our slaves were freed, after the Civil War, the government had education programs that showed the freedmen how to work for pay, and how to save that pay in bank accounts. These new capitalists were going along with the program, were working for pay and saving their pennies in banks just like they were asked. But these banks were “special” banks just for the ex-slaves, run by rich white bankers. When they “failed,” which as you know means the bankers looted the funds, these new Americans were broke and helpless, and feeling violated all over again. They found by our country’s teaching that going along with the system did not pay. Was there a recourse for those ruined freedmen to sue, to punish the thieves? No: just a shrug from our government. This is the same for my friend. How long does it take to get over such a lesson?
