Personal Narrative: My Parents Mexican Migration

My Parents Mexican Migration Experience

Migration has been an important issue to my family and me. My father came to the US in 1973 and my mother came from Mexico in 1976 and settled in Los Angeles. In a recent interview with my father, I asked him what was his experience like traveling to the US. He emotionally told me the struggles he had to endure trying to cross the border. My father was the oldest of seven who left Santa Clara, Michoacán at the age of 16. My father states, “Things were hard in Mexico, we were so poor and I just wanted to leave and find somewhere else to go”. My dad traveled to Tijuana and tried several times to cross the border but failed. He was stuck in Tijuana for eight months poor and struggling to get by. He sadly told me how he had one pair

He endured hardship, However, he told me, “: I would always stare at the border and would say to myself I will make it across one day. He was able to find a little job in Tijuana and saved up to hire a coyote to help him cross the border. He was eventually successful in crossing the border and was able to get a taxi and head to Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, my dad had an aunt who let him stay a little in her apartment. Soon my father found a job and moved into another apartment with a roommate. His first job was working at a car wash in Figueroa and Olympic in Downtown LA. He soon found another job in a restaurant cleaning and washing dishes. My father began working and saving money to bring his family to the US (C. Barocio, personal communication, April 22, 2017). In 1975, he went back to Mexico to marry his wife Maria. My mother and father both got married and again crossed the border through the help of another coyote, My mother stated, My journey coming to the US was not so hard, then what your father had to go through. I was able to cross the border with no problems.” My mother, once she arrived in Los Angeles worked in a shoe factory in South Central LA