^ homenaje

Sunday afternoon.

We left the hospital on July 2nd. (My premature birth meant there were some slight complications.) My mom had gone into labor just as the coyote was about to pick them up from a gas station on the outskirts of town. Although he wouldn't give my parents back their money — he said it was a non-refundable deposit — he did drive them to the Hospital Santa Ana I was bom at 10 p.m., and my dad went out at I am. to buy another package of tortillas and some more oranges. (The hospital cafeteria was closed, and my parents literally needed food for thought as they tried to decide what came next).

At first the third replacement coyote was more open to the idea of taking a baby across the border Plans were made to cross on Friday, July 7th right before dawn. But on the night of the 6th he called my parents at the bus station — where they were sleeping on benches and answering the pay phone as if it were their own — and said that his boss, who coordinated the crossings, was not comfortable with the idea

My Tfo Juan and his wife had been having trouble conceiving a child in 1994. My dad called him on July 9th to see if he knew of anybody willing to take a two-week old baby and two adults across the border. To Jose's surprise, my tfo said he and Magdalena his wife, could. Confused, my dad asked him what he meant, and Juan explained that he and his wife could pretend to have had me. They had a friend who worked in the right sort of office and could get a fake birth certificate for me. Then they'd come pick me up in Juarez and take me back across the border as if I were their own.

Jose had hung up without saying a word, but when Juan called the bus station telephone two hours later he did pick up. After about 20 minutes of hushed conversation — Juan has always been paranoid that the government is or might become involved — he hung up and went over to his wife. They embraced in the crowded bus station.

On July I Ith Tfo Juan and Tfa Magdalena came down to get me. On July 12th my parents moved into an apartment in Juarez so that they would be closer to me but still be on the right side of the border Marta found a job at a maquiladora, and Jose began work at a mechanic's shop. I see my parents every other weekend, and it's easier for me to spend a summer in Mexico than it ever is for them to spend time here. 'Tfo Juan" is what I call the person I'm supposed to call "Dad" when I'm in the US. Sometimes I still refer to my father as "Dad," but now I've begun to just call him Jose, just like everyone else who sees the name embroidered in red on the blue coverall he wears every day. Tfa Magdalena took me to school every day just as Marta, my mom, would finish up her shift-

Whenever I visit my parents they pick me up at the same bus station where they first decided that it might be better like this.