Mami, Papi, and I were a different story, of course.
While the President was still yammering in front of those fireworks, Mami started reaching out to everyone she knew in San Diego for help. She managed to connect with some guy who was implanting fake ID chips in his kitchen. He was charging five thousand dollars each, which was way beyond what my parents had, even if we paid in installments. Papi said he would get one later; it was most important for me and Mami to have them. He promised he would be careful; he would be fine.
I remember the chip was no bigger than a grain of rice, but it hurt so much when the man cut into my skin—anesthesia was extra—that I passed out. I was trying with all my might to be brave for Mami. Squeezing her hand and boring my eyes into her steady gaze for strength. She’d given this guy literally every penny we had. When I woke up, I was now
Amelia Catherine Davis
ID number 072-54-3998
Born on July 22, 2016, in Arcata, CA
Blood type: A+, brown eyes, no allergies
I didn’t know who Amelia Catherine Davis really was. I didn’t know whether she was even alive or dead. I just knew that she had given me a new identity, a new chance at being safe. I recited these facts over and over again. I said them to my parents, to baby Ernie, to the walls, to the sky. I said them ten times before going to bed, ten times before brushing my teeth, and ten times for each shoe I put on in the morning. I rubbed that tiny lump of scar tissue on my right wrist until it was red and raw. Because I had to reassure myself it was still there, and I was still here.
The government installed the first ID scanners in California soon after. They looked like those devices used to pick up the barcodes off groceries. Only instead of cashiers using them, there were ICE officers in full combat gear, waiting to see that we all made it through. When I got stopped for my first scan at school, I watched the thin blue light wash over my lumpy wrist and thought I might shatter into a million pieces.
I am Amelia Catherine Davis. 072-54-3998, I repeated in my brain. I was born in the United States.
When the scan was done, I heard a quiet click, and the ICE officer nodded, sending me on my way. I was so sick from holding in all my nerves that I had to go to the bathroom and press my cheek against the cold tile to calm down. But when I told my parents about it that night at dinner, they nodded with pride. Papi even called me his little guerrera.
“I’m not little,” I told him, puffing out my chest. He laughed and tugged at his beard. He was always doing that.
Until they shaved it off.
On my last day of third grade before winter break, while I was hanging up my backpack and braiding my friend’s hair at school, my papi was taken by ICE. He was handcuffed and herded onto a cattle truck. Everyone working on the tomato farm—over three hundred total—was rounded up and carted off to a detention facility in some undisclosed location. Mami was actually home that day because Ernie had a fever. But as soon as she heard about the raid, she strapped my brother to her chest and ran to the schoolyard to get me at recess.
I remember that instead of greeting her with a smile or even noticing the circles of worry under her eyes, the only thing I said to her was “What are you doing here? I’m playing tag!”
Papi was in that detention center for the next six months. He was stripped of all his possessions and shaved bald. I bit my cheeks to stop from crying every time he called us on a videophone. He tried us at random times every few days and asked us questions about all the silly details of our lives. I told him that Ernie was crawling and eating a ton of avocados. I made sure he knew I was the only nine-year-old soprano in the school choir, and that I got 92 percent on my spelling test. It felt so stupid to be saying all these things to him, but he acted like he wanted to hear it. Like he wanted to know we were all getting on without him.
We weren’t, though. At least, I wasn’t. This was the hardest part of those long months—pretending we were all fine and happy and smiling at my teachers in school or the guy who owned the deli near us and wondering, Do you want me gone too?
I was scared of everything and everyone. Of scanning stations and empty trucks and the question What’s up? or You okay?
I got quiet and angry and small as a clenched fist. I flinched if I thought someone was looking at me funny—if I thought someone was looking at me at all. I just wanted to punch the world and grab my papi and run, run, run.
We had to leave the car dealership and live in the shelters again. Mami couldn’t go back to work. Both farms where she’d been a day laborer were hiring again, but it felt too risky, even with a fake chip. She heard about a network of nannies who got paid well, but that seemed dangerous too. We had no idea where the “cleanups” would happen next or who could be trusted. Every time we talked to Papi, he told us he would be home soon. Only, his voice was getting so tired and unconvincing.
And then, he stopped calling. We waited for days that turned into a week and then two weeks and then a month. Even the lawyer Mami paid with whatever she could pawn couldn’t answer our pleas. We never got to learn when or how or why the detention center was emptied out, forcing all of the immigrants onto planes for deportation. We never found out where Papi was when the war caught up with him in Colombia.
Had he made it back to our home in Suárez?
Was he just stepping off the plane?
Did he see who shot him in the back nine times?
Mami never intended for me to see that picture of my father’s remains. No nine-year-old should ever have to see something like that. But one of our cousins, who was still living in Suárez, texted Mami one night as we were eating dinner. She dropped her phone and let out such a gut-wrenching wail. As I went to pick it up, she tried to grab it from me, only, for once in her life, she was too weak.
The photo was of Papi’s body lying on the side of a steep path through the mountains. Maybe the same one he used to climb with me on his back when I was too little to appreciate it. His face was beaten into a purplish mess, and his eyes were frozen in pain. There was blood everywhere.
When we got that picture, I kept staring at it. Trying to rearrange it or turn it upside down or inside out so it could be someone else. But there was no denying it was him. He was wearing the same pale yellow T-shirt I’d last seen him in almost a year before. His new chin hairs poking out in thin tufts.
I saw that image of Papi constantly, twisted and cold in all his deadness. I saw him when I closed my eyes at night and when I opened them again in the morning, when I brushed my hair or heard a guitar on the radio or smelled fried onions or walked, talked, laughed, breathed.
The Sunday after we got that picture, Mami took us to church to pray for him. I wanted to scream at everyone there, My papi is dead! They took him away, and you don’t care!
Instead, I sat there not even crying.
Just waiting for all the candles to go out.