Almost Twins
The sun always bothered my sister Maria. When I saw her squinting, I’d step in without thinking and cup my hands above her eyes, just enough to block out the light but still letting her see through my fingers. I started doing this when I was about three years old.
In nearly every childhood photo of her, you’ll find her closing her eyes from the sunlight, or her face hidden behind me, seeking shade. This small gesture stayed with me over the years, evolving as we grew. When we got older, I would often go with her when she snuck out of the house, just to make sure she was safe. Nothing mattered more than wanting to be by her side, even if the circumstances were dangerous. There were many nights when we ran from the police together. It was always about keeping her company.
Ever since we were little, I played the role of her caretaker. I’d look out for both my sisters, but especially Maria. Maria and I are ten months apart. She’s older. For two months each year, we’re the same age, technically twins, and we joked about it. I’d remind Maria that during those two months, she couldn’t boss me around because we were the same age. It became a running joke between us as we grew older.
To some degree, I always looked up to her—and I also looked out for her. She’s rebellious, social, fun to be around. She taught me how to carry myself, how to do my eyeliner, and she helped me escape when our home no longer felt safe. The first rules we broke were there, with my mother. Then with the law. As she got older, she became even more rebellious.
Maria snuck out of the house at night more than I can remember. She always invited me to come with her. I declined the invitation many times, but eventually I gave in. Nothing else can give you that first rush from making sure we didn’t make any noise and the adrenaline pumping in our veins as we prepared to leave the house.
Then came the excitement as we slid into our ride, stealing glances out the window at the dark alley and the house, making sure no light flicked on. Many nights, from midnight to 4 a.m., it was Maria, me, and our friends Silvia and Gina, riding in a friend’s car—usually with Carlos and his crew. When Gina came along and her dog was left outside at night, locked into the gated area of the house, one of us would distract him so he wouldn’t bark. We’d toss pieces of bologna or hot dog sausages over the fence, feeding him just enough to keep him quiet.
We were adventurous and daring together, sometimes driving through Turnbull Canyon with the headlights off, letting the darkness swallow us. Other nights, we’d cruise down Atlantic Boulevard to Cascade Park in Monterey Park, where we’d hang out near the old Art Deco–style fountain. It glowed under the streetlights, its cascading tiers glimmering through the city darkness.
We were just there to catch a quiet night under the humid hazy night air. That place felt dreamy—like a backdrop for secrets, for being young, and feeling like the whole city was quietly ours. And maybe part of the thrill was knowing we had just snuck out—sometimes with friends our mom liked, and sometimes with others she wouldn’t approve of. That mix, the risk and the secrecy, made everything feel even more electric.
If I didn’t sneak out with Maria, I stayed in bed and looked out for her like a guardian angel. I stayed awake or got a light sleep so I could be ready for a knock on the window. Looking out for her is not a choice, it’s an instinct. There were many times when I could hear Mom open the door to our room to check up on us in the middle of the night, and I felt like my heart stopped every time this happened and I knew Maria was out somewhere.
At first the bedroom felt empty without her, but I slowly got used to it. I never stopped worrying about her, and I never stopped being ready to open the window when she finally tapped. In many ways, she was my model and my mentor: the person who showed me how to push the limits that were imposed on us both.
My mother is a small, petite woman, pretty much the same height as me and Maria. (Our little sister is shorter.) She has black hair and shaved her natural eyebrows to paint them on with a thin pencil line. When we were kids, her nails were always long and painted red. She is private, quiet, and reserved, but with a toughness that held us all together. She was the most beautiful woman I knew. She was the constant in our lives. Men were not.
My mom was born in Uruapan, Michoacán, part of a large family—eleven siblings in all. She was the middle child. She had her first baby, my brother Gus, at the age of twenty in 1977. Gus’s dad left Mom when he found out she was pregnant, so she had to find ways to make ends meet. She and a friend decided to go to the U.S., and she left Gus with my grandmother. They were going to figure it out in California and then go get my brother. That’s when she crossed the border for the first time—like so many others before and after her. She was looking for something but she didn’t know what exactly.
My mom had an uncle from her mom’s side in the Bay Area, so she made that her destination: Fresno, California. He knew someone who was renting rooms in a compound of houses and she stayed there for a few months. That’s where she met my dad in 1978. At the time, he was working in the fields and was also a janitor at a local school. Mom got a job as a babysitter and did everything she could to save her coins and send money back to Gus. She was a single mother with a young son waiting for her back in Michoacán. Still, she fell in love with my dad, and together they began a new life here in California.
My mom had my oldest sister, Maria, (but we called her by her middle name, Toñita, until she was around ten years old), in 1979, then me in 1980, and my younger sister, Gesenia (or Yesi), in 1982—all of us were born in Redwood City. But Mom never forgot her firstborn son. Even while living in the Bay, she kept making that difficult journey across the border to see him—once with me in her belly and Maria in her arms. Much later, when Mom left my father and started a relationship with my stepdad, came three more kids.
My father had family in L.A.—specifically in Boyle Heights and Lynwood—and since neither of them had many ties in the Bay, it made sense to move. So with the little money Mom had saved, they rented a U-Haul and made the drive to Los Angeles. I was just three years old. After we settled in L.A., my mom kept going back to the city of Uruapan, in Michoacán, Mexico, to see my brother. When she couldn’t make the trip herself, she sent money to my grandparents or to her older sister Liduvina (my aunt) or her brother Salvador.
The rhythm of the border became something she knew well. The journey was never easy for her—not the first time, nor the second, nor the third—but somehow, despite it all, she always made it. The desert itself was dangerous: long stretches of heat and cold and dust, the threat of dehydration, of getting lost.
Every crossing was a risk. And as a woman, she also faced the risk of being assaulted or raped—the kind of danger that made each journey even more uncertain. There were a handful of times when Mom was caught and detained by Border Patrol.
One time, she was carrying my older sister, Maria, still just a baby, in her arms. Exhausted from running through the desert, Mom was out of breath, her body worn down, but Maria was quiet the whole time, as if she knew not to make noise. When the officers finally caught up with her group, they threw them onto a bus to Tijuana. At the Border Patrol station there, one of the officers made a pass at her. My mom broke down in tears, begging him to leave her alone.
He eventually backed off. He offered to help feed baby Maria, who had woken up crying from hunger. Desperate, my mom accepted. She handed him the empty baby bottle she carried in her bag, and he poured in regular milk watered down. About twenty minutes later, Maria started throwing up and had diarrhea. My mom thought he had given the baby spoiled milk intentionally, to punish her for rejecting him. Despite that, they made it back and Maria was okay.
My father knew about the son she had left behind in Mexico, and he offered to help bring him to the U.S. In 1986, my mother brought Gus to L.A., and that’s when I finally met my brother. Finally we could all be together. I remember how exciting it was to have him home. He was so shy and sweet, and he looked just like Mom. He must have been eight or nine years old then, and I was six.
The final step came in 1986, when my mom was granted a green card through Reagan’s Immigration Reform and Control Act, which offered amnesty to undocumented immigrants who had been living in the U.S. since before 1982. She later became a U.S. citizen.
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