Born in Mexico, raised in America, a “Dreamer” embraces Leelanau County

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

Some day this fall, when the leaves reach peak autumn color, Gloria (not her real name) will do what hundreds of other northern Michigan mothers do: she’ll take her three children, ages 9, 6 and 11 months, to Jacob’s Corn Maze on M72. “My kids love the hayrides,” Gloria laughs.

All summer long, when she wasn’t busy running her small company out of her home, Gloria took her kids to the beach to splash in Lake Michigan’s waves. Her family’s recreational interests, and their love for Leelanau County, make them no different than their neighbors, the students she went to school with, the fellow shoppers at a local grocery store.

Except for one thing. Gloria, 28, is a “Dreamer”—a native of Guanajuato who crossed the U.S.-Mexican border illegally together with her mother when she was 11 years old. This was in January 2000, just days after the dawn of a new millennium. She and her mother were filled with hope and anticipation for the opportunity to live and work in el norte.

“I was excited, both to learn a new language, and for the opportunities I had heard about,” Gloria remembers. Among other things, she was excited to learn how to go to school and use a computer.

The journey north was arduous and a little scary. They traveled 12 hours by car to the border, then walked the next morning into New Mexico. They were picked up by “helpers” who worked for the coyotes who facilitate the journey, then were taken to an empty house in the middle of the desert that had no electricity and no furniture. They slept on mattresses left on the floor and noticed bags and belongings that previous migrants had discarded there. The following day they were reunited with more migrants and walked further north. Later that month Gloria and her mother moved to Florida, and by the end of the year they settled in northern Michigan, among a migrant community that picked and harvested cherries for local growers. The Grand Traverse region, dubbed the “cherry capital of the world” relies heavily on migrant labor to lift this heavy agricultural load.

Gloria has lived in Leelanau County ever since. Seventeen years. This place is home. In fact, it’s all she knows. She has visited Mexico once since her immigration—last year, after her father had a stroke—but “I don’t feel like my home is anywhere else,” she says.

Gloria and hundreds of thousands of other “Dreamers” whose parents brought them illegally to the United States—through no fault of their own—are in legal limbo now that the acting administration has pledged to rescind former President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order, which protects Dreamers like Gloria from the threat of deportation to a foreign land. In recent weeks the White House has encouraged the Republican-controlled Congress to pass new immigration legislation, using Dreamers and DACA as a bargaining chip.

At first, Gloria didn’t quite believe it when the 44th President signed the order to protect Dreamers who were brought to the United States as children. She was at work, and received a call from her sister. “I told her I wouldn’t get excited until I actually got home and heard it for myself. When I watched the video of Obama’s speech on YouTube, I cried out of joy.” [Watch Obama’s DREAM ACT prosecutorial discretion remarks here]

Even though her immigration status is under threat, and her right to remain in Leelanau County with her children could be in peril, Gloria chooses to remain optimistic about her future.

“I’m not afraid. I have kids in school here, and we go to the doctor here. If they wanted to do something about us living here, they would have done that already. Whether they say so or not, they know that we contribute a lot to the local economy.”

“This is our country. And my kids are normal like any other kids in this community. If they had given us the opportunity to serve in the military, I would have taken it. We love this country, and we’d do anything for it.”