Peter and I met Luis and Alma and their youngest son in Pastor Jerry’s home on Tuesday morning, October 17, 2017. This was the first conversation of our last day in Racine. Pastor Jerry and Jane facilitated graciously and even hosted several of our meetings, for we had asked Pastor Jerry for assistance in setting up interviews with a wide variety of people. We were particularly interested in meeting Hispanics because we come from a part of the US with a large Hispanic population. We were grateful to meet Luis and Alma, hear their stories and understand their outlooks.
Luis’ Early Life
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| Zacatecas, north of Mexico City |
Luis was born in the State of Zacatecas, Mexico, which is in Central Mexico just north of Mexico City. His father worked in Texas and other border states and eventually came to Wisconsin as an agricultural worker. Luis was born in 1972 and in 1978 Luis’ father decided to bring his wife and Luis to Racine. Luis has 4 sisters and a brother; he is the oldest. When they came to the U.S. only Luis and 2 sisters came. He arrived in Racine when he was 6 years old. He considers himself “a local” because it is the only life he knows, although he has been back to Mexico several times, and knows family members there. Luis has many relatives in Wisconsin: aunts, uncles, cousins and such. He repeats, “this is my home.”
Luis and Alma are from the same town in Mexico and he met her at a wedding on a trip back to Mexico. Their fathers knew each other in Wisconsin as well.
Luis went to work directly after high school. “Being the oldest in a Mexican family, you have to start working to support your younger siblings.” When he was around 14 years old, he started working in the fields during the summer, “working 12, 13, 14 hours per day.” His income went to the family to support them. Luis has taken some technical and college courses and even went to seminary for a while. Luis does not have a college degree. One of his sisters is a teacher and one has a Master’s in Business; both were able to go to college full time “on the backs of the older [siblings].” His family preserved their ability to speak Spanish by not allowing English to be spoken in the home.
Luis and Alma’s children are not as good at speaking Spanish because they jump back and forth between languages when they speak. They have four children, the oldest will be 15 next month, and the youngest, who joined them for our conversation, is 3.
Alma’s Early Life
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| Cathedral in central Zacatecas City |
Alma moved to the US in 2001 when she married Luis and came up to Racine. Her father spent most of his time in Racine. Her father was a farmer and a musician. Now he lives back in Mexico. Crops from the family farm in Mexico were affected by NAFTA, so when the price for corn was too low ,they kept it rather than sold it; she remembers “rooms full of mice,” referring to storage rooms of corn couldn’t be sold. Alma has no relatives that live in Racine; just her “family in Christ” who are better than her blood family. She does have a brother who lives in Oklahoma, but the rest live in Mexico.
Racine’s Hispanic Community and Racism
Peter asked about the “Hispanic community” in Racine. Luis said that there are a lot of Hispanics in the area. He remembers growing up in the ‘80s. There was one “Mexican store” then and anyone who needed Mexican groceries or ingredients went there. Now there are four or five, scattered around the city. While there are more Hispanics toward the South side of Racine and fewer in the North, there is not much segregation. Luis says, "growing up Mexican here I have never experienced a sense of separation. Other, newer immigrants say that they do, but I’ve never experienced it myself. I’ve experienced racism but I don’t feel afraid in any part of town and I feel welcome. Others do feel oppressed. We live on the North side, near Caledonia, and when people (other Mexicans) find out they say, ‘you don’t belong there, you belong further down South.’ Our neighborhood is modest, like this, (referring to Pastor Jerry’s neighborhood) and it is mixed, middle class."
Luis reflects that he “doesn’t understand why people put themselves into certain neighborhoods and therefore a disadvantage.”
I asked about the racism that Luis said he experienced: “How did that happen?”
Luis recounts that he was in Seminary in Waukegan, Illinois, and was driving back home to Racine. He was going north on Sheridan Road, right after he crossed the line from Illinois, and an undercover cop pulled him over. It was the middle of winter and it was freezing outside.
"I pulled over and as soon as he sees me he is very aggressive. ‘What are you doing here? Why are you out this late?’ He was asking all of the dumb questions. I said, ‘I’m coming from Bible school.’ He said, ‘Sure you are.’ I tried to show him my books, my bag and such. But all of a sudden another car pulls up and blocks me from the front. I thought to myself, ‘That’s not good because he has already asked for backup.”
Luis continued, "So I’m trying to figure out what’s going on when he ordered me, ‘get out of the car.’ I responded by asking, ‘Number one, why did you stop me? What sort of traffic violation?’ He said, ‘that doesn’t matter, get out of the car.’ I said, ‘Yes it does matter. If I haven’t done anything wrong, there was no reason to stop me and I don’t have to get out of the car.’ That made him angry. He said ‘Who do you think you are? Are you a lawyer?’ I said, “I’m not a lawyer, but I know the law. If there is nothing that I did wrong there is no reason for me to get out.” He said, ‘That is not here or there’ and he grabbed me, pulled me out of my car and threw me on the hood."
It gets worse: "He said, ‘What’s your name?’ I said, ‘You have my I.D.’ He said, ‘What’s your real name?’
I said, ‘You have all the information in your hands. That’s all the information that you are going to get.’
He said, ‘Take off your jacket.’ At that point I was very upset, but I took off my jacket.
He said ‘Take off your shirt.’ I took off my shirt, but it was really cold; in the middle of winter. He asked, ‘What kind of tattoos do you have?’ I don’t have any tattoos and I said so. He said ‘OK, fine.’ And the other guy came back and said, ‘He’s fine, he’s clean, and he doesn’t even have a parking ticket.’” Luis concludes, “And the biggest double whammy was that [the officer’s] last name was Rodriguez.”
Peter verified that this happened in Wisconsin. Luis said that Rodriguez was a Kenosha County deputy sheriff. Luis also said that is the only time he has had this kind of experience. He continued: “When I walk into a room, some people might look at me funny, but once I start talking people can see who I am.” He continues, “You have to let people know who you are! Yes, I am Hispanic, but I am also a law abiding citizen who happens to be from Mexico.”
DACA and Undocumented Immigration
Peter asked about DACA and the Dreamers. Luis said that there are undocumented people: “everybody who is Hispanic knows somebody who is undocumented, most have family members who are not documented.” Peter asked about Luis; was he ever undocumented? Luis said “no, at least not to my knowledge.” His father was undocumented and acquired permanent residency with the Reagan amnesty program in 1986 and then worked to become citizens. But when he was a kid he did not know about documented and undocumented. He was just a kid! He has seen this happen to a lot of kids; they learn when they try to get a job, get a driver’s license or apply to college.
Luis continues about DACA. He is not into protests because he thinks they accomplish nothing. Luis has a problem in that DACA was never a law; as an executive order it started and had to finish. Now Congress can fix it or not. He continues by explaining that DACA has impacted a lot of kids; they have very close friends who have DACA who are now scared. Luis asks rhetorically, “What is going to happen? Before DACA you were undocumented, you went to school, you worked. After DACA the same thing will happen. Nothing changed. You won’t have anything less than you had before DACA.”
Peter asks where Luis stands on immigration in general. Luis agrees that it is a very difficult issue. He shares, “There are ways to come to the country legally. The process is just too long. The problem is the wait time. Fifteen or Twenty years for Mexico. The wait time encourages people to come illegally.”
Peter asks if Luis would increase the number of admissions being offered. Alma interjects that the wrong people want to come from Mexico. Drug dealers take over. The wrong people can get in because they pay bribes. When we ask, however, Alma does not know anyone who bribed to “get to the front of the line,” but as a Latina, she “hears stories.”
Pastor Jerry asked if people just come here to get welfare benefits. Initially Alma hesitates but then agrees with Pastor Jerry.
Luis’ Immigration Recommendation
Luis offers a fix. He wouldn’t increase the number of people admitted as immigrants. Most just want to work and return to Mexico. He recalls the Bracero program, and offers, “That was a good way to achieve the desire of people to work and return to Mexico. That should be revived. At the end of the season they can return to home.”
Dependence on Government Hand Outs
Peter asks for a comparison between the welfare system in Mexico with the one in the U.S. Alma says that in the U.S. there are more opportunities to feed your kids. Peter asks “what’s the right level for the safety net?” Luis offers, “Benefits should be temporary. We all go through tough times. When you need the extra help that’s when the State might come in and help with, for example, food stamps. But it should be temporary. People should not get too comfortable with benefits.” Luis says that he has confronted some of his family members who take benefits that he, Luis, has to pay for. “Why are you taking my tax money? Why are you stealing from me?” he asks them.
Alma offers: “In America they make people morally irresponsible. I am very against school lunches. This is the responsibility of the parents, not the school. This makes more irresponsibility. If we are in a tough situation we can go to our church and our brothers and sisters will help us. It makes people greedy to get it from the government. We are responsible for our kids. We should walk in our faith. Don’t depend on the system, we have to work for what we get.”
Celeb’s Story
Alma begins to share about their son Caleb who people thought was deaf: “They offered us $1800 per month in support for a disabled child. We refused it.”
Luis picked up the story: "When Caleb was born he had a very bad ear infection. For the first two years of his life he suffered from ear infections. We went to special doctors and hearing doctors who thought he couldn’t hear. There was one test they wanted to give him and if he didn’t pass they said he would be deaf for the rest of his life. Instead, I took him to the Elders of our church.
Pastor Jerry interjected, “this is our teaching.”
Luis continued, “In my faith I took him to the Elders. He was two years old. Chuck, one of the elders said, ‘You have faith and we will pray for the health of your child.’ They took oil, they applied it to his ears and they prayed. The next day they took him for the test and the doctors said, ‘There is nothing wrong here. Why did you bring him? He is perfectly normal.’ Our faith healed him.”
Alma jokingly interjects, “There goes the $1800 per month.”
Alma went on to say that Caleb was slow to speak and the school wanted to put him in a disabled class. She wouldn’t let them. She said, ”The Lord is my provider and he gave me the right child.” There were problems with Caleb staring at his teacher which made her uncomfortable. But at the end of the second grade Caleb was at the top of the class in reading and math. There was nothing disabled about him. Alma gives credit to the Lord.
Alma says that she lives the way the Lord tells her. Political things do not matter. She “doesn’t have to follow Trump, she doesn’t have to follow Obama; they are just people put there by the God to run the country. What matters is living in the way of the Lord.” She explains that in Mexican politics people go with the candidate who promises the most. She adds, “Right and wrong do not matter. What matters is who gives you the most.”
Luis and Alma’s Faith Journeys
Peter asks about Luis and Alma’s faith journey. Luis grew up in a Christian home. The stereotype of Mexicans is that they are Catholic. Luis was never a Catholic; he grew up in a Baptist church in Racine. His mother taught them to be Christian. On Sunday the one thing they did was go to Church. After church they had Church’s fried chicken!
Peter asked Luis to go back a generation, to Mexico. He tells us that his mother grew up in a Protestant church. Luis’ grandfather was a businessman, and was well off in Mexico. When the missionaries came, the only person who could provide for them was his grandfather, who hosted the missionaries in his home.
Alma was born a Catholic, in a Catholic home, was baptized, and had First Communion, “everything you could think of.” She left her parents when she was 13 years old. Her adolescent life “did not include the Catholic Church.” She explains that she lived a wild life. She left home because there was too much pressure; her mom and dad were each “always working.” “It was a big mess.” She tells us matter of factly that she, “Worked for agencies,” “Her body was for hire.” But she made it through and gave herself to the Lord when she was in her 20’s. She never went back to her home until the day before she married Luis. She knew that her parents would be upset, but her pastor said that Luis and she should pray on it and go to see her parents. During the visit Alma’s parents said, “Thank you for letting us know.” Alma emphasises that “[she] lives by Faith. [She] does not need anything in her hands, [she] needs Faith.” She continues, “You can have all the money in the world, but if you don’t have God in your heart you have nothing.” Luis is far from the perfect husband,” said Alma says with a sideways glance, “but the grace of God keeps us together.”
Guns, 2nd Amendment and Mexico
Peter inquired about guns and the Second Amendment, including how it affects Mexico.
Alma responded first with: “I don’t like guns.”
Luis, who was in the process of describing himself to us as a “Constitutionalist” followed with: “Gun ownership is a right according the Second Amendment just as the First, Third, Fourth and all of the other Amendments give us rights, so how can you tell somebody that ‘yes you have the right to free speech, but yet you shouldn’t own a gun’ when they have the same value when you look at the Constitution. For me it is not a complicated issue. Either you can or you can’t. If you want to talk about gun violence that is a different thing.”
Peter said, “So let’s talk about gun violence.”
Luis continued: “The right to own guns is one thing, gun violence is another. When people get confused is when they mix the two together. Violence is in the heart of a man. Violence is inside a man. It is not an external thing. A man doesn’t need a gun to be violent. A bare hand is a weapon. Speaking is a weapon, it can tear down nations. So gun violence, I think, you would have to put in the category as any other violence. If you drive drunk and kill somebody that car is a weapon. I know that right now [referring to the Las Vegas shootings that happened not long before our interview] and every time since Columbine, we started combining gun ownership with gun violence.”
Peter asked if Luis is a hunter. Luis said that he is. Peter asked what he likes to hunt and Luis responded, “Anything that moves!” He then reviewed what game he hunts and whether he uses a rifle or shotgun for each.
Luis stated that the problem is that we mix the “ownership” question with violence and we shouldn’t mix the two.
Peter asked about violence, “What path do you see forward on the violence?”
Luis answers, “The only cure for violence is Jesus Christ, because if you want to cure that no social program or law will cure that. You can pass all the laws against anything, not just guns, but that doesn’t solve the problems.”
Peter asks if Luis is a member of the NRA. Luis says, “Yes I am.” Then he goes on to say, “The NRA is just a club. They defend the Second Amendment.” He does not agree with the NRA completely, but when ‘they’ attack the Second Amendment, the NRA defends it.”
Alma says this is something that she and Luis disagree on. She is completely against guns. She says that violence, for example in Mexico, is an example of the depravity people have in their hearts. “We need the Lord. They, the NRA, say that we need guns and violence.” Luis says that people die of violence with road rage every day. The kitchen is dangerous: “you could stick your hand in the garbage disposal and bleed out.”
Mental Illness vs. Parenting
Peter asks what Luis’ take is on mental illness that leads to violence. Luis responds,
There’s mental illness where you can’t function in society, and there is mental illness where you have anger problems. There are certain levels of mental illness. It’s not simple.
Alma offers an opinion. “Now everything that goes wrong is blamed on mental illness. Now in Wisconsin you can see that kids do not have a good foundation in the home.” Now [with her daughter, Olivia,] her friends do not have a solid foundation. Olivia sees only a few friends with married parents.” But these friends do not blame this on a problem in their families, they blame mental illness.”
Pastor Jerry interjects that Alma is a very unusual woman, to have come through all the trauma that she has seen and to become a good and stable parent. He also says that Luis and Alma are raising a teenage daughter, Olivia who is an “odd duck.” He does not define the term, but he says that he is praying for Olivia, because Jane (Jerry’s wife) has asked him to pray. Alma and Jane are very close “and talk,” so Jerry knows something about Olivia. Then Jerry says that “[Olivia] is struggling with her identity.”
Peter asks if she is struggling because she comes from an intact family. Alma offers that most of Olivia’s friends at her Catholic high school don’t know if they are a girl or boy. She recalls what she hears from Olivia’s peers, “My mom has a girlfriend. My dad has a boyfriend. Which one is my dad?” Alma tells us “they called Olivia homophobic because she comes from a home with a mother and a father. That’s how the devil works.”
Magic Wand Question and a Blessing
We have to wrap up our conversation because we are running out of time. Peter first thanks Luis and Alma for a rich and interesting conversation and then asks our “magic wand” question: “If you had one wish….”
Luis responded first. ”It would be to give more courage to the church around the world, the courage to express their faith. The reason we are having problems globally and nationally is because Christians are being shut down. Everybody talks about acceptance and equality; everybody talks about co-existing together and all of this and the only group that is not being invited to the party are Evangelical Christians. If you say that you are a Christian, right off the bat you must be homophobic, you must be anti-this or that. Everybody else can be accepted except Christians. If we had this conversation and my faith had not come up would you have guessed that I was a Christian? Probably not.”
Alma then responded: “When I received the Lord, I was afraid. I’m not afraid anymore. I would like to see more of us out there working for the Lord, not just in church. I don’t care who you are, I care what I have to tell you. I am a servant of God to change who I am now. I want to make changes in Racine so that they can receive the Lord now.
Pastor Jerry offered a brief prayer and blessing and we prepared to leave.
Final word, on Trump
As we stood up, and just before the recorder was turned off, Luis mentioned that he often disagrees with Trump, but that the bible teaches him that he has to respect the office and as a result he has to respect Trump’s presidency. I asked if, because it was the office, he had an equal respect for Obama. He said that he does. Luis repeated that he is a “Constitutionalist” and that is the most important thing for him.
--David
