When immigration officials raided the South Side meat-packing plant where Edward Soja worked, he hid behind a pig shaving machine.
”The immigration people would come to our shop, but they took mostly Mexicans. I probably looked more American than they did,” said Soja, a Pole then living illegally in the United States. ”They`d come with 10 cars, 15 officers. The officers would look at the punch cards to see if there were Spanish names.”
Although he was never caught, Soja lived with the fear that he would be. When a 1986 law offered ”amnesty” to illegal immigrants, ”I thought, `Now I can have peace of mind.` ”
Soja is one of more than 1.7 million immigrants nationwide, including about 130,000 in the Chicago area, who no longer live in the shadows of illegality. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 allowed them to become temporary residents if they had been living here since before 1982.
Now, Soja and others are going through the law`s second stage, seeking permanent resident status. They must either pass an exam-proving they know English and some facts about the United States-or complete at least 40 hours of a 60-hour English and civics course. If they don`t, they face deportation, though the test may be retaken.
Indeed, to date 99 percent of the applicants nationwide have passed the requirements, said INS spokesman Jerry Ficklin. As of mid-June, more than 201,000 applicants had become permanent residents nationwide, he said.
The law had led Soja to a makeshift classroom above a Milwaukee Avenue beauty salon, one of scores of such classrooms that have sprung up around the city.
Though he has lived here illegally for nine years, survived a labor strike and bought a business, Soja never before felt the need to learn English. Now he and other middle-aged Polish immigrants who have been here for years are taking English for the first time.
”They haven`t really tried or didn`t want to try or they couldn`t or they wouldn`t,” said Andrzej Borowiec, a teacher with the Polish Welfare Association.
Slowly, again and again, Borowiec repeated the day`s lesson: ”Give me a book, please.” The students stumbled over the words and giggled with embarrassment.
”There was resentment about the classes at first,” said Borowiec`s wife, Joanna, who also teaches. ”They said, `Why do we have to do this? We work. We pay taxes.` ”
”Of course, it`s discriminatory,” said Carlos Heredia, executive director of Por Un Barrio Mejor, a South Side social service agency, noting that the provisions has never before been required of applicants for permanent residency. In Chicago, the newly legalized community is nearly 90 percent Hispanic, 5 percent Polish and 5 percent from all other countries.
But Carl Henderson, spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said Congress wanted immigrants ”to have an understanding of American law and be able to function adequately in the environment here.”
Even Heredia concedes that ”a little knowledge doesn`t hurt anybody.”
If an immigrant chooses to take the test and passes it, in five years he may become a full citizen without any further exams. Residents have the legal right to live and work here; citizens also have the right to vote.
Before the new law, immigration officials say, applicants for permanent residency who had family members in the U.S. faced up to 10-year waits to be processed. Those without family members had virtually no chance of becoming permanent residents because of the glut of applications, said INS spokesman Carl Henderson.
`I couldn`t write my name`
So Soja and his classmates struggle through the day`s lesson. ”Give me book, please,” one says, and Borowiec makes one of the countless corrections he`ll make that day: ”Give me a book, please.”
The teachers, already faced with a tough job, have found a problem they weren`t expecting: illiteracy. For students who never learned to read or write in their own language, doing so in English can seem almost insurmountable.
”I had a student who always sat apart,” said Joanna Borowiec. ”After one of the classes she came to me, crying. She came to tell me why she was slower than the others. She said she was in school only six months in her whole life. . . . She said, ”I sit alone because I don`t want other people to notice.` ”
Ignacio Castaneda, a Mexican factory worker who takes lessons at the Humboldt Park Institute, said that ”because of legalization, I`m learning to read.” Before taking the classes, he said, ”I couldn`t write my own name.” Along with English, many schools teach immigrants to answer the simple civics questions that are commonly asked on the INS test.
Some teachers argue that these questions-such as how many stars there are in the flag-have little to do with living in America. So they go beyond that to teach about free speech, free press, the right to assemble and other rights guaranteed by the Constitution, concepts that often don`t exist in the immigrants` native lands.
”They won`t be the same silent victims of discrimination and injustice as they have been,” Heredia said. ”They`ll know a few basic rights.”
Casa Aztlan, a social service agency in Pilsen, teaches immigrants how to call their aldermen and write their congressmen, said Carlos Arango, legalization coordinator.
And Joanna Borowiek teaches students that they don`t have to tolerate unfair threats from bosses. ”They were here illegally for so long that they still are, mentally,” she said.
Yet some fear the law may have created yet another way to exploit immigrants: overcharging for the courses. The schools ”gave the opportunity to some individuals who are by and large unscrupulous and are profiting from the situation. . . .,” said Heredia.
Most classes are publically funded and free to students. But some immigrants, confused about the regulations or unable to find space in free classes, have paid several hundred dollars to get certificates at private schools. The Private Immigration Agency, on the South Side, for instance, charges $400 for a 40-hour course.
High-grade nerves
Once they finish the classes, immigrants go to INS offices as the last step in becoming permanent U.S. residents.
After passing the test, Paula Silva, who took classes at the Humboldt Park Institute, recounted, ”I was nervous. All those questions. Yes, I had gone to school, but the answers escaped my mind. . . . They asked, `What is the Constitution, who was the first president, what is the capitol of the United States, name the 13 colonies . . . .` ”
Those who don`t want to take the test arrive armed with their school certificates. For some-who have struggled weeks to learn only a few English phrases-the interviews are a test of nerves.
After all, these immigrants have spent years dodging the INS; now, in their broken English, they must somehow communicate with the very officers they`ve tried to avoid.
To make sure her students are able to tell officers that they don`t want to take the test, Joanna Borowiec said she teaches them to hand over their certificates and repeat this useful English phrase: ”No exam, please.”
Real names at last
Once they`re legal residents, immigrants learn what life is like in America when you don`t have to hide.
For the last six years, Guadalupe Flores, 29, worked as a housekeeper at a Rogers Park nursing home under the alias Juana Ochoa.
Unfortunately, she said, her employers ”still call me by my false name. They said they can`t get accustomed to my real name.”
Immigrants like Flores feel loyal to their native lands and though they want to be residents, they don`t want to be full citizens. Though permanent residents can`t vote, legalization has made a difference to them because they can pursue better jobs and go back and forth to their homelands without fear of getting caught.
Others, like Blanca Valdez, a Rogers Park cleaning lady, want citizenship-not only because of the right to vote but also because they can then seek residency for family members.
Although the Guatemalan native and her four other children qualified for legalization, her 18-year-old son didn`t. ”I want to become a citizen to fix my son`s case.”
Still others, especially those who don`t have family ties here, remain illegal because they weren`t living in the U.S. before 1982. Many Irish immigrants fall into that category, said Eugene Nestor, chairman of the Irish Immigration Reform Movement.
Because of high unemployment in Ireland, ”there are thousands of people who have trades, speak English and are extremely eager to get in the system here and they`re stopped dead in their tracks,” Nestor said. ”They`re illegal, they`re underground, they work wherever they can.”
Nestor advocates a new immigration system that would take into account an immigrant`s ”ability to contribute” to this country.
He said he is ”extremely bitter” about the current system. ”If you had the good judgement to come here illegally, you were rewarded,” he said. ”But if you obeyed the law . . . you were locked out.”
Now these Irishmen and other illegal immigrants have an even harder time finding jobs because the new law fines employers who hire illegal workers.
”Before, they`d say, `Are you an American citizen?` ” And if you answered yes, ”they`d believe you, just like that,” said Carlos Jaramillo, who lived here illegally for about 12 years. ”Now it`s harder to get a job. You have to fill out forms, and they ask for your alien registration number.” Those who made the U.S. their home years ago-and learned to become quite American-are most easily benefiting from the new law. For them, the final step toward legality is a breeze; they skip classes and take the exam on their own. Jaramillo, for instance, is Mexican, but attended a U.S. high school. When the new law took effect, he had school documents, work records, bank statements and bills to prove he`d been here since before 1982, he said.
To appear as American as possible, he even went out and got every credit card imaginable.
Jaramillo took only eight hours of classes and hopes to pass the test next month. Though he lived well here illegally, he always knew he could be deported.
Then legalization came along and ”I felt like a bird, ready to fly all over the place. . . .,” he said. ”I bought a brand new sports car and I said, `I`m ready.` When you have papers you can say, `Who cares? I go where I want. I`m free.` ”
