Back to RE-Dressed Identities

Trinidad

Trinidad is from San Juan Bautista Valle Nacional, in the Tuxtepec region. When she finished High School she moved to Oaxaca to study Psychology. She remained there only for a year and because of economic necessity crossed to El Paso Texas in 1985 with her half sister, at the age of 22.

In El Paso Texas she worked in a home taking care of a baby for a year. Trinidad then accompanied her sister to Phoenix to find work and after a suggestion from her uncle moved to Georgia. At that time there were a lot of jobs for nannies, cleaning apartments, hotels and restaurants, but she always liked to work in homes taking care of children; also this was one of the best paying jobs. In Georgia she worked very hard. During her stay in the United Estates, Trinidad never returned to Mexico because she sent all of her money to sustain her seven siblings.

When she was in Georgia she experienced racism. There where many black people, that she said, made her feel repulsed. She worked in a Mc Donald’s where she suffered very much, her fellow employees in the morning shift where all black and did not talk to her. Because of her race, her boss lowered her paycheck, and treated her badly so she decided to go and work cleaning houses. She always lived in fear. One time she left work and in the subway there was an alarm, everything was paralyzed, it was thought a black person had a bomb. She said that this incident was racist oriented because it happened after the attempt on the twin towers in New York. Later on it happened that a black person killed a Mexican. All of this complicated her stay in Georgia, she was afraid of walking the streets. She returned to Valle Nacional because she thought that after the attempt they would not let her leave. She traveled by bus because she was afraid to get on a plane.

The first thing she noticed when she arrived in Mexico was the amount of trash and dirtiness; this memory moves her to tears. When she got to her town of Valle Nacional she found houses made out of cement bricks, she was surprised, before she had left, the houses where made with “jonotes” (sticks) and the roofs made out of palm.

“Here in Mexico the door is open to everyone”, says Trinidad. “In Valle Nacional there is no racism, although there are no black people, there are people from Honduras and El Salvador, that are received with open arms and are accepted, they have their own lands and houses”.

October 2009