Controversies over immigration only grow hotter in today’s U.S. politics. With the election of Donald Trump as the U.S. president and his claim of “building a wall” on the border of Mexico, journalist Lauren Markham’s book The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life provides its readers a timely and thought-provoking perspective into the issue of immigration. In her book, Markham reports a story of identical twin brothers, Ernesto and Raul, who escaped El Salvador’s gang violence to build new lives in California. Here, in the United States, a land flowing with honey and milk in many immigrants’ mind, the Flores twins fight their way to survive, to stay, and to belong.
Growing up in a big family in La Colonia, El Salvador, the Flores twins lived a very different life from regular teenagers. Spending their childhood and teenage years in the intermittent bursts of civil war, the twins have long held a fantasy toward the distant country—the United States. They never thought about really coming until their hometown was overrun by gangsters. To flee the deadly threat from their uncle, who is affiliated to the local gangsters, the Flores twins, like many other Salvadorians, made their way to the United States. They left their family and came to the North as unaccompanied minors just to survive.
However, the threats from local coyotes in the Texas desert and the traumatic experiences at the detention center made the journey extremely perilous for the twins as well. When they finally settled with their older brother, Wilber Junior, who came to the North seven years before the twins, they soon faced new challenges with their immigration status, language barriers, soaring coyote debt, not to mention their emotional ups and downs that led them to drinking problems and self-harm. With intense and extensive interaction with the boys and their family, Markham tells their story respectfully and carefully. From exploring the complicates of the twins’ experiences, Markham reveals the systemic issues of immigration that requires international intervention.
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One particularly profound aspect of the book is how Markham explores the mixed reasons why immigrants are willing to risk their life crossing borders and come to a place they would probably never see their family. They make the decision to save their lives. However, the issues of domestic violence in immigrants’ home countries are far more complicated than the simple categories listed in the U.S. immigration status application. For Flores twins, Ernesto came to the North to flee from his uncle’s threat while Raul came because he looks identical as his brother, even though he’s not the direct target of the life threat; Raul was also in danger.
In this case, if they want to stay and apply for asylee status, only Ernesto has a chance to win the court; Raul might have the risk of departure. The only choice left for them is Special Juvenile Immigration Status that doesn’t factually fit for them—it’s their uncle, not their parents who tried to kill them. Flores twins, like many other immigrants, are seeking asylums here in the North, but the obstacle that prevents them from a bigger chance to win the court comes from a systemic flaw.
Among all these risk factors that the Flores twins encountered in their lives, having each other is always a protective factor in confronting their struggles. For example, when Ernesto suffered from non-stop nightmares because of his traumatizing experiences of touching a dead body and witnessing a murder, Raul is there for him. Talking to his brother about what he has been through pulls Ernesto out from his unspeakable pain. Ernesto is also there for Raul when he ditched school and cut himself to release his depression. The care and support they show for each other have a positive influence on the Microsystems of their development.
Before reading Markham’s book, I was never aware of the very importance of long term solution, like providing public education, to kids like the Flores twins. Building a wall or departure are never the real solutions to the immigration problem. As long as the warfares and domestic violence continue to threaten lives, the number of immigrants fleeing to the United States for shelter would not decrease significantly. The actions taken require the respect of human rights and democracy. Public education, if functions in a good way, can offer minor immigrants a sense of belongingness and community. This can help them to adjust to society better and more easily. In fact, providing a kid with public education is much cheaper than holding the person in prison, as Markham puts it in her book; it’s also great for the federal budget.
The eye-opening immigration story of Flores twins reveals a real picture of immigrants’ experiences—the perilous journey on their way here and the difficult encounters they confront in the society of the United States. However, as the Flores twins’ story is quite eye-opening for me, I’m also curious about how their older brother, Wilber Junior, paid his debt and made his living in the North years ago. As an undocumented immigrant, he went through Obama’s administration when an unprecedented number of immigrants were departed, and seven years can mean a very different political environment than today. After all, how did Wilber Junior, a member of the Flores family as well, all lone in the United States before his brother came, achieve his humble American dream?
