The address where my mother lived during the 1994-95 school year laid upon a green Montebello Community Adult School ID card. Over 30 years later, I decided to visit her old home, hoping to learn more about the city that first welcomed her and my family. 

In the late ‘80s, popular discourse swirled about permanent residence in the United States through former President Ronald Reagan’s Immigration Reform and Control Act, leading my family to leave their home in Tijuana to come to Southeast Los Angeles. Bell Gardens, a small, predominantly Latino city best known for its casino, became the landing place for their American Dream. 

Growing up, my mom didn’t talk much about L.A., nor did the rest of my family. It felt like a puzzle piece that I had to discover on my own. When they moved south to San Diego, likely to live closer to home, the only history of their time there was in my cousins’ love for the Dodgers and the Raiders.

For children of immigrants like myself, our identities are a constant place of contention. As Débora Maehler, a researcher who has looked at the cultural identity of first-generation immigrant children, states, these children “seek to reconcile different, and possibly conflicting, cultural patterns in order to establish a secure cultural identity.” Journeys like the one I went on are crucial in cementing this security. 

Moving to L.A. was like a homecoming to me — something I was destined to experience, just like my family once did. I walked the steps they took, not just to feel closer to them but to better understand the sacrifices they made to get me here. 

Turning left past the Parkwest Bicycle Casino, I approached the tiny fourplex that housed my entire family. A long, concrete driveway and raggedy fence felt familiar and inviting, but I stayed in my car, too emotional to get out. Instead, I simply observed and imagined what it would have been like to live within those walls.

I thought about the long days of textile work and adult school my mom had to endure, only to come back to a cramped space. Were her dreams of naturalization enough to get past the exhaustion in her joints? How could she focus on studying for her citizenship test when so much of her attention was required in her home? 

I thought of my cousins who were left to be babysat by their Tía Letty, how many of them played and were bruised by that long, concrete yard. I wondered how much it weighed on my mom to be expected to help raise children that weren’t her own.

As I spent the day in the city, I drove past closed-down markets, restaurants and mechanic shops, imagining the ghosts of community members my family must have known. 

I stopped at local grails like El Pollito Bakery and talked to the people there, hoping that somebody would recognize my mother in my features, but nobody did. Our almost decade in L.A. was another immigrant story the city ushers in and quickly forgets. 

Luckily, I didn’t. I remembered how my mom became a U.S. citizen within five years of her arrival, the fastest the government allows — doing it without knowing any English and an education level that didn’t exceed the eighth grade. 

I recalled that even with a family that came with her, feelings of isolation and melancholy did not elude her. She still wished to go back home. Her resilience was an act of pure love — she fought through fear and turmoil in hopes that, if I one day arrived, I’d have greater opportunities than she did. 

In a photo album gifted to me a couple years ago, I found a picture of my mom holding one of my cousins in front of the Exposition Park Rose Garden. It made me think about all the times her and my family must have crossed through USC’s campus. Could she have ever imagined that her child would study there? That all of her efforts were truly fruitful? 

If you have the opportunity to go through a similar journey as I did and experience some of the life your family lived, I implore you to take it. It’s grounding and beautiful, a reminder of the history we create every day.

Going through the process of learning this history allows us to link together our stories of origin with the places we were born or settled in, strengthening our identities as descendants of a long history of perseverance and success. Our existence is living proof that every double shift, every hour away from home and every choice to stay was the right choice our ancestors made.  

In a world that constantly attempts to place labels on marginalized peoples, this act of agency allows us to get to know who we truly are. 

These histories have been locked away behind cages of struggle and pain. These histories are embedded within each of us, waiting to be unraveled and learned, and they should not, cannot, be forgotten or lost.