Holding on to Hope

By Catalina Claussen

The church doors swing wide just as the padre is giving his blessing. Analicia Rosario Menéndez is fifteen when her brother, Junior, is arrested in the middle of her quinceañera. Soon after, Ana's Spanish teacher Ms. García disappears, leaving behind her five-year-old son. During a routine check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Ana's father, Dr. Menéndez, is detained. Paralyzed by government forces that make her feel like her world is falling apart, Ana is tired of feeling powerless. Living in a small town along the southern border of New Mexico, someone has to know something, don't they? Ana, desperate to find the truth, reaches out to those around her. Will her friends, Rose and Imani, help, or will they turn their backs? Holding On To Hope explores the complex realities facing families and community members living under constant deportation threats. This book is a must-read!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Progressive Rising Phoenix Press, LLC
• Release date: Oct 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781950560400

Catalina Claussen

Catalina Claussen is an award-winning young adult novelist, poet, and short story author who carries on a love affair with the land, language, and people of southwest New Mexico. She lives with her dog Bandit and raises a prolific organic garden on a ranch in the Mimbres Valley. Her two young adult novels Diamonds at Dusk (2016) and Diamonds at Dawn (2018), have been recognized by the New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards, The Wishing Shelf Book Awards in the United Kingdom, and the New Apple Book Awards for Excellence in Independent Publishing. Last year she released the young adult novel Holding on to Hope and her debut short story collection Being Home: A Southwestern Almanac. Being Home, Too is the sequel to her debut short story collection, Being Home: A Southwestern Journey. To listen to the podcasts of the stories included in this book, go to the author's website at catalinaclaussenbooks.wordpress.com.

Book preview

Palabras/Words

Princesa/Princess is what my papi calls me

Familia/Family is everything

Escuela/School is my future

Iglesia/Church is peace

Futbol/Soccer is joy

Frontera/Border is my past. Or is it?

And then there’s the trouble with what to call me:

Analicia Rosario Menendez/Ana

American Born

And what about…

My father, Luis:

Professor, J-1 Visa recipient on his way to full citizen. Or, so he says.

On the street,

He is simply Moreno, the dark one.

Nobody sees him.

My mother, Ximena:

landed immigrant

Math teacher from the state of Sonora

Here, she is almost a citizen, if Papi doesn’t leave her first

My brother, Junior:

childhood arrival, college graduate

Unless DACA is rescinded and the door caves in.

Then there are the words that need no translation:

Taco, salsa, enchilada

In the end, Abuela says remember, there isn’t a person you encounter that God doesn’t love.

Chapter 1

Ana

On the front steps of the house in the timeless moment that is Sunday afternoon, Papi tells me the story. "Eran las cinco de la tarde. It was five o’clock in the afternoon. Y como un viento del desierto they came for Abuelo." Like a desert wind.

We lived in the last house on the last street, sheltered in the shadow of the neighbor’s house on one side, and on the other protected by no one but God.

Papi says, Abuelo stood there with the heat of the afternoon drenching his shirtfront, penetrating the white collar that set him apart from others as a man of God… even he couldn’t stop them. There were five of them, possessed by a dark force, dressed to kill. Their faces, their names blurred under the burden of their business.

He pauses. His eyes are elsewhere as if reading to me from the pages of his memory.

My father failed to see them, Papi says finally. He failed to see them as sons of the Almighty. He saw them the way they were dressed, cloaked in darkness.

Papi pauses again. This time his eyes are on me, as if letting the lesson penetrate my skin. But it didn’t end there. My brother, Santiago, was at Abuelo’s heel. Santiago was a scrawny kid who spent too much time with the chickens and not enough time with the Scriptures, according to Abuelo. The family used to tease him for it. We used to say one day he would grow feathers and become one of them.

Santiago had five roosters. Proud trained killers in their own right, softened only by the way he stroked their feathers, by the way he cared for them. Papi pauses to wipe his glasses and then continues. "That day they knew the time had come. See, Abuelo couldn’t stand alone against the enemigo, although he did try. Abuelo didn’t know that Santiago stood behind him, despite the teasing. Abuelo didn’t know that Santiago stood en tierra firme with all five roosters. He takes a breath and finally, The enemigo came for him, surrounding Abuelo, just as they had been trained. Fists loaded."

Papi’s eyes return to the pages in his mind. This time it’s different. He’s swept up in his story and in el viento del desierto. The desert wind. "In the fight, Abuelo’s faith did not waver. He was strong. His cries to God were silent. They came for him again and again. From my seat on top of the adobe wall I saw Santiago advance. His roosters, white-feathered, red combs, were an army against the enemy. Santiago let out a whistle, and it was done. Las plumas blancas a su lado. White feathers at his side. Purification. Protection. Y por la paz eterna." And for eternal peace.

Papi turns to me and says, See. They never saw it coming. He laughs. "And Abuelo? He never saw it coming either. He breathes, considering me for a moment, and then says, We never teased Santiago after that. You know, m’ija, he had earned our respect."

Papi’s story is about the struggle long before I was born. It’s about where we come from and our rebirth. Sitting here on Sunday afternoon free of the narcos and full of hope, this is the future he wants for me. La paz eterna.

Chapter 2

Imani

In the crisp Sunday afternoon light, the truth is wrapped up in fist-sized yellow blooms. I snuck out the back door when the shouting started. Beneath the squash blossoms and lush leaves the size of dinner plates, I wait. Jets etch vapor trails across the sky. The ravens play tick-tock from their perches in the naked elm. I lie here in my cutoffs and plaid shirt, hoping to disappear.

God has other plans. He made me milk chocolate with curves that go on for miles. Seems like I can’t go anywhere in this town without being noticed. Me, my dad, and a handful of other colored folks in the community dot the landscape. Here, where Spanish is spoken more often than English, I stand out. My garden is my refuge, a place where peace finds me. The place where promises bloom if the frost and deer don’t get there first. Mama doesn’t plant zinnias and sunflowers like she used to. But I do. I got tired of waiting for her.

If it were up to me, I would have the house on the corner, the one with the green shutters and a white picket fence. I would plant a garden big enough to feed the hungry and the curious.

So who’s gonna pay the electricity bill this month? Mama says from the kitchen. I can’t be the only grown-up in this household.

I can’t make out what Daddy says, but it’s not the first time she’s asked and not the first time she has pleaded with him.

My grandmother Odetta Mae Jones is my hero. She built a world made of color. Her garden takes up the whole yard back at her place in Syracuse, NY. She makes it her business to get to know each flower on a first-name basis. In a city where concrete and glass dominate the landscape, that kind of intimacy is revolutionary. For her, it started much earlier than that. She started her career as a make-up artist to the stars back in the day. No, wait. She became the make-up artist, back when it wasn’t fashionable for white people to hang out with black people.

Odetta Mae Jones knows the devil that lives inside Daddy, but she never let it knock the shine out of her eyes. You got to give it to God, she used to say. And remember He never gives you anything you can’t handle. But I’m not so sure about that. The smell of the earth and seed-popping possibility keeps me rooted as I ride out the storm coming from inside.

Then I hear the sound I hate most, the sound of my parents making up. The truth is it will never be enough. Theirs is a young love, one that started way back in high school. Mama’s face has and always will bloom petal-open when Daddy walks in the room. And Daddy thinks nothing of crushing her in his hands.

Chapter 3

Rose

It’s 4 a.m. on Monday. I haven’t seen him in weeks. Border Patrol Agent Ryan Taylor moves soundlessly in the kitchen. I stand in the archway observing him in the glow of the nightlight as he clicks his watch into place. Dad turns, startled. He stands in his uniform pants and V-neck.

Jesus, Rose. You scared me, he says.

I don’t say anything at first. I thought if I got up before dawn this morning, like he does every morning, I might catch a glimpse. It’s not that I haven’t seen him physically (although sometimes that’s true), it’s like I haven’t seen him, the real him. I thought this early in the morning, before the birds wake up, before he’s fully dressed, this would be the time. I thought I could find him before the wall goes up, and the Daddy that used to laugh would be standing here making coffee. But he’s not.

It started a few weeks ago. Five hundred thirty-four thousand, seven hundred fifty-eight. That’s the record-breaking number of immigrants who have reached the southern border during the first six months of this year. I know I’m weird. I memorize facts and figures because something about it makes me feel secure.

In the wake of the latest wave my Dad’s been MIA-Missing in Action. I get it. They’re short-handed. He’s worked more shifts than he cares to. But it doesn’t excuse the fact that he isn’t here, like really here.

Aren’t you gonna say anything? he asks.

I don’t answer.

Oh, he says. Have it your way.

He checks his watch and speeds up his routine. He pulls his egg sandwich from the microwave, pours coffee into his mug, and secures the lid. Then he retrieves his uniform shirt from a chair. He pulls it on, starts to button it, and then looks up.

You know it’s going to be okay, he says. At first, I’m not sure what he’s talking about. Then I realize he means the break-up, my break-up with Josh, my boyfriend of three years. It surprises me that Dad would think of it among the thousands of other things that must cross his mind day and night.

What I was hoping he meant is that he would be okay. There are five hundred thirty-four thousand, seven hundred fifty-eight of them and counting. And patrol is a one-man operation. Then, it hits me. Mission accomplished. Dad really is in there. It’s going to be okay, I tell myself. I fight the urge to hug him ’cuz I’m afraid it will be the last time.

Chapter 4

Ana

Bienvenidos al lunes. Welcome to Monday. I wake up disoriented. In my dream, my brother, Junior, and the other boys on the court are serenading me with the guitarra at my quinceañera. I dance a traditional waltz with Papi, my skirts billowing as he guides me across the dance floor. He whispers what I need to know about being a lady. He talks about how a real man cherishes his bride, as a father cherishes his daughter.

But the reality is I hear Mami and Papi’s voices muffled behind Mami’s bedroom door, whisper-shouting about something. Lately, if Papi bothers to come home, their talk is about money. I can’t make out their words exactly, just the steady, staccato flow of Spanish and English that betrays their uneasy existence.

It didn’t used to be that way… in the beginning. I used to be able to see them in my mind’s eye. Mami, a legendary beauty with suitors coming to her modest home in Hidalgo. And Papi? His fascination with flesh and bone and the stories that weave us together won her hand in the end. So how did it come to this? How did it come to closed-door shouting matches, cold fall mornings, and an unshakable fear that I will lose all of them-Mami, Papi, and Junior. My dreams try to tell me otherwise with visions of the perfect quince, but then… I wake up.

Their argument bursts through Mami’s door and Papi says, "We can’t afford it, Ximena. A stylist? Don’t be ridiculous! How can you think of quinceañera hair and make-up at a time like this?"

She’s our daughter, she says. "We only have one. You