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The American Yawp Reader

Pedro Lopez on His Mother’s Deportation (2008/2015)

Pedro Lopez immigrated to Postville, Iowa, with his family as a young child. On May 12, 2008,

Pedro Lopez’s mother, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was arrested, jailed, and deported

to Mexico. Pedro was 13. Here, he describes the experience.

I’ll go back right to the day. I was in social studies going into my reading class. There was a helicopter

circling around the northern part of town. There is a National Guard station up in Decorah so we

thought maybe they got themselves a hold of a helicopter. They are doing an exercise. Prior to that

there was a raid in Marshalltown. Some people saw that as a possibility of them getting closer to

Postville, making connections and whatnot. When we did find out that it was actually immigration

that came to Postville, ICE agents, it was a big hit for me. Both of my parents worked at

Agriprocessors at that time. My dad worked in maintenance and my mom worked just on the line, is

what we called it, which is where they process the meat. My mom worked from three in the morning

until whenever they decided to end the day. My dad would go in around four or five in the after-

noon. They tried to do that so there was an adult in the house. My mom was working her shift and I

knew that she was there for sure. What happened after that was they did arrest my mom and she was

scared because she heard stories about Marshalltown and how they would go into the houses.

Immigrants don’t sometimes know the full extension of the law and they would allow them some-

times to just come in not knowing what would be the consequences. My mom said she was here

alone. She was not here with anybody else. She said I’m here alone, I don’t have any kids. If you are

going to take me, take me, that’s all you are going to get. That’s really what they did. She was just

scared. She didn’t know what to do, but she knew that she had a family. There are three of us. My

youngest sister is a United States citizen, my older sister and I aren’t, so she was worried about us.

And rightly so. She came from Mexico, 2,200 and some miles. They both crossed the desert, in hor-

rendous conditions. She wasn’t going to give up all of that just because she was going to open her

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mouth and say oh yeah I have kids but she didn’t know that was one of the ways out of the actual

process.

She was arrested and sent to five different prisons. She was sentenced to five months in jail and was

deported on October 25 , 2008, which ironically is my dad’s birthday. My mom was taken out of

the picture for a year. Us here at home it was very difficult. My sister was 17 years old going on 18. In

a flip of a coin she had to become a mother of two. My dad had to work double as hard because we

had half of our income cut. I kind of had to step up. I was at the age where, I was thirteen, so I could

do a little bit more, which I did. You kind of had to leave some of your childhood behind. What I

told Luis Argueta, who was actually here filming today, I told Luis it was hard for me. I was a man at

that time. I was expected to be a man. And be a rock. Just going through the motions and make sure

everything is alright and not really express my feelings. Well that was one of the things that was hurt-

ing the most was my feelings because I didn’t have my mom, I had to give up some of my childhood

just because it wasn’t necessary at that time.

We were in constant fear of ICE coming back, most of the time we had half of our belongings

packed. That was something that would eat at my mind like oh no, my dad is going to go and work,

alright is he going to make it back? If not what are we going to do, what is going to be the process?

Plus before my mom was deported, it was where is my mom? I wonder what she is doing, I wonder

what she is feeling, I wonder if she is okay, I wonder if she is being treated right? It’s a lot on a thir-

teen-year-olds’ mind. Especially when they are thirteen, they are going through their own changes

themselves. The fear of going to high school was completely not even in my mind because I was

thinking I don’t know if I going to survive another day living in the United States. Why do I have to

worry about the next four years of possibly being in Mexico? It was a hard time. It was a time where I

realized that my story could do a lot of good things, the story of Postville could do some amazing,

great things. It was a time of change, it was a time of growth, it was a time to strengthen our family,

but it was a hard time nevertheless.

Interviewer: When your mother was in the five jails were you able to contact her at all?

She would send me letters. We took the decision of not going to visit her partly because it would be

too much. It would have been nice to see her and nice to know she was okay. I never could see my

mother in an orange jumpsuit behind a glass. Thinking of her as oh yeah she is supposed to be a

criminal. She’s my mother. She has given up so much to give me the opportunity to where I’m at

now.

th

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She would send us cards, and that’s pretty much it. When she was in Mexico we would call her of

course and get in contact with her, but while she was in jail we just kept it at letters. The letters were

hard to swallow. She would try to be strong in the letters. She would say I’m fine, I’m doing great,

how are you doing? I hope you are doing fine. This is going to be behind us. You are going to be fine.

Just keep going, keep looking forward and don’t be afraid.

It was hard. It was hard again, you have the half packed house, dad working two jobs, sister uptight

with pretty much everything because she is in charge of the house. It was just one more thing, but it

was a thing I always looked forward to, it was a thing that gave me strength. It really inspired me to

continue talking and when people questioned what I did I took that as a sign that well maybe they

really don’t want to hear what happened. If they question my story it might be because they are re-

ally in the dark of what is happening in the immigration system. I took that and ran with it, just kept

talking about my story, about that story of Postville and what I thought was wrong. Source: Pedro

Arturo Lopez Vega Interview, in Community Voices: The Postville Oral History Project, 9-12.

Available via The Postville Oral History Project

(https://scholarworks.uni.edu/postville_oralhistory/11/).

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The American Yawp Reader

George W. Bush on the Post-9/11 World (2002)

George W. Bush on the Post-9/11 World (2002)

In his 2002 State of the Union Address, George W. Bush proclaimed that the attacks of September

11 signaled a new, dangerous world that demanded American interventions. Bush identified an “Axis

of Evil” and provided a justification for a broad “war on terror.”

… As we gather tonight, our nation is at war, our economy is in recession, and the civilized world

faces unprecedented dangers. …

We last met in an hour of shock and suffering. In four short months, our nation has comforted the

victims, begun to rebuild New York and the Pentagon, rallied a great coalition, captured, arrested,

and rid the world of thousands of terrorists, destroyed Afghanistan’s terrorist training camps, saved a

people from starvation, and freed a country from brutal oppression.

The American flag flies again over our embassy in Kabul. Terrorists who once occupied Afghanistan

now occupy cells at Guantanamo Bay.  And terrorist leaders who urged followers to sacrifice their

lives are running for their own.

…

For many Americans, these four months have brought sorrow, and pain that will never completely go

away. Every day a retired firefighter returns to Ground Zero, to feel closer to his two sons who died

there. At a memorial in New York, a little boy left his football with a note for his lost father: “Dear

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Daddy, please take this to heaven. I don’t want to play football until I can play with you again some

day.”

…

Our cause is just, and it continues. …

What we have found in Afghanistan confirms that, far from ending there, our war against terror is

only beginning. …

Our nation will continue to be steadfast and patient and persistent in the pursuit of two great objec-

tives. First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans, and bring terrorists to justice.

And, second, we must prevent the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological or nuclear

weapons from threatening the United States and the world.

Our military has put the terror training camps of Afghanistan out of business, yet camps still exist in

at least a dozen countries. … While the most visible military action is in Afghanistan, America is act-

ing elsewhere. … My hope is that all nations will heed our call, and eliminate the terrorist parasites

who threaten their countries and our own. … But some governments will be timid in the face of ter-

ror. And make no mistake about it: If they do not act, America will.

Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends

and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since

September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles

and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.

Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the

Iranian people’s hope for freedom.

Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has

plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime

that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens—leaving the bodies of

mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections—

then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.

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States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of

the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger.

They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They

could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of in-

difference would be catastrophic.

We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, tech-

nology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction. … And all nations should

know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation’s security.

We’ll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will

not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the

world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.

Our war on terror is well begun, but it is only begun. This campaign may not be finished on our

watch—yet it must be and it will be waged on our watch.

We can’t stop short. If we stop now—leaving terror camps intact and terror states unchecked—our

sense of security would be false and temporary. History has called America and our allies to action,

and it is both our responsibility and our privilege to fight freedom’s fight.

…

None of us would ever wish the evil that was done on September the 11th. Yet after America was at-

tacked, it was as if our entire country looked into a mirror and saw our better selves. We were re-

minded that we are citizens, with obligations to each other, to our country, and to history. We began

to think less of the goods we can accumulate, and more about the good we can do.

For too long our culture has said, “If it feels good, do it.” Now America is embracing a new ethic and

a new creed: “Let’s roll.” In the sacrifice of soldiers, the fierce brotherhood of firefighters, and the

bravery and generosity of ordinary citizens, we have glimpsed what a new culture of responsibility

could look like. We want to be a nation that serves goals larger than self. We’ve been offered a unique

opportunity, and we must not let this moment pass.

…

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Steadfast in our purpose, we now press on. We have known freedom’s price. We have shown

freedom’s power. And in this great conflict, my fellow Americans, we will see freedom’s victory.

Thank you all. May God bless.

[Source: George W. Bush, “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the

Union,” January 29, 2002. Available online via The American Presidency Project

(http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29644).]

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