For the past four years, Jim de la Rosa’s life has been all about the U.S. Marine Corps.
Ever since he was in middle school, he wanted to be in the military. He liked the uniforms, the lifestyle. He longed to be one of the few who could call himself a Marine.
Not having his mother around provided a final push to enlist. Maybe proving his allegiance to his country could help bring her back, he thought. At the very least, his income could help the family.
It was Jim who took it the hardest, his mother says, when she went to Juarez to apply for a green card in 2009 and instead found herself facing a 10-year ban from returning to the United States because years prior she had crossed illegally after overstaying a visa.
His mother, Gloria de la Rosa, says that as she set up a new, solo life in Nogales, Sonora, Jim — the oldest of the four de la Rosa siblings, then 17 years old and a senior in high school — didn’t want to eat. For a while he wouldn’t even leave his room.
The following year, in 2010, Jim graduated from Pueblo Magnet High School. Not long after that, he headed off to boot camp.
He immersed himself in military culture and began a career in radio maintenance. He took photo after photo of himself in his camouflage uniform, partying with the Marine buddies who became family to him. He posted them proudly to his social media accounts, never wanting to forget.
But when it was time to re-enlist this year, he knew he couldn’t do it, no matter how much he wanted to. With his brother Bill off to college and their father’s health deteriorating, it was his turn to step up.
“I knew I had to come home, like it was going to be a must,” he says. “But at the same time I was, like, ‘Damn, this is not fair, this sucks.’
“I could’ve continued two more months, I could’ve been a sergeant. For a 22-year-old to make it up there that fast … ” He pauses. “But I knew this is more important.”
NEW RESPONSIBILITIES
The transition hasn’t been easy, but Jim doesn’t like to show it.
He rarely talks about his feelings or his struggles. Ask him about it, and you’re likely to hear, “Whatever.”
About the added responsibilities? He had a lot of responsibilities in the Marines, too.
About his truncated military career? He enrolled at Pima Community College this semester, so he’s just moving ahead in a different way.
Still, his bedroom is a shrine to what he has left behind. His walls are plastered with posters of space, of super heroes — and of Marines. Center stage is a group picture of Jim and his fellow Marines in uniform. His medals are pinned to the shiny paper.
Since he got back in February, Jim’s routine has changed. He used to get up before 6 a.m. to work out with his Marine buddies and go to work. Now he wakes up in the middle of the night to help his father, Arsenio, out of bed and to the bathroom.
The doctor said Arsenio needs to exercise his legs to improve his mobility, so Jim works with him on that.
One morning he counts to 20 as Arsenio flexes his right leg.
“The other one,” he says as he grabs his father’s left leg. “Ten more, 10 more. Are you tired now?”
“No,” Arsenio mumbles.
“In a little while, we are going to do more,” Jim says loudly. Arsenio doesn’t hear so well anymore.
Dad was role model
When Jim was little, his dad was his hero.
If he and Bill fussed in the night as babies, Arsenio would get up to hold them and sing to them.
He took them to school and to karate — neither of them liked it, really, but they kept at it to make their dad happy.
He had retired from working as a fumigation pilot, so he took care of them while Gloria worked.
Jim would follow his father around, holding the flashlight as Arsenio fixed a car.
He is the type of man who, even after he suffered the stroke, would walk slowly into the Project Yes building and hand-deliver a $20 donation to the free program every month — the only one out of hundreds of parents to do so.
Now Arsenio mostly watches television or dozes on the couch, occasionally telling one of the kids to put on their shoes or to turn on the light so they don’t strain their eyes. Jim, his primary caregiver, spends much of his day on the phone. He has gained weight in the seven months he’s been back — he hardly recognizes himself in his boot-camp graduation picture.
He lives most of his life inside his family’s small house — but fellow veteran Bob Cabigas, whom Jim used to work with at the greyhound racetrack when he was in high school, is trying to change that.
Cabigas volunteers with Humane Borders, filling water tanks for migrants crossing the desert, and Jim decided to join him.
“I think he’s got it together,” Cabigas says. “He just has to take the next step. He’s supposed to go on a diet, and when? Mañana.”
“I’m on vacation, Bob. Four years of hard working, come on,” Jim bites back. “In one month, I’ll be back to normal.”
Then he’ll start thinking about a career in law enforcement, he says.
Out in the desert, replacing old water tanks and making sure the rest have clean water, some would say Jim is helping people who have broken the law. But he’s at peace with that.
“I’m patriotic. I love this country, and I love the Marines, too,” he says. “I picture myself without water, having to walk 80 miles. Come on!”
“A perfect Human being”
His mother crossed the desert once, but he doesn’t think of that often, not even when he is out there himself.
He describes Gloria as a compassionate person who will lend a hand to anyone who needs one. She’s “like a perfect human being,” he says.
But their relationship has grown distant.
“We just don’t talk a lot about life stuff,” he says. “I just don’t like to talk about stuff like that.”
He is not the same kid who played the violin and was a chess champion, Gloria says. When she tries to hug him, he pulls away.
He doesn’t visit often, either. On the weekends he drives the kids and Arsenio to Nogales, Sonora, then he comes back to Tucson alone. He needs a break from it all.
Jim commends his mother for waiting out the 10 years.
“It caused problems — big problems,” he says. “But, I mean, I’m proud of her for wanting to do it the legit way.”
Still, sometimes he resents the fact that he’s stuck at home while Bill is away at college.
“You should stay here,” he has told his brother. “Or when you finish school you should get a job here.”
Then he catches himself.
“He’s doing all these important things and amazing stuff,” Jim says. “So why should he come here when I can handle this?”
Children in danger
Children in a family where there’s a deportation or a parent is in the country illegally don’t fare as well as other kids, research has shown.
In some ways that has proven true for the de la Rosa family. There have been times when they didn’t have enough to eat; their dad’s Social Security couldn’t cover all of their expenses.
Gloria was the breadwinner of the family and the nearly $400 she made weekly disappeared when she moved back to Mexico. Now she earns about $13 a day cleaning a couple’s home in Nogales.
What they have had, and what has made all the difference, is a village of support: church groups, family friends, teachers and counselors. And, of course, they have each other: They have grown accustomed to wiping their own tears to be there for one another.
When Gloria moved to Nogales to be with Arsenio at age 22, she liked the idea of an older man she could rely on. She didn’t think about what that would mean down the line until years later.
Because her kids have to be so grown up to care for their dad, when they’re in Nogales, Sonora, with her, she wants them to be kids again.
Daughter Naomi sometimes goes to bed at 8 p.m. on Friday and doesn’t wake up until morning. Gloria thinks it’s because she’s so tired, and in Nogales she can finally relax.
Gloria makes their favorite dishes, mole or enchiladas. She buys flour tortillas for Bill and corn for Arsenio. She does their laundry, clears the table after they eat and washes their dishes.
She bathes her husband and takes him to his favorite barber.
Naomi, usually a whirlwind of housekeeping, spends her time picking friendly fights with little brother Bobby.
“Ma, que me deje en paz!” she complains, begging Gloria to tell Bobby to leave her alone.
“Do you two behave like this over there? Put on your shoes!” Gloria scolds them.
“Don’t you have any homework to do?” she asks Bobby. “You must have something to do. Read a book.” Anything to keep him away from his sister, who is trying to do her geometry homework.
He finally lies down on the couch next to his mom, and she rubs his head and caresses his arm. The minute she stops, he grabs her hand and signals for more.
Children as caregivers
While they enjoy their time with their mother, they are used to parenting themselves.
When Bobby needs written permission to play the clarinet, he turns to Naomi, not to Gloria or Arsenio — even though they are sitting nearby.
Arsenio signs, but Bobby never explains what it was for.
“I’ll tell them when I get the instrument,” he says in English, the language they mostly use to communicate.
Once they get back to Tucson, the siblings return to their roles as caregivers.
As they wait for Bill’s ride to the airport and back to college, Arsenio calls out to his youngest son.
“Bobby, the medicine,” he says in a shaky, slow voice. “Bobby, the aspirin.”
“Which aspirin?” Bobby replies.
“Remember the pills you gave him yesterday and he got mad at you because those weren’t it,” Bill says.
“Why would I give him the wrong medicine?” Bobby asks, annoyed.
“You did yesterday.”
“Because I don’t know which one he takes in the morning, and I gave him those and he got all mad,” Bobby explains.
Naomi keeps doing her homework, not even looking up.
“Pa, ya me voy,” — Dad, I’m leaving — Bill says as he buttoned his dad’s shirt pocket. “Take care of yourself so I can see you in December.”
“Yes,” Arsenio says, his voice quivering.
“Listen to Jimmy so he won’t get frustrated, OK?” Bill asks his dad.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Arsenio responds.
“Be very careful when you walk,” Bill says before kissing his father’s balding scalp with its fringe of grey-white hair.
He walks over to Naomi and pats her head.
Then Bobby gets up and wraps his arms around Bill’s waist.
Jim sleeps through it all.
“I’ll let you sleep, dude,” Bill chuckles and rolls his suitcases out the door.
It will be six years next month that the family has been divided.
Four more to go.
