“I had to start tasting them to find out if they were spicy or not,” she recalled, laughing. That’s no small matter when some are spicy chocolate habañeros. She has her own plot at a community garden that reflects her roots in a small Mexican pueblo named San Esteban Atatlahuca, two hours from Oaxaca, Mexico, the place where cacao (chocolate) beans originated.ĭuring the latest season, she planted so many chilies she lost track of which were which. “A lot of families are in this kind of situation. “It’s tough, but hope is what I lean on,” Reyes Pacheco said in Spanish. She makes good money with the wreaths - $4,000 a month - but pays a third in taxes and goes without work in January and February. In years past, she’s worked an evening job in a restaurant in addition to her full-time day job to make ends meet. She feeds Michael, Christopher and José Manuel breakfast, then they have a daily video chat with her husband, Alejandro - father to José Manuel - before she drops them off at school and heads to work.ĭuring the year, she shifts between planting and picking vegetables and berries in Washington County farm fields and working two months making Christmas wreaths by hand for an employer she declined to name. Reyes Pacheco’s weekdays start before 6 a.m. But when Mexicans do things, it’s like the law is very hard for us.” “I think just focuses on criminals and doesn’t think about non-criminals,” she said. Asked about Trump’s build-a-wall politics, she sighed. The worst crime reyes Pacheco has committed, she said, is driving without insurance. However, according to several studies, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than nonimmigrants. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump said as a candidate. Since 2015, when he announced his bid for president, Trump has hammered on the theme that Mexican immigrants are criminals. ICE is using Gestapo tactics, coming in the middle of the night, separating families.” We’re living in times of Nazi Germany, where they’re going after people. “The psychological fabric of the community is coming apart,” Ramírez said. Ramón Ramírez, president of the largest Latino union in Oregon, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN), described ICE raids as fascist. In a separate incident that the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon called “Nightmare at PDX,” a Spanish college student was sent to the Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Center, a jail in The Dalles, Oregon, that regularly holds ICE detainees, for a minor visa violation. In Portland, the crackdown by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) led to a Facebook video viewed a million times that showed agents trespassing while detaining a suspect. Hers is a life framed by work and supported by “sanctuary” communities willing to stand up to government tactics one Latino leader compares to the Gestapo.įew issues have been more controversial since President Donald Trump took office than immigration. Reyes Pacheco’s story offers a look under the surface of our immigration problems, revealing truths more complex than the polemic narratives of political leaders. Even if you don’t eat cranberries or buy wreaths but love guacamole, you might have him to thank: He’s an avocado farmer in Toluca. citizens, and a second husband who was deported. She first became a “Dreamer” under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and now has a “U visa” for domestic abuse survivors. Reyes Pacheco came to the United States without documentation as a 15-year-old, brought by her first husband, whom she eventually left because of domestic violence. She’s a Mexican immigrant farmworker who spends 10-hour days picking berries and weaving wreaths, which Spanish speakers call coronas, until her hands ache so much they wake her at night. If cranberries decorate your Thanksgiving table or a Christmas wreath adorns your home, you might have Margarita Reyes Pacheco to thank.
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