“Manuel wondered why everyone was so fucking afraid of Mexicans.” It is 1992. Manuel joins his daughter to protest Prop 187 at City Hall in Los Angeles. That same year, I marched with other students at the Federal Building in Westwood to oppose the same proposition. But it could be 2025. Today, we witness another horrific display of anti-immigrant actions. The aggression has escalated to daily ICE raids across the country. Political and religious leaders are speaking against the behavior of the federal government. Thousands of people every day are protesting the injustices levied upon immigrants in the United States.
Désirée Zamorano’s novel, Dispossessed (Running Wild Press/RIZE Press 2024), exposes the historical injustices that Manuel and his family faced in 1939. According to History.com, the U.S. government’s deportation campaigns during The Great Depression “repatriated” over one million Mexican and Mexican Americans, many of whom had no recollection of living outside the United States. Like many of today’s DACA students, they were brought here as children. Yet racism and unfounded fears led to political decisions that disrupted families across the Southwest U.S. Again, in the 1950s, Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback”—the name itself makes my stomach curdle—used military force to deport hundreds of thousands of Mexicans. Why did others in the U.S. allow such an atrocity to happen? Because the propaganda then, like today, portrayed Mexicans in a myriad of derogatory ways. And it is happening again. So we march again. Protest the human rights violations inflicted by the US government again.
It is imperative that we do what we can to raise awareness and counter slanderous stereotypes. To that end, Zamorano centers one boy, Manuel. Through his eyes, the traumatic removal and its impact are vivid, and initially surreal: “At night he slept at the bottom of the sea; in the mornings he awoke to strangers; during the days he tread through mud and marshy overgrowth; he returned to the classroom with its mocking children.” Without his parents or sister around to keep him afloat, Manuel slips into an altered mental state. He trudges through his first few years—that feel like a hundred to him— in a daze, overwhelmed with guilt, and struggles to understand what happens around him.
At school, Manuel doesn’t understand the English spoken by teachers and classmates. As a result, he spends his days not talking, being angry, feeling totally alone. He is misnamed by teachers as Miguel, called dirty, accused of lying, and scolded for being stupid because he doesn’t know English. As an educator like Zamorano, I’m infuriated at the educators of this era who chided Spanish-speaking children instead of valuing their linguistic contributions. Being bilingual, mi abuelo said, makes someone as valuable as two people. My indignation is matched by Manuel’s when he witnesses a teacher engaging in inappropriate behavior with a wheelchair-bound student. This violation of human rights is what finally prompts Manuel to speak: “He took a deep breath. It was time. He had something to say. ‘Help,’ he said. ‘Help please. I think,’ he cleared his throat, ‘there’s a fire.’ ” This is the beginning of a better life for Manuel. Some of his anger is released and he can speak. Not just at school.
At home, he becomes part of Amparo’s family, neighborhood, and church community. He feels some of the love they offer him. His perspective changes again when he meets Lizette. His pursuit of and later devotion to her mirrors what he experienced from Amparo. He commits all his energy to earning money and making a fruitful life with Lizette and later, their daughter Dahlia. He is not a criminal or a rapist or any of the other horrific insults hurled at Mexican and Mexican American people in our current era. He is a boy who becomes a man who wants a better life than what society deemed he should have.
Thread throughout, is Amparo’s devotion to God, which Manuel does not share. He gives Amparo all the credit for his salvation. His rejection of faith is rooted in his own feelings of being rejected by his family before he understood what had actually happened to his parents. Those feelings permeate his sense of self: “He was a slab of mud that worked with other slabs of mud.” He internalizes the hateful rhetoric that is imposed on him by the world around him.
His feelings of helplessness are exacerbated by the gentrification of his and surrounding neighborhoods. People pushed out for “progress” because they were deemed “poor Mexicans.” The people in Manuel’s community try to fight the evictions but are not successful. As families grow tired, they cease to resist. They leave their neighborhood, where Dodger Stadium now sits, and make homes elsewhere. Today, that area of Los Angeles is at the center of controversy again. Federal agents set up all around the city in an attempt to kidnap residents from their jobs, at schools, and their homes. The U.S. government leaders claim to be protecting citizens. The majority of citizens are more interested in protecting their neighbors and loved ones.
Understanding the history of mass deportations could offer people today some insight. Zamorano presents a sweeping saga of struggles and triumphs, following Manuel into adulthood. Once he begins to understand the source of his angst, he initiates an investigation into the missing pieces of his life. Horace Romero, notary public and income tax preparer, explains the tragedy that had occurred sixteen years before. He helps Manuel initiate a search for his sister and parents who, he says, were likely sent to Mexico. Keeping track of deported people should be easier today, with all the available technology; however, the U.S. government takes extreme measures to make the process difficult. It is as inhumane now as it was then. And the victims’ families continue to feel helpless in the face of federal authorities.
Zamorano’s novel delves into the complexities of place and people, illuminating where the myriad conflicts intersect. She exposes a piece of history many people are unaware of, that others would like to forget: even though it is repeating itself again today. Seeing how the deportations impacted one young boy, albeit fictional, is one way to inspire others to take action against anti-immigrant extremists. Zamorano’s novel can offer inspiration and hope, which we all need to get through the years ahead.
