Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America

“‘I was born in the United States, but I’m Mexican inside, you know?’” 

Elissa was born in the U.S. because her mother simply walked across the border and gave birth to her in an El Paso, Texas, clinic. However, while this action on her mother’s part made a huge difference in her life, it is the result of a technicality. Elissa is still raised by Mexican parents, as the other girls in the book are. 

“The furor over immigration occupied a hulking presence in the emotional geography of the two girls, much in the way that the Rocky Mountains dominated the physical landscape.” 

The author uses the looming Rocky Mountains as a metaphor for the way in which Marisela’s and Yadira’s unclear immigration status continues to plague them. Just as the Rocky Mountains allow people in Denver to navigate their world, people’s immigration status allows them to navigate living in the U.S. As the girls have not yet figured out their status, they can’t quite navigate their world and their future.

“How could she call herself Mexican when she did not retain a single impression of the country of her birth?” 

Yadira’s parents brought her to the US from Mexico before she was fully aware of her surroundings. Therefore, even though she is Mexican by birth, she is American in culture. Later in the book, when Yadira considers living with her mother in Mexico, her boyfriend reminds her that she cannot speak Spanish well enough to live in Mexico. Although she is officially Mexican, she is actually American. 

“‘Marisela, you are going to succeed, and it is going to feel so much better for you than it does for other people, because you are going to have to struggle more.’” 

Marisela’s high school French teacher encourages her with these words. Her teachers understand that Marisela’s strong drive and academic success also involve a great deal of struggle. Her victories are harder won than those of a student who has been raised with more privileges. 

“‘My dad, ever since he got here, that’s all he’s done—he cleans stores in the night. I didn’t want to do that. And I didn’t want him to see me like that. Because I know that even though he does that kind of a job, he doesn’t want me there. He doesn’t want any of his children there.’” 

Marisela understands that her parents’ lives in the US have involved constant struggle. She feels additional pressure to succeed and attend college because she wants an existence that involves less struggle. She also does not want to add to her parents’ problems by having them see her struggle. 

“I found the contrast between the girls’ attire and the squalor of their surroundings almost painful.” 

The high school graduation party is held in Clara’s backyard, where two old cars rust in the grass. The girls are dressed up in fine attire, which the author finds as a decided contrast to the dilapidated environment around them. 

“‘You guys, we look so dark, the security guards are going to think we’re trying to break in!’ cried Marisela.” 

While the girls are at an orientation week for scholarship students at University of Denver, they peer into their doors. Marisela jokes that they will get stopped by guards because of their dark skin. She clearly feels that they don’t belong with the other students in many ways and might appear as suspicious characters. 

“‘I’m sitting in class, and then they start asking me questions and make me the center of attention, like I’m doing a talk show or something.’” 

Marisela feels like the Anglo students at the University of Denver regard her as a curiosity because she is so different than they are. She feels like she is in the position of having to teach them about herself, and she is afraid they won’t accept her. She and the other girls make sure to get to know the dining hall staff, where everyone is from Latin America.

“‘Even if I have the potential to be the best teacher ever, without a Social Security number, I could never teach. So if we don’t manage to become legal, then we would have gone to school for nothing.” 

Yadira admits that because her legal status in the United States is not clear, she is not sure what will happen even if she completes her education. She and Marisela have to pursue their education without having a clear sense of their purpose or how it’s going to end up. 

“In Arizona, Marisela was living a ghost’s life, dispirited by her surroundings. She had negotiated the transition into college successfully—it was the transition back home that she had not been able to manage.” 

When Marisela visits her parents in Arizona, she feels disoriented. Her life has changed so dramatically from theirs, and she feels guilty for not helping them more. She has forgotten what it’s like to struggle so much financially, and her parents do not understand her life, including her high grades, at college. 

“Clara told me that she was determined to have a normal experience during freshman year, ‘not a brown one, if you know what I mean.’” 

When Clara goes to the University of Denver, she is determined to have a mainstream student experience. To this end, she tries to fit in with the Anglo students. She feels that her experience as a “brown” person is less desirable. 

“Irene figured that Alma did not want to create problems for her undocumented daughter, but I was struck by the way that Yadira never seemed to exist in the eyes of officialdom, and wondered what it cost Alma emotionally not to name her firstborn.” 

When Alma was arrested in Colorado, she does not name Yadira as her daughter because she does not want Yadira to get in trouble as an undocumented immigrant. However, the larger implication is that Yadira does not officially exist in the US. This reality is wearying for both Yadira and her mother. 

“All of us found ourselves in new territory, far from our point of origin. I didn’t know what the rules were anymore.” 

After Thorpe attends Donnie Young’s funeral, she feels the complexity of the situation around GómezGarcía’s shooting of the police officer. Thorpe is drawn into a complicated situation in which she feels pity both for the officer’s widow, Kelly, and for the girls she is profiling, who are subject to the general anti-immigrant bias that arises as a result of GómezGarcía’s actions. 

“News of the illegal Mexican dishwasher who had shot the two police officers convinced Alma’s friends and relatives that there was no longer any possibility she would be given a lenient sentence.” 

The larger political climate affects Yadira and her family. Alma is afraid that GómezGarcía’s trial will make it impossible for her to avoid getting a stiff sentence, so she flees to Mexico instead of standing trial. For Alma, political situations have lasting effects on her life. 

“This was the darkness at the heart of illegal immigration, as far as I could tell: Otherwise good people committed crimes like buying forged Social Security cards or stolen identities.” 

The author recognizes that the lives of illegal immigrants often lead them to commit crimes. These crimes are enacted to ultimately help them work and are a reason, the author feels, that the status of illegal immigrants is so difficult and problematic.

“‘They are coming to kill you, and you, and me, and my children, and my grandchildren.’” 

These are the words Tom Tancredo uses in New Hampshire when he is running for President. He does not win the Republican nomination for President, but his rhetoric affects the debate on immigration. After his candidacy, other politicians begin to use strands of his rhetoric. 

“Previously I had imagined that the world of the street only compromised Marisela, but now I recognized that her success on the dance floor enabled her success in the classroom.” 

The author goes to a club that plays norteño music with Marisela and sees that Marisela commands a great deal of respect in the club. Thorpe realizes that Marisela gains confidence by being in a place where she feels totally at home. Rather than detracting from her academic success, these types of experiences make it possible.

“‘It’s harder to become fully assimilated with skin color difference.’” 

Lisa Martinez, a professor at the University of Denver, comments on the ability of Latinos to assimilate into American society. She notes that the color of one’s skin affects his or her ability to assimilate into the mainstream culture. This observation affects Marisela, who is darker than Clara and Yadira and who tends to socialize with students of color rather than with Anglo students at college.

“When television stations broadcast aerial footage of the rallies, the American public was startled to see how many maids and janitors and roofers had taken to the streets.” 

Marisela and the other girls are part of a Denver rally of immigrants on May 1, 2006. This is one of the first times that immigrants have demonstrated in such large numbers. While they were formerly invisible, this rally makes them visible to the public. 

“What Luke had not been able to see was that everything had been at stake for Marisela; to him the game was only a game, but for her it was real life.” 

Marisela and her classmates devise a game that replicates the way in which chance affects the immigrant’s experience. Luke plays this board game and comes up with lucky cards. He says that the game affirms that an immigrant can make it in the US if he or she only tries. Luke is privileged, and he does not appreciate the way in which chance really affects immigrants, particularly those who are without documents.

“I thought of Marisela’s board game; it seemed as though Alma had been particularly unfortunate in terms of the cards she had drawn.” 

Marisela’s board game is not just an academic experience. Instead, it captures the way in which immigrants’ lives are totally subject to fate. Alma in particular has suffered at the hand of fate, as she was arrested and chose to return to Mexico, given the political climate in the US that did not favor illegal immigrants.

“The girls had to contend with a label that was toxic, while if anything the label I wore was insufferably positive. Yet both kinds of labels served to hide rather than reveal.” 

The author, like the girls in the book, was brought to the US at a young age. However, her experience has been different than those of the girls, as some of their parents lacked documentation. Their experiences are similar, though, in that they have all been branded with labels that obscure who they really are. The author has been labeled the mayor’s wife, and this obscures her real positions to some degree.

“And so the narrative of GómezGarcía perpetually threatened to hijack the collective understanding of who these newcomers were, even though nobody who was associated with Salon Ocampo would have considered him a fair representative of the people who congregated there.” 

In the media coverage of the Salon Ocampo murder, all Latino people are lumped together. In reality, however, the situation is far more complex. For example, the murdered police officer, Donnie Young, was half Latino, and the owners of Salon Ocampo were quite close to him. However, the public understands the case in a painfully simplistic way that paints all Latinos with the same brush.