My Journey, My Life

By Aniceto Enriquez

For Aniceto Enriquez, immigrating to the United States from Guatemala as an illegal alien was one of the riskiest adventures he could undertake. In My Journey, My Life, Enriquez tells the story of leaving his hometown of Livingston, Guatemala, to escape political unrest in the country. Though the journey was fraught with danger and sacrifice, Enriquez and his sister, Lency, left their seaside home in May of 1982 to seek a better life in the United States.

From his first job as a dishwasher at a diner in Manhattan and promotion to cook, to learning the English language; meeting his wife, Linda; and earning college degrees, Enriquez provides a meaningful narrative about how faith, self-confidence, and hard work play a role in leading a successful and enriching life. Enriquez tells his story through the historical lens of his heritage. With a unique perspective, My Journey, My Life teaches about Guatemala, the Garifuna people and their culture, and Central America at large.

When Enriquez and his sister raced through the tunnel to El Paso, Texas, they had only their dreams to guide them. Though the journey was full of turmoil and uncertainty, Enriquez found light in education, love, and family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 18, 2009
• ISBN: 9780595895793

Aniceto Enriquez

Aniceto Enriquez was born in Livingston, Guatemala, in 1963 and came to America in 1982. He works at the New York Presbyterian Hospital as a social work assistant and at St. Lukes Hospital. He earned degrees in sociology and psychology from Herbert Lehman College. This is his debut book.

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Copyright © 2009 by Aniceto Enriquez

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ISBN: 978-0-595-45264-4 (pbk)

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iUniverse rev. date: 3/12/09

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

GUATEMALA

MY ROOTS

MIRRORS OF DIFFERENT REALITIES

BEGINNING OF MY JOURNEY

A NEW LIFE WAS AHEAD

NEW YORK: AN ENDLESS JOURNEY

A JOB OPPORTUNITY AND A NEW WAY TO LEARN

IT’S A MATTER OF ENGLISH

HOPE AND CHANGES

A TRIP TO HONDURAS

SINCE YESTERDAY, NOTHING IS THE SAME

TO BECOME AN ILLUSTRATED AND EDUCATED MAN

THE DIFFICULT ROAD TO SUCCESS

SPIRITUALITY AND ENDURANCE

COMING TO LIFE AGAIN

THERE IS NO END; ONLY A NEW DAY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply thankful to everyone that has given me their friendship and love. I have always in my mind the love of God who has provided me many good things as my family whose unconditional love has always represented a strength and support in good and bad times. I want to give Special thanks to Linda for her emotional support throughout the writing process, and for her financial assistance during the production of this book. My deepest gratitude to colleagues and coworkers who have giving me their support at the New York Presbyterian Hospital, and St Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital for all those years of sincere friendship and the enthusiasm that they have always manifested for this book. I also want to thank the 1199SEIU for all the support they have also given me. I want to give my recognition and appreciation to the professors at the Eugenio Maria de Hostos Community College and Lehman College for the knowledge and experiences that they shared with me all those years in college. In this journey there have been many other people that have shared this voyage of life and that in one way or another are alive in the pages of this book. They also made possible to shape the story of my life and they taught many things that can be only learned through of human contact.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who, in one way or another contributed with this project since this book was only a dream a few years ago. For all of them, my deep appreciation for sharing this moment of satisfaction. Writing a book is like putting part of your soul and heart in the hands and minds of readers to give a glimpse of our more intimate ideas and feelings. In My Journey, My Life this sensation of giving is even deeper because I am really sharing my life with them.

INTRODUCTION

Autobiographies always seem to connect one individual to another by sharing common experiences. Autobiographies also may share the details of a remarkable life, with all the personal dramas, triumphs, and tragedies. In the last twenty years, autobiographies have also been a way to get profits. A good example is the case of former President Bill Clinton whose autobiographical book, "My Life," which became an instant bestseller. Even when the critics’ reviews were not favorable, and some of the critics were even questioning the former President’s writing skills, the book was for more than four weeks in the New York Times best-selling list. In the same fashion Mrs. Hillary Clinton’s book Living History, also became an instant bestseller because of the publics curiosity about the former first lady reactions toward her husband sexual scandals. The Clintons could have easily collected twenty million dollars in these two books, and they could have covered all the legal debts that were related with different legal suits against Mr. Clinton when he was President.

Most of the autobiographies are exclusively centered on prominent events in the lives of the authors. On the other hand, these events have captivated the imagination and the interest of the readers that have bought those books. In the case of public figures as the Clintons, and other famous people, the main engines that have propelled their books popularity is that these persons have been involved in scandals, and other situations that have made the public to become very interested in their personal lives. In the United States, biographies and autobiographies have become a kind of literary industry that is reporting millions of dollars per year.

When I decided to write this book, it was my intention to share several important life experiences, but I wanted to incorporate those experiences within a specific social, economic, and historic context. I believe that all individuals’ lives are shaped by external factors and circumstances that form their lives, but also the way they think, and eventually their personalities. The relation of cause and effect is permanent in the lives of human beings, and the intrinsic motive that creates a series of reactions, development of ideas and attitudes among different people.

Hope is a driven force that allows people to endure difficult times and situations. The recent election of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States shows that this nation has finally reached its maturity age, as well as the old wounds from the past are finally healing. Obama does not symbolizes the archetypical man that can solve all the economic, social and political problems that this great nation is currently experiencing; but he is offering the kind of idea that working together with an open mind attitude can make things different. Forty years before the 2008 election Robert Kennedy the assassinated Presidential hopeful and the brother of President John F. Kennedy had predicted that in the same way as America had elected a Catholic President in 1960, it would be possible to elect an African American in the next forty years. Bobby Kennedy prediction became true. Hope has the power of moving mountains, and the engine that makes us to be better every day. Mr. Obama electoral victory is a kind of example that with determination and desire all dreams can become true.

My life can be divided in two parts. The first is my early years in my native country, Guatemala. The second is my years in New York. This contextual framework is also divided by three very important cultural features that have been dominant in my life.

I was born in Puerto Barrios, the most important seaport of Guatemala, in the Caribbean Sea. I am a member of a Black Caribbean group known as the Garífuna people, and I have devoted an entire chapter to explain the historic roots of my ethnicity and the history of the Garífunas in Saint Vincent, a small island near Venezuela. My heritage also shares the predominant Spanish culture, which is the mainstream culture in Guatemala.

When I came to the United States, I had to make some adaptations to the new cultural environment, but I kept the fundamental beliefs of both the Spanish and the Garífuna traditions. The cultural impact of the American mainstream culture is in most of the cases powerful. Many people that live in the United States try to become adapted to the mainstream culture, and only the language barrier prevents the full adoption of cultural patterns, and ideas. I have grown more consciously aware of my roots and origins as I learned more details of the history of the Garífuna people and the history of Central America.

There is a critical importance of history in the lives of all people around the world. In my personal case, I witnessed one of the most violent historic periods in Guatemala and the rest of Central America. Even though Livingston, a small seaport where I grew up, was relatively isolated from the violence that dominated Guatemala for decades, the impact of the civil war brought economic limitations and uncertainty, and eventually it became a major factor that compelled people to leave the country. The violence in Guatemala marked the lives of most of Guatemalan people. I came to America because of the effects of the civil war.

My intention in writing this autobiography is to establish a close relationship between the social and historical phenomenology, and to place myself as part of an interactive process of circumstances and situations. I believe every human being should have a level of awareness that can allow an individual to perceive situations beyond the reality provided by the physical senses. Social and historical awareness are the features that make a human being free. Freedom does not lie within the liberty of physical motion, but on the freedom of thinking, which is the direct product of acquired knowledge.

I came to the United States when I was eighteen years old. I came with the foundations of my two cultures, and eventually I had the freedom and knowledge that allowed me to learn about my origins and the importance of these things. This autobiography is not about the life of a famous individual; it’s about the daily life drama of a man who wants to share his experiences with the rest of the world. I’ve lived my life within the same circumstances that often limit other people, but at the same time, I have my own reflections, which are presented in the journey of my life.

GUATEMALA

I was born in the Central American country of Guatemala, the most populated country in the region and also one with a violent history of revolutions, civil wars, and caudillo (a military dictator) revolts. Guatemala is a nation of nations. During the pre-Columbian times, the country was dynamic and violent, as it was after the Spanish Conquest during the sixteenth century. The arrival of the Spaniards marked the fall of the Aztec empire in the 1520s, but the splendor of the Mayan Civilization was gone long before the arrival of the Spaniards.

One of the most interesting things about Guatemala is that human presence in the lowlands of the Pacific basin is some of the oldest in Central America. The settlements of the Olmecs were the first civilization in Mesoamerica. The Olmecs were the precursors of the Mayans. Guatemala—as well as Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador—was the scene of the pre-classical and classical periods of the Mayans. In Guatemala, there are spectacular Mayan cities, such as Tikal, Quirigua, and Dos Pilas, and at least twenty other major urban settlements.

In the past, it was assumed that Mayan city-states were peaceful nations, but the past forty years of archaeological research has discovered that these cities were in a constant state of war. The wars sometimes lasted for decades, and the formation of alliances to conduct the wars was a permanent political feature among the Mayans. The fall of one city was usually related with the conquest from another or the end of the natural resources that allowed the city to prosper.

By the ninth century AD, the end of the classical period came in a very mysterious way. Some of the most important cities already had been abandoned, but the rapid decline of powerful states seemed to be related to a catastrophic event. Today it is known that there was a combination of factors that allowed the end of these marvelous cities. War, famine, and, particularly, the poor use of soil and the ineffective use of natural resources (and poor management of those resources) allowed the fall of the Mayan cities in Central America.

The Mayans did not disappear, as has sometimes been assumed; many of today’s existing tribes and groups are related in one way or another to the pyramid- and temple-builders. The descendants of those great builders remained in Guatemala. Some groups, such as the Mayan-Quiche, Cakchiquel, Zutuil, and Chorti, are direct descendants of the ancient Mayans that built the great cities. These groups were the ones that witnessed the arrival of the Spaniards to Guatemala. These groups were far from sharing the old traditions and the magnificent knowledge of the Mayan civilization, but they still kept sacred books, such as the Popol Vuh and the books of the Chilam Balam. These books narrated the mythology of the Mayan people. The Mayan-Quiche preserved copies of the Popol Vuh that were the only way to know these traditions, cosmogonies, and mythologies of the origin of the Mayans and their universe.

When Pedro de Alvarado came to Guatemala, he was looking for an access to the Pacific Ocean. Alvarado’s exploration task also included finding gold, silver, and Indian empires. Instead of finding the almost magical Aztec empire, however, Alvarado found hostile tribes in Guatemala that offered resistance to the Spaniard advance. The most important chief that Alvarado faced was Tecum Uman. Until relatively recent times it was assumed that Tecum Uman, as well as other legendary chiefs, were a matter of legend, but his existence and a duel with Pedro de Alvarado actually took place. Pedro de Alvarado was an illiterate man, but he found someone to write the chronicle of the death of Tecum Uman, and how Alvarado had killed him with a blow of a long spear.

The Spaniards did not find a large mineral wealth, as they had in Mexico and Peru, but the soil of Guatemala, particularly the regions near the volcanoes, was fertile. Suddenly, cattle and agriculture became major economic engines of the colonial period. Agriculture and timber were crucial economic elements in Guatemala. In the eighteenth century, the British became a dominant presence in the Caribbean region, and they controlled Belize to the point that they had a permanent military presence, which was never seriously challenged until the Morazanista Revolution in 1829.

For three hundred years, the Spanish colonized and controlled Guatemala and the rest of Central America, with the exception of Belize. The Spanish rule also consolidated the political and economic power of the Catholic Church, which became the strongest institution during and after the colonial period. In the late decades of the eighteenth century, Guatemala began to experience a political awakening, after liberalism came to the University of San Carlos of Borromeo. Frey Liendo y Goicochea taught the most advanced ideas about liberalism, but he was a scholar and not a man of action. In 1777, José del Valle, an exceptionally brilliant Creole, was born in Choluteca, a town in the southern, hot, and semiarid region of Honduras. Del Valle went to Guatemala when he was still a young boy and remained there for the rest of his life. He became an intellectual driven force that placed liberal ideas within a political context. Del Valle was a student of Frey Liendo y Goicochea at the University of San Carlos of Borromeo.

In 1821, Central America declared itself independent from Spain. The independence coincided with Napoleon Bonaparte’s occupation of Spain, the end of the independence war in Mexico, the independence wars in South America, and the total decline of the Spanish empire in Latin America. Contrary to Mexico and South America, in Central America there was no war of independence; instead, after tumultuous city meeting in Guatemala City on September 15, 1821, Central American independence was declared after a few hours. José del Valle redacted the Independence Act, but he refused to sign it. Del Valle’s act was not a manifested opposition against independence but a political protest against the political and economic power that the conservatives and the Catholic Church were acquiring within the new historical context. For a man like del Valle, structural and deep social and economic changes were essential for reaching a real political independence.

In 1822, Central America was annexed to Mexico for a brief period. Del Valle became the vice president of the Mexican Empire Congress. Del Valle served in this position until Iturbide was deposed, and Central America became independent again. Del Valle redacted a new constitution that abolished slavery in Central America and allowed free elections. The liberals came into power, but the reforms lasted for a brief period of time, until del Valle won the 1825 presidential elections. Del Valle was deprived of his right to become the first federal president by truculent coup d’etat. The conservative dictatorship of Manuel José Arce initiated a violent military intervention in the liberal states of El Salvador and Honduras. The civil war in Central America began in 1825, shortly after the coup.

In 1827, a Guatemalan