Hill 1

Jovan Hill
May 6th, 2013
International Relations
Samuel Peleg

Research Paper: Xochitl Theresa Sandoval-Hill

The subject of my paper, my grandmother Xochitl, was born in Monterey
Mexico in 1950. She was born to Miguel Sandoval and Asuncion Sandoval, the 2nd child
of 8 she bore a lot of responsibility in the family in her youth. Growing up as a child in
Mexico she told me stories of sharing a room with her siblings, all 8 in one room in an
abnormally large bed up until her father found work as a construction worker in
America in her early teens. While they werent living in poverty they were barely
Mexican middle class, she was the only one of her sisters that took it upon herself to
find a job to assist her family. She worked as a banker in Mexico in her teens, and she
stayed there up until there came a possibility for her father to immigrate her family into
the United States. Her father, a laborer on the US railroad, believed that the United
States would give his children advantages he couldnt dream of producing for them in
Mexico "simply by heading northward, crossing the border, and finding a job in the
United States, the average Mexican can raise, quite dramatically his or her standard of
living. Even in the current US minimum wage, a migrant worker working full time would
earn roughly three times the average Mexican income. Under those circumstances who

Hill 2
would not want to immigrate to the United States (Malone 9). He was granted this
opportunity during a unique circumstance, the construction of the intercontinental
railroad caused for America to seek laborers, cheap laborers, so ideally they wanted
Mexican immigrants; cheap and very close. Immigration is a very sensitive subject in
the United States political realm, and still an extremely polarized and hot button issue,
Im thoroughly convinced the only reason my family had the opportunity is because it
was convenient and in the interest of the United States. In this paper I will focus on
immigration, the tolls of immigration, the strain on a family, and why they chose to stay
rather than return to Mexico despite the initial struggles. The overall question at hand
is, is immigration worth it to Mexican immigrants?
Immigration, in current American culture it's a word that send the almost
instantaneous image of a Mexican American perhaps illegally crossing the border to
steal a job. Mexican immigration has been an integral part of the American labor
force and population growth for decades Mexico is by far the leading country of origin
for U.S. immigrants, accounting for a third (32%) of all foreign-born residents and twothirds (66%) of Hispanic immigrants (Passel 1). Mexican immigration accounts for
much of our population growth with the estimated flow of Mexican immigrants into
the United States [has been] over 400,000 a year (Borjas 3). The common American
attitude toward Latin immigrants is often disparaging, thinking of them as cheap
laborers and agricultural workers however, during the last two decades their
participation in the agricultural industry has been halved to 15% [] where as the role in
the manufacturing industry is almost two-fold (Vernez and Ronfelt 9). Immigrants

Hill 3
more often than not could not achieve levels of higher education and matriculation in
their own counties, which is why immigration to America is such a dream for many of
those that do successfully immigrate, either legally or illegally. Due to attitudes
Americans hold towards immigration and its benefiters, its often very difficult for the
common Mexican to assimilate, and there is a conflict because the idea is if they simply
would assimilate into American Culture by conforming to [the] Anglo norms (Pew 2)
that there would be less of an issue with the large volumes of immigrants. The
resistance by Mexican immigrants it not by choice, rather it is perpetuated by the
western sentiments of American politics and media portrayal of immigrants as drug
smugglers or job stealers, despite virtually all Mexicans say illegal drugs are a big
problem in their country (Pew 3). When it comes to the question of if immigration
works, for many immigrants the answer is yes; America offers them with opportunities
unavailable in their native country of Mexico. With the latest medical, industrial, and
educational opportunities, America offers not only health and work for these
immigrants, but a chance for their children to have access to these systems as well.
With a wage almost triple that of what the average Mexican laborer makes in their
native country, America also offers the possibility of supporting a family from a
distance if they do not all have the opportunity to immigrate. The evidence of this lies
in emigration, recent data from U.S. and Mexican population surveys provide no
evidence that an increased number of immigrants have left the United States to return
to Mexico since 2006 (Passel 2). Once immigrants arrive in the USA and secure a

Hill 4
stable position, the odds of them returning to Mexico on their own accord are almost
non-existent.
While my grandmother, Xochitl, was at first reluctant to allow me to make her
the focus of my paper, likely due to internalized racism and resentment of her heritage,
after awhile she allowed me to interview her. I initially started with simple questions,
when did she immigrate, if she wanted to, did she have any fears or hopes about
America, and if she had any prior interest in immigrating before the opportunity
presented itself to her family. After the initial interview I spoke to my grandfather, who
met my grandmother only a few years shed come to the United States. I asked him a
few more invasive questions, such as how did he feel marrying an immigrant, (which
felt odd to say considering shes my grandmother), if he considered the reception
Americans might have towards him as an African American married to a Latina woman,
and what made them rush into marriage rather fast. I conducted a second interview in
person with my grandmother when I went to visit her for spring break and it was more
in-depth. I got details Id never known before, information about my great
grandparents such as how difficult it was for them to adjust to American culture
compared to being at home in Mexico. I learned how my great grandmother died and
the effects it had on the family and what followed from her death. The second interview
took a toll on both my grandmother and I but I think it strengthen our relationship by
taking these risks Id never considered before. The third person I interviewed was my
mother, who told me sensitive information my grandmother wouldnt share as
explicitly due to the nature. I also approached her with caution as to not seem intrusive

Hill 5
while I gathered primary research, mostly focusing on pictures of my grandmother and
her family and little details my grandmother left out in her brief biographical account.
Overall, the gathering of primacy sources was successful for my case study.
The story of my grandmother begins with her successful immigration into the
United States and her family moving from Monterey, Mexico to the island city of
Galveston, Texas. Here she began life in America in a small home with her brother
Willie, working as a bank teller at a city bank. It was in Galveston that she met my
mothers father, Vincent Fontenot, and gave birth to my mother Veronica Sandoval.
While they did not stay together long, my grandmother told me the story of how the
birth of my mother gave her a realization, a real purpose for why she came to United
States. My grandmother like so many immigrants came to the United States under the
belief that it would ensure a better life in the United States than in their native
countries [or any other country they could immigrate to] (Jasso 421). From what I took
in our interviews, she bears no resentment for her choices as shes seen her children
flourish and prosper in ways she never dreamt possible as a child. Once my mother
was born, my grandmother decided to get a job as a nurse to increase her income and
work experience. She worked on a military base just outside of Galveston, and after
two years of working she met my grandfather Eugene Hill. They hit it off quickly and
only after a year or so of knowing each other, they got married. The family was not very
supportive of my grandmother marrying and African American, and it took a toll on my
grandmother as she chose to distance herself and when the opportunity rose for her to
move to Virginia with my grandfather to Fort Eustis, she pushed for him to take it and

Hill 6
they moved away from Texas to Virginia. While shed been in the United States a
couple of years, my grandmother struggled to successfully assimilate into western
culture, and struggled most of all with her grasp of the English language. To solve this
problem, she looked towards religion something that had always been an integral part
of her life to teach her English. She dabbled in just about every Judeo-Christian religion
from Catholicism to Mormonism; until oddly enough she met the Jehovahs Witnesses
and that became the religion she follows up until today. Perhaps because she chose
such a strict religion that even in America is rather taboo, shes continued to have
difficult in meshing into the Western Idea of assimilation. After the birth of her 3rd
child Rio, her mother suddenly became gravely ill and she had no option but to return
to Texas after not seeing her family for the past 7 years. My great grandmother
Asuncion had developed lupus, and at the time the disease had very little treatable
aspects, which led to her untimely death. However her death served a high purpose in a
way, while it was a very difficult time for my grandmother as she was very close to her
mother; it brought the family together again and over the years her siblings had taken
on new outlooks on things they regarded in the past with shame. Unlike my
grandmother, most of her siblings had obtained citizenship and largely taken on
western ideologies. Theyd defeated the odds that most Mexican immigrants face, as
most immigrants [are] limited by a structure of racial domination in the Southwest,
one which they actively [fight] in the pursuit of the full benefits of American
Citizenship my great aunts and uncles had successfully secured their rights as fullfledged naturalized citizens (Telles and Ortiz 74). The bittersweet reunion didnt last too

Hill 7
long and my grandmother returned to Virginia once the funeral was over and her
mother laid to rest.
My grandmother told me stories of the struggles she had raising 3 children
practically alone. Because my grandfather was in the navy he was often deployed out to
sea for months at a time, which left my grandmother to take care of my mother and
uncles. It was hard for her living in urban Newport News far from family and without
any proper support system outside her religious community. In 1993, many years after
shed immigrated and after shed started a family of her own something very, very
unexpected happened. My mother met my father, and that year my grandmothers first
grandchild was born, however I was not only her first grandchild, I was also the first
great grandchild. As soon as I was able to be apart from my mother my grandmother
took me down to Texas immediately to meet my great grandfather and patriarch of the
Sandoval family, Miguel. She told me incredibly stories, of how he cried and cherished
me as if I was manifestation of all the dreams and goals he had when coming to the
United States. She told me that he explained to her that when he made the decision to
leave Mexico, he didnt expect his children to reap the true benefits of the United States
because of the era of racism and animosity that still existed; nor did he expect their
children to be fully capable of taking advantage because the difficult and struggling of
their parents. It was my generation, the great grandchildren he worked so hard for so
many years, that he knew would have the potential and resources to reap the crops
hed sowed so many years prior. My grandmother cried when recounting this, she
acknowledge many failures in the journey many mistakes she wishes she could have

Hill 8
changed; however she does not resent anything that came from her mistakes she
assured me. Shed never considered looking back, and that was what came off as so
powerful to me; she didnt look back only forward not matter how much pain or
alienation she felt throughout her life in America she did not regret her decision to
leave and start a new. Looking at the other immigrants I know, and my other family
members who immigrated with her, I believe this is not an uncommon trait in first and
second-generation immigrants, to be resilient in the decisions and outcomes of those
decisions.
In conclusion, I think that immigration overall is worth it to those that immigrate
because of the opportunities not only available to them as Mexican immigrants, but
more importantly to their family and future generations as citizens. While Mexican
immigration and immigration reform will without a doubt continue to be hot button
political issues, I am confident that immigration will continue from Mexico and stories
like my grandmothers will begin so long as both countries exist. My grandmothers
stories provided me with enough evidence that despite the struggles that come with
immigration, the isolation and the strain it can put on a first generation family, so long
as you persevere, eventually your actions will result in an epiphany.

Hill 9
Works Cited
Borjas, George J.. Mexican immigration to the United States. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2007.
Walls and mirrors Mexican Americans, Mexican immigrants, and the politics of ethnicity.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Jasso, Guillermina, and Mark Richard Rosenzweig. The new chosen people: immigrants in
the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation for the National
Committee for Research on the 1980 Census, 1990.
Massey, Douglas S., Jorge Durand, and Nolan J. Malone. Beyond smoke and mirrors:
Mexican immigration in an era of economic integration. New York: Russell Sage
Foundation, 2002.
"Most Mexicans See Better Life in U.S. One-In-Three Would Migrate." Pew
Research Centers Global Attitudes Project RSS.
http://www.pewglobal.org/2009/09/23/most-mexicans-see-better-life-in-usone-in-three-would-migrate/ (accessed May 8, 2014).
Passel, Jeffrey. "Mexican Immigrants: How Many Come? How Many Leave?." Pew
Research Centers Hispanic Trends Project RSS.
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2009/07/22/mexican-immigrants-how-manycome-how-many-leave/ (accessed May 8, 2014).
Telles, Edward Eric, and Vilma Ortiz. Generations of exclusion: Mexican Americans,
assimilation, and race. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2008.

Hill 10
Vernez, Georges, and David F. Ronfeldt. The current situation in Mexican immigration. Santa
Monica, CA: Rand, 1991.