Amemait is salivating.
\nIn Egyptian art, Amemait has a hippo\u2019s hindquarters, the trunk and mane of a lion and the crocodile\u2019s face. Amemait devours the souls of those whose hearts were too heavy and scarred to enter the ancient Egyptian afterlife. The deceased\u2019s heart was placed on one side of a scale and a feather belonging to Ma\u2019at \u2013 who embodied truth, balance, order, harmony, morality and justice\u00a0\u2013 was placed on the opposite side. If the scales balanced, the soul proceeded to the Field of Reeds.
\nAmemait ate those with hearts that tipped the scales.
\nKeizerite Itzel Hernandez has been dangling over Amemait\u2019s crocodilian jaw ever since applying for protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a package of protections for the children of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States while minors.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a Band Aid,\u201d said Hernandez of DACA, put in place by President Barack Obama in 2012. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that the program could continue despite attempts by President Donald Trump to end it. DACA stipulates that children brought to the U.S. under the age of 15 can apply deferred action from deportation and become eligible for work permits and driver\u2019s licenses and attend colleges and universities without fear of reprisal. DACA recipients cannot have been convicted of a felony or serious crimes, they cannot receive federal student aid and DACA does not provide a path to citizenship. DACA protections also have to be renewed every two years, which is where the analogy to Egyptian lore emerges. \u201cWe have to go back every two years and see if our life is still worth it. That\u2019s not fair. My parents … they’ve just gone through too much for them to keep going through it again and again.\u201d
\nThe analogy to Egyptian belief falls short of encompassing all that DACA recipients face, however. In lore, the same court is judging all souls that pass into the afterlife. For people like Hernandez, as a result of the way in which Obama enacted the DACA \u2013 through executive action \u2013 the \u201ccourt\u201d presiding over her fate will change each time the presidency switches hands or parties.
\nThe Trump Administration attempted to end DACA based on the findings of a lower court in regard to a state-level program without having to take responsibility for ending it outright. A majority of the Supreme Court, led by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, returned a decision that will require the Administration to seek a more active stance in discontinuing DACA protection. President Trump has already said on multiple occasions that he plans to do so.
\nHernandez said news of the reprieve for DACA recipients was met with relief, but it does precious little to alleviate the strains on hearts still on the scales. She speaks not only for herself, but on behalf of the people she works with as a volunteer on the Oregon DACA Coalition.
\n\u201cIt’s temporary relief, temporary victory. We\u2019ve been hoping for the best and getting ready for the worst,\u201d said Hernandez, 22, of the days leading up to the decision. \u201cWe were pretty sure we were going to lose everything. If we had lost, we were focused on having people contact their Congress members and forming emotional support groups. We also had lawyers working on new drafts of DACA so that it could continue.\u201d
\nLosing everything would mean rippling effects throughout the nation. Hernandez graduated from Chemeketa Community College and is now a dental assistant with the Boys & Girls Club of Salem, Marion and Polk Counties. She was, at one time, a patient of the same community service she helps provide now. Her twin sister, a Chemeketa and Portland State University alum, is a social worker in Portland.
\nAfter eight years, the initial DACA recipients, who are now in their twenties, hold jobs throughout the country with many in critical roles serving the nation as it responds to the coronavirus pandemic.
\nFor Hernandez, and her sister, DACA changed the trajectory of their lives in ways few who were born in this country \u2013 and all white people \u2013 can fathom.
\n\u201cYou’re so thankful, and you start to feel a little more safe, and you recognize you are being given a sort of privilege that other people don’t have,\u201d she said.
\nHernandez\u2019s mother and father left the twins with grandparents and crossed into America in hope of a better life than the one they were living in the city of Chemutal in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. Her mother was an accountant and her father, who had only made it through high school, had difficulty finding consistent work that supported a family.
\n\u201cThey told us that when they had something here, they would bring us over too,\u201d Hernandez said. \u201cIt was definitely hard to see them go, but I knew that we were hopefully going to reunite again, which not a lot of families can do.\u201d
\nThe girls and their grandparents joined the couple when the twins were 7 years old.
\n\u201cThey have different ways of hiding you in a car, it was very scary,\u201d Hernandez said.
\nTo support the family, Hernandez\u2019s mother worked two jobs, her father worked three \u2013 manufacturing dog leashes, at a restaurant and, also, a bread company. As work opportunities were prone to shift from season to season, the family frequently moved back and forth from California and Oregon. Despite finding a new level of success, the move to America took another, unexpected toll.
\n\u201cMy grandma wanted to pass away in Chetumal but, because my grandparents had to bring us, they died here. I feel a sort of guilt that she had to leave everything behind for us,\u201d Hernandez said.
\nHer mother helped the twins assimilate to their new home with assignments to watch English-language television. Hernandez was fortunate to have a classmate that translated what was happening in classes at American schools.
\nHernandez was a senior at North Salem High School when she applied for DACA protections and the program unlocked a slew of new opportunities.
\n\u201cThere were little things people take for granted, like being able to drive my mom to the grocery store,\u201d Hernandez said.
\nIt wasn\u2019t a decision the family arrived at without heavy contemplation.
\n\u201cThe top conversation that we had was about giving the government all of our information,\u201d she said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t the information that my sister and I gave that worried us, it was having to give information about our parents.\u201d
\nThey decided it was worth the risk because it meant the twins would be eligible to attend college, even if it meant working their way through school on their own while attending classes and helping support the family. Both women still work two jobs, almost out of habit.
\nAround the same time, the Hernandez family added a new sister to the family, she\u2019s now 8 years old. Unfortunately, part of her inheritance is a different version of the nightmares her parents and sisters lived while undocumented in the United States.
\n\u201cShe\u2019s worried that, one of these days, we\u2019re not going to be here. She understands that,\u201d Hernandez said, fighting back tears. \u201cAnd she knows that sometimes we\u2019re waiting to hear if we have to leave. She has to live with that fear, too.\u201d
\nThe young adults protected by DACA are often referred to as \u201cDreamers,\u201d but Hernandez thinks that label is better suited to her parents.
\n\u201cMy parents brought me here for a reason, because they believed that America had more for us. They have always said it since the day they left,\u201d she said.
\nBefore DACA, Hernandez\u2019s mother would become dismayed because the twins felt they might have been brought here \u201cfor nothing\u201d or, at best, to live as second-class citizens. DACA protections allow them to live with more freedom and liberty, an American promise if not necessarily the dream her family traveled here with. But it all still comes with a sense of foreboding.
\n\u201cI wouldn\u2019t know how to dream without my parents, but I demand something more permanent,\u201d she said. \u201cI do not want to be here again wondering if who knows who will cancel [DACA]. It\u2019s very exhausting. They need to come up with a better plan, a pathway to citizenship. It\u2019s not going to be easy, but wouldn\u2019t you want something more permanent?\u201d
\nUntil then, every two years, Hernandez\u2019s heart will be put back on the DACA scale, and Amemait is salivating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amemait is salivating. In Egyptian art, Amemait has a hippo\u2019s hindquarters, the trunk and mane of a lion and the crocodile\u2019s face. Amemait devours the souls of those whose hearts were too heavy and scarred to enter the ancient Egyptian afterlife. The deceased\u2019s heart was placed on one side of a scale and a feather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-journalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2214"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2250,"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214\/revisions\/2250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}