Wednesday, January 9, 2019 // The Statement 
7B

I 

grew up in the arid valley where 
the moonlight was muffled by the 
smoke of thousands of coal-burning 
stoves. It was cold and scary at night and 
the day came, only to reveal the night’s 
crimes. Every morning, the newspaper 
delivered headlines of the number of peo-
ple, my people, who didn’t make it through. 
Dozens every month. Hundreds every year. 
It was an eye for an eye among my people. 
The vicious cycle of death and suffering 
continued uninterrupted for years.
Nobody was spared — not the rich, not 
the poor, not those who ran or those who 
hid. Every single person was affected. 
Family members started to go missing. 
Some came back and some were never seen 
again. Some were taken viciously and pur-
posely. Some were mere accidents of a rico-
chet bullet. Their deaths were quick and 
painless.
Nobody knew how to stop the misery, 
but everyone was learning every day how 
to live in it. There were no rules. Love was 
vanishing. We lived in a war zone, yet the 
world was unaware of our suffering.
I sat somewhere on the top branches of a 
tree looking out at Lake Michigan, unearth-
ing memories. It had been some time since 
I had been to Juarez, Mexico, but I still 
liked to open my chest of memories once 
in a while. I was afraid of forgetting about 
my people and their suffering, but was also 
privileged enough to be able to see it from 
the other side — o separate myself from it 
instead of live through it. I felt guilty some-
times. All of the femicides, the organized 
crime, the anarchy that ruled my city’s 
streets. I was away. I wasn’t there to see it, 
but all I could do was remember.
I 

remembered a woman and a girl in 
a car at dusk. They were driving on 
an empty avenue, their conversation 
dwindling because of a disagreement. A 
typical mother daughter interaction. The 

girl iced her mother out for picking her up 
early from a friend’s house, even though 
the mother had agreed to extend the cur-
few by a few hours.
Unbeknownst to the girl, who had just 
started la escuela secundaria (middle 
school), her mother was afraid. A crippling 
anxiety crawled up her spine, and the hairs 
in the back of her neck were permanently 
spiked. She would not be at ease until they 
crossed the 15-foot wall and electrified 
fence that separated their neighborhood 
from the city streets.
Safety is only a few minutes away, the 
mother thought to herself while she looked 
over to the passenger seat, where her 
daughter sat with her arms crossed and 
eyes fixed on the ground.
Her daughter’s face was no longer that 
of a little girl. It had started to trans-
form, along with her body, to give way to 
a woman. It was a dangerous time to be a 
woman in this city. Women had been dis-
appearing and dying here for decades, and 
there was nothing more dangerous than a 
girl and a woman in a car by themselves.
Suddenly, a car pulled up next to them. 
It was another woman. She was older, but 
the years manifested in a lovely way. This 
woman had the appearance of someone 
who wasn’t afraid anymore. She had seen 
too much. Lived too much. Suffered too 
much. She was there as an act of freedom.
During these years, no women dared 
going out of the house without their hus-
bands, especially not at night. Being by a 
man’s side gave them an illusion of safety, 
as if any man could have stopped what hap-
pened that night.
The light was still red when a small, 
white, battered-up Toyota driving on the 
cross street — the only other car within 
sight — stopped in the middle of the inter-
section. Two armed men poured out of the 
Toyota and headed straight for the older 

women’s car.
In the sliver of a second before the men 
came too close, the two women and the 
girl looked at each other. Their mouths 
watered and stomachs dropped at the sight 
of danger.
“Don’t look at them,” the woman said to 
her daughter.
The exact complexion of either of the 
men would remain a mystery, as neither 
of the women nor the girl could recollect it 
after the incident. But their presence was 
infinite. It was as if their bodies radiated a 
kind of heat that could permeate the doors 
of the car. Their presence seeped through 
the atmosphere and filled the veins and 
minds of the two women and the girl with 
fear.
The light was still red when the men 
went up to the driver’s side of the older 
woman’s car and pulled their guns out, 
pointing them at her head through the win-
dow, opened the door and yanked her by 
the arm. Her gesture of freedom, the brav-
ery of being in the streets on her own, left 
her kicked and bleeding on the ground. She 
wore a handkerchief around her head that 
was now covered in blood and dirt. One of 
the men took her purse as well.
When she saw this, the mother did not 
hesitate to accelerate through the red light. 
The men got into the cars and shortly after, 
the battered-up Toyota and the older lady’s 
car appeared in her rearview mirror. The 
old woman still laid frozen on the ground; 
becoming smaller and smaller as the cars 
drove away.
There might have been other red lights 
that night, but the mother did not stop at 
any of them.
She did not breathe until she had driven 
her car past the 15-foot stone wall and elec-
trified fence that divided their neighbor-
hood from the city streets. Her shoulders 
did not relax until she and her daughter 

were safely in their home.
She locked all of the doors and drew 
all the curtains. As if any physical barrier 
was going to stop the men who robbed and 
kicked a woman on the street from coming 
after them.
T

hat mother and daughter were 
me and my mother. When I think 
of it now, I always remember 
family, friends, sunny days and happiness, 
but the more I sit on top of trees unearthing 
memories, the more I realize how real and 
possibly traumatic my experiences were.
My family has been living across the 
border now for a few years. Here, where 
all the lawns are perfectly manicured and 
everyone wears braces, it is hard for people 
to understand what happened. It’s hard for 
anyone here to really know me when my 
past is so foreign to them. I could attempt 
to explain, but there’s no way to put these 
feelings into words.
I know I’m not from Juarez anymore, 
but it is important to never forget. To 
keep reliving those moments, as if it could 
change the fate of the city or my own. As if I 
could forget about the privilege of being on 
top of a tree looking out at Lake Michigan 
without a trace of worry. As if I could go 
back without being seen as a gringa.
I look back now, after spending most 
of my teenage years in Michigan, and I 
can pick out all of the ways in which I am 
different than my friends who stayed in 
Juarez. I think they can see it, too. When-
ever I am with them, I am the Michigander, 
but whenever I am with my new friends, I 
am the Mexican.
I sometimes feel like I don’t have a home, 
but what I do know is that I grew up in 
the arid valley where the moonlight was 
muffled by the smoke of thousands of coal-
burning stoves. It was cold and scary at 
night and the day came, only to reveal the 
night’s crimes.

BY ANDREA PÉREZ BALDERRAMA, 
MANAGING STATEMENT EDITOR

A mother’s instincts 
on an empty avenue

ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE JEGARL

