By Irma Iliana Gutierrez –

If you want to know why President Obama should pressure Congress to pass amnesty for the 12 million undocumented immigrants who have worked so hard and contributed to this country, then I will tell you about my grandfather.

My grandfather’s first day of work his boss, el guero, quickly told him his duties to get the tractor going throughout the field. It was simple enough, but as lunch time came around, he realized he didn’t remember how to pause the machine, so he just kept on working until the end of the day.

El guero came over after hearing about my hardworking grandfather who worked through lunch. He asked why he didn’t stop and my grandfather simply explained he had forgotten how to turn off the machine. El guero laughed, taken by my grandfathers honesty, and said that he could ask him as many times as he wanted how to work the machine, but he had to stop for lunch and water.

Mi abuelo, Alejo, came to this country on a work visa in the 1960’s. Along with my grandmother they worked hard to raise enough money for themselves and their soon to be growing family as well as to send some back home to Mexico.

They settled in Friona, Texas, working wherever they could, doing whatever they could. My grandmother worked in factories while my grandfather worked as a ranch hand.

Texas was good to my grandparents. My grandmother tells me that people were a different then, nicer. When my grandfathers visa expired, his boss told him to go back to Mexico while he himself put in a request for a new one. My grandfather believed him and left. Nowadays to hear that from someone and take their word that they would come for you is a little hard to believe. But his boss came through with another work visa. He liked the honesty of my grandfather. His amigo indio.

My grandparents had four children and as Texas became more populated with Mexicans for hire they decided it was time to look for new work. There was news of a steel mill in the Midwest looking for workers. So the family migrated to Chicago so my grandfather could work at U. S. Steel in Gary, Ind.

My grandfather worked at the steel mill during the day, but at night as he lay in bed, he studied to become a mechanic to better the life of his children who were growing fast and would soon be ready for college.

There was only one problem. My grandfather grew up on a ranch in Mexico. He only went to school to the fourth grade and he could not read in English or write it very well.

He learned to become a mechanic through a correspondence school, my grandmother reading him the chapters and reading the questions on the tests, writing down the answers he gave her. My grandfather passed and with a loan from their church he bought a gas station.

It was 1987. Ronald Regan passed an amnesty that all illegal immigrants residing in the United States before 1982 could become permanent residents. This included my grandparents and uncles. They became legal and could take out student loans for college and own instead of rent.

By that time my grandmothers’ brothers had come down and were able to help at the shop, Kensington Service Station. My grandparents had worked hard and saved money to buy a house in Roseland where they could live with their children and mis tíos. They even had made enough where my grandfather had a house built for my grandmother in Mexico,so she could visit her family as much as she wanted.

My grandmother would soon study and become a U.S. citizen in the early 1990’s. My grandfather would maintain until 2007 that he would retire in Mexico so why become a U.S. citizen.

I changed his mind when I told him that if he planned to retire in Mexico all the Social Security he has worked towards his whole life could be taken away if he left the country without becoming a naturalized citizen.

I helped him study, took him to citizenship workshops and in March of 2007, along with people from 47 other countries, I watched my grandfather take the oath as an American citizen. That summer he traveled to Mexico for his 40th wedding anniversary celebration on a U.S. passport. And although he has since reached the age of retirement, he continues to work at his shop, making sure his grandchildren will be able to attend the college of their choice.

For this indio, with a fourth grade education, a mechanic license under his belt, and now a citizen, his dream has always been to help the dreams of others.