Guatemalan Migrant Mother: ‘I was responsible for 8 children’

My name is Margarita. I left Guatemala in 1989, six years after my brother disappeared.  The 1980s were a bad time in my country because of the civil war and political terror campaign. Our government’s armed forces were kidnapping and torturing people, and thousands of Guatemalans had gone missing. 

My family tried to get answers from the GAM Group (Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo), a human rights organization helping families find their missing relatives. But the group gave us no reason why my brother became a victim of the government and one of the thousands of citizens who had disappeared, known as “los desaparecidos.”

I had five children of my own, but I was also taking care of my three nephews who were left behind when my brother disappeared. After a few years, their mother started a new relationship and I did not feel comfortable with my nephews’ stepfather. In the end, I took in my three nephews and was responsible eight children—six boys and two girls. 

When I moved to America, I had to leave one daughter and two sons with their father, and one nephew with my mother (his grandmother).  So, I took one daughter, one son, and two of my nephews with me to the U.S.  We came to Texas to live with my sister, who was already living in America for over five years. She had encouraged me to leave home because she felt I’d have a chance for a better life here in America, and I could get a good job that paid much more than I was making in Guatemala. 

At first my three children that I left with their father wouldn’t talk to me because they felt I’d favored my nephews over them because I left them behind in Guatemala and took two of my brother’s three sons to America. Eventually, they came around and understood it was a hard decision for me as well. Later, I was able to send for them, but not all of them wanted to come to America because they had started to build their lives back home.

It has now been over 30 years and I have no regrets about leaving home and coming to America. I was able to find work and send money back to help my family get ahead. My only regret is that my brother was never found after all these years.