Mysterious Cart Lady
A wrinkled bag of bagels in hand and bottles of blue gatorade in a tote, my brother and I headed to downtown San Diego last Sunday. After offering food to a lady who had stuffed masks into her ears to block out the noise, as well as a man who did not want a bagel, we turned the corner to find a woman dusting off a North Face-esque jacket, and standing next to a cart of clothing, “one dollar jacket! You want?” Unfortunately, we did not have money on us, so we could not purchase said fancy jacket. She looked to be around sixty, on the stout side, and her skin was quite visibly wrinkled. She had a heavy Hispanic accent, yet the emotion seeping through her voice was clear as though there was no language barrier. When we offered her a bagel, and asked to hear her story, a flood-like tale was presented to us.
She immediately began with how she had been waiting for her social security and official documentation for forty-nine years. She excitedly informed us about an upcoming meeting with a pro-bono immigration lawyer she had been waiting for for years. She complained about how impossible it was to get a job without documentation; the only way she could make some money was by recycling cans and bottles, and volunteering at the Salvation Army for tips. In addition, the Salvation Army would offer her whatever unwanted clothing they had, and she sold them for additional profit; the one dollar jacket was an example of this. She mentioned that she had been living on the streets for twenty years, after not being able to pay her rent due to her lack of job prospects. She also mentioned her 3 sons, one of whom is disabled.
At this point in our conversation, she started tearing up, talking about how she could not receive proper medical treatment due to her lack of social security. She worried about her sons, about who would take care of them, and if she was gone one day, if they would even know. When we asked her about the resources available to her, she said that she eats at the church near where we found her, but often the questionable food would make her sick. Regarding shelters, she mentioned that, due to COVID-19, there is a very limited amount of people who are allowed access to the facilities, and that they show very serious bias and favoritism when it came to the type of people they chose to allow. For example, if the person asking to stay there for the night looked dirty, or if they looked like they would cause trouble, they would say that the shelter was full regardless of capacity. When we asked her if we could take a picture of her, she declined, saying that her ex-husband, who had abused her in the past, would find her and kill her. We were flabbergasted that she could talk about something so serious and traumatizing with such nonchalance. While we were distracted by a man asking for a gatorade, she left, slipping away around the corner of a building with her cartof clothing. We never managed to ask her her name. We were never given the chance to say goodbye, or even thank her for her insight.
Our conversation with this mystery woman helped me realize the impacts documentation, or a lack thereof, can change the way one lives. She left her home with her young children to escape abuse, yet all she found in America, a land symbolizing opportunity and freedom, was the coldness of the streets. Although she evidently saw the pro bono lawyers that were offered to her as a beacon of hope, excitedly coming back to this meeting time and time again in our conversation, anyone with a basic understanding of immigration law knows that there is probably little help that could be offered. Mysterious cart lady’s story adds to the element of immigration in the larger problem of homelessness in America. So many people who had once looked at this country as a glimmer of light in an otherwise dreary world only to be let down by the very people who had once offered boundless opportunity.
