The doll that brings back Bogota

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Laura Mesa | Photo 02

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Jacqueline sits on the bed, staring up blankly with heavy blue eye shadow surrounding her painted eyes. Twenty-two year old Laura Mesa picks her up, pushing down some of her wiry red hair, and explains that Jacqueline is more than just her childhood doll from Bogotá, Colombia. The doll is a special link to home and family that more than makes up for her ragged appearance. Laura exclaims over how ugly Jacqueline has become while hugging her tighter in the apartment she now shares with two friends from college on the outskirts of Chicago.

Jacqueline was just one of many friends and family members that Laura had to leave in Colombia when she and her family immigrated to the United States in 2001. “I was in shock for months just going through the motions,” Laura remembers of her transition to middle school in Waukegan, IL.

Despite the language barrier and difficulties of transition, Laura sees her story as unbelievably successful and different from many immigrants due to the ease with which her family was able to come to the United States. Laura explains that the danger in Colombia at the time existed in rural areas, far from her home in the city, or in very rich homes where kidnapping and demands for money occur, a situation her middle class family could avoid. For the Mesas, it was her father’s need for work that motivated them to consider moving to North America.

A civil engineer in Colombia, Laura’s father could not find an engineering company that would commit to the sponsorship process required by the U.S. government. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services requires employers to commit to seeing an immigrant through the process and provide the job for a certain period of time afterwards no matter how long it takes. Following advice from an old high school friend of Laura’s mother living in the U.S., he applied instead to be a bilingual teacher. In areas with a high immigrant population, there is demand for teachers and schools are willing to go through the sponsorship process. Less than a decade later, he is now the assistant principal of the school that hired him and that committed to bringing his family to the U.S. Laura’s mother, a lab technician in Colombia, found her passion in teaching when she too became a bilingual teacher at the school.

Fourteen-year-old Laura burst into tears after her own first day of school. She recalls repeating, “I’m not going to cry in front of these people, I’m not going to cry in front of these people,” the entire day, but as soon as she got into the car with her mother and little sister, she could no longer hold back. She cried, her mom cried, her nine year old sister cried. Later, she remembers her dad realizing the depth of the impact that his decision had on his family.

That night, Laura was surprisingly positive in her thoughts as she considered her overwhelming situation. She realized that she was going to be in this place forever, this place where she didn’t speak the language and where her family was her whole world. Just getting through the day became the most important thing.

“We all knew that we were all having a really hard time so it was like no one chose to talk about it,” Laura recalls of her family. She says they were all “trying to take care of ourselves individually without bothering each other,” but ultimately all helping each other get by. Laura’s dad wanted them to speak English at home so they would become fluent, but speaking Spanish prevailed because home became the one place they could fully be themselves.

Jacqueline speaks Spanish. When she was little, Laura played with her and talked to her in the language. When she left Colombia, Laura left Jacqueline behind with some family members. During one visit back to Colombia after she had been in the United States for some time, Laura saw her grandmother, sick with Alzheimer’s, playing with Jacqueline in the same way Laura had when she was young. Laura asked her former nanny, who was then taking care of her grandmother, to keep the doll for her after her grandmother passed away. Jacqueline lives with Laura now, a connection to her childhood and the family she left behind in Colombia.