It was 7:30 and quiet outside as they began on a recent evening. The girls wrapped lace scarves over their hair and pulled up stools to form a semi-circle around the couch where René Antonio had settled. His 10-year-old sister, Johanna, sat next to him and opened a small psalmbook with a photograph of their mother taped to the inside cover. She flipped to Psalm 134.
At their grandmother's nod, the girl began to read aloud in a halting monotone.
Karen Flores is escorted to her 15th birthday party in El Salvador. Karen's mother, who lives in Virginia and could not attend, is among thousands of Latin American immigrants who send money back home to families.
(Sarah L. Voisin -- The Washington Post)
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A Mother's Support
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Immigrants and Separation: Post staff writer Nurith Aizenman is discussing the separation of one El Salvadoran mother from her children in order to make more money in the U.S.
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About This Story
This article was based on interviews with and observations of Maday Flores in Northern Virginia and her children and mother in El Salvador, where staff writer Nurith C. Aizenman and staff photographer Sarah L. Voisin spent a week in July. Other than for accounts otherwise attributed, the reporter and photographer were present during key events described, including Karen Flores' birthday party and a shooting that occurred outside as the family gathered for evening prayers. All interviews were done in Spanish.
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"Behold. Bless ye Jehovah. All ye servants of Jehovah . . ."
Suddenly, a sharp "POP-POP-POP-POP-POP" exploded through the stillness outside.
"Balas," whispered Carmen.
Bullets.
She sprang to check that the front door was locked and then sat back down. The children listened in silence.
And then they heard it -- a high, unearthly shriek. "Aaaaaayyyy! Noooooo! Mi hijo, mi hijo!"
My son, my son!
On the street outside, a 20-year-old in a gray oxford shirt lay on his side, a pool of blood forming around his head.
René Antonio scurried into his grandmother's arms.
"Well," she finally said, turning to Johanna. "You should continue. It's getting late."
The girl turned back to the psalmbook, her childish drone now mingling with the wails outside.
"Lift up your hands towards the sanctuary and bless Jehovah. . .
"Aaaaaayyyy! Noooooo!"
" . . . Jehovah bless thee out of Zion."
René Antonio slipped out of his grandmother's embrace and took his place back on the sofa.
Somehow, a Future Together
The restaurant, La Hacienda, sits in a Northern Virginia strip mall, its brick facade barely distinguishable from the Dollar Store and 7-Eleven next door. Inside, customers order pupusas, sopa de pollo and plátanos fritos in Central American accents.
A few weeks ago, the restaurant hosted a 15th birthday party. The sight of the beaming Quinceañera in her frilly pink dress so upset Maday Flores that she had to leave work early. "I'm such a crybaby," she said in Spanish, managing a weak laugh as she dabbed tears a few days later. "I'm like Evelin."
Almost daily, Maday questions her decision to leave her children. She always comes to the same conclusion. "I didn't have a choice. I couldn't have supported them if I had stayed," she said. "And though they don't live like queens, at least they don't have to drop out of school and work like I did. . . . They miss me. But they are better off this way."
In some ways, she is better off, too. She works six days a week, leaving her bed at dawn and collapsing into it long after dark. But she whooshes home in her own red Toyota Corolla, to a spacious basement apartment with central air conditioning and a landscaped patio. Her Salvadoran boyfriend pays the rent and has furnished the place with beige leather sofas and a wall-sized silver Sony television.
She does not tell her children many of these details. Nor does she share her anxiety over how she will reunite her family.
"If I can't find a way to bring them here within five years, I'll go back," she said. "I will have missed the best years with them. But at least I'll have a few left to enjoy."
The children know their mother wants to get them out of Apopa, but beyond that, the plan seems murky.
Evelin believes her mother will bring them to the United States. "Life over there is so much better than here," she said.
Karen is convinced her mother will return to El Salvador. "She's going to buy us a house in the center of the city. It's going to be two stories high with a separate room for each of us and a garage," she said.
René Antonio isn't sure what to think. "I used to ask her about that, but my grandmother said it made her sad," he said with a shrug. "I don't ask her anymore."
