Reaching for Legitimacy in the Immigrant Economy

Diaz asks few questions -- that much he has learned after a decade in this murky economic reality. He says he doesn't like to challenge authority and that people like his lawyer often can't be bothered to explain things, at least in a way he understands.

His memory is fuzzy, he says, on some of the details of the past 11 years. How did he get a driver's license? He's not sure but knows it was easier then than it would be now, with increased scrutiny of illegal immigrants. His wife, Rosa, meanwhile, used her state of Maryland identification and, after shopping around motor vehicle offices, found one outside Baltimore where nobody asked her for a Social Security number.

A Home of Their Own

For years, Diaz and his brothers and many other relatives in this country have turned to the same person for advice and help: Edy's cousin Dimas Diaz.

Dimas, a local organizer with the Service Employees International Union-32BJ, studied English intensely when he arrived in the United States in 1991 and later became a U.S. citizen. He married an American woman he met in Arlington, and they bought a big, modern house in Prince William County.

In early 2004, Edy Diaz came to him with a plea: He and Rosa were married and had had a second child, Gabriela. They were tired of living in a basement and needed more space. He had found a three-bedroom house with a basement apartment in Beltsville -- but he didn't know how to get a mortgage with no legal papers. "It's an amazing deal," he assured Dimas. "I promise I will always pay the mortgage. I just need your name."

Dimas said he'd think about it and talked to his wife. "No," Catherine Diaz said immediately. "He is the most caring and honest of your cousins, but it's too risky."

Everyone else Dimas Diaz asked had the same advice. About to turn Edy down, Dimas was out one day with another cousin, also undocumented. A street beggar approached them. Though bedraggled and apparently homeless, he was obviously native-born.

"I would do anything to be him," the cousin said. "To be a citizen. To speak his English. To have a Social Security number." Moved almost to tears, Dimas decided to give his cousin Edy a taste of the American dream.

The closing was held on their lunch hours. Dimas signed and initialed paper after paper. Edy sat silently beside him. And so Dimas Diaz bought the house on Bellevue Street in Beltsville for $320,000, in name only. It would really be home to Edy, Rosa, Edy Jose and baby Gabriela.

It would also be home, it was soon clear, to many others. To pay the $2,100 monthly mortgage, Edy Diaz had to rent the basement out to a few cousins and his aunt for $1,000. Recent arrivals from Guatemala seemed to flock to them, seeking a place to stay, a few dollars, advice on how to make it. Still, the aunt in the basement meant child care for little Gabriela that was loving and always available.

While many of the immigrants around them dwell on lives left back home -- remittances to Latin America top $13 billion annually -- the Diazes say they send money only on holidays. They're trying to save money for a future here, and their lifestyle reflects that. Alongside floral-patterned couches, family pictures line the shelves in their home, next to knickknacks that exude a sabor that is much more americano than latino. They shop at Costco and Sam's Club. Edy Diaz speaks quite a bit of English, albeit heavily accented, and has been after his wife to learn the language.

Neither has been back home since they left Guatemala -- afraid they might not be allowed to return -- and neither has met the other's parents.