Meeting the love of your life and starting a family is usually one of the most exhilarating and amazing times in your life. At first, you’re filled with a roller coaster of emotions--joy, confusion, anticipation, as well as fear of the unknown. But then, after time, emotions calm down and you begin to settle in to the new reality before you: birthing classes, doctors appointments, leafing through books of baby names to find the best name. The perfect name.
But what if instead of waiting in your doctor’s office joyfully looking at the ultrasound picture of your baby boy, you are instead waiting in a small room at an airport. You have been traveling for hours from Mexico, having taken several different flights to get to Texas, and this is the final leg of your trip back to Portland to see your boyfriend for the first time in months. Being newly pregnant, the traveling has exhausted you beyond measure. But you can get over it because more than anything, you are looking forward to your birthday tomorrow, and although you don’t know it yet, your boyfriend had a surprise proposal planned for you. But none of this is going to happen, because instead you are now sitting, terrified, in a small room as a Customs agent is going through your phone, looking at your photos. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?” he barks at you. “I’m sending you back to Mexico tonight.”
He leaves you alone in that room, and takes your phone with him. You are scared, tired, hungry, and you have no way to call your mother back in Mexico who was already worried sick about you flying while pregnant, nor are you allowed to contact your boyfriend who will be waiting to pick you up at the airport in Portland. After what seems like hours, a female Customs officer who discovered you are pregnant, graciously brings you a granola bar. You begin to explain that you need to get to Portland, that your boyfriend is waiting, that you need help because you are pregnant, and you just want to be together as a family. Another officer takes pity on you, and explains that you will be going back to Mexico tonight, but placates you by explaining how to apply for a green card. “You will be able to be back in the U.S. together in only six months,” he explains. But those six months will turn into two years, and would have been more, but you get lucky and find a contact in Oregon who helps push your Visa application process through sooner.
As an Oregon family documentary photographer, I am always "looking" for the family's story through my own eyes, but I know that everyone usually has an "invisible" story that doesn't always get shared with me or the outside world. These invisible stories are not seen, but they can be felt in tangible ways--such as how people interact or react to certain situations--which, at the time, may not make total sense to someone outside of the story. But our seen and unseen stories is how we connect with each other-even if we haven't experienced quite the same scenario.
In the case of Montse and Jeremy, they navigated the waters of the U.S. immigration world to become a “whole” family. It was a long and arduous process that is still ongoing, but at least for now, they have settled into life on Oregon soil as a family unit, which was Montse’s biggest dream. They know their story is not unique, but one that many families are facing, and so when I posted in local Facebook groups looking for #seetheinvisible stories, Montse quickly contacted me to share their story.
“When I meet people and talk to them on the street or at a park and people hear that I am from Mexico, they want to listen to my story now. It feels good that they want to know the story,” Montse told me.
It was then that Montse discovered she was pregnant. She was nervous to tell Jeremy since they hadn’t known each other for very long, but to her surprise, he was extremely happy and told Montse not to worry about anything--she could come back and have their baby here in Oregon, and then live here, together, as a family. The joy of being reunited with Jeremy, as well as a new baby on the way made Montse ecstatic and provided a huge relief from the stress of the prior months. She would soon discover it was short-lived, however.
The plan to return to the States started normally enough. The long trip was going to be hard, but it was a small price to pay to start her new life. Family and friends warned her about crossing in the U.S. while she was pregnant, though. “You better cover your belly. Don’t let anyone know!” They warned her. This made her nervous, but because she was still fairly new into the pregnancy, Monte didn’t think her pregnancy would be noticed. At first, it wasn’t.
She was stopped going through customs, where she was told she was going to have to go to another room to wait for an officer to ask her a few more questions. Montse agreed, thinking it was a routine experience. When the officer came in, he started asking Montse about her last trip to Oregon. “What did you do while you were here? How did you support yourself? How are you going to support yourself this time?” he asked her. When her answers weren’t detailed enough, he pressed her to be more specific. “Do you have any bank statements to prove you will have money to provide for yourself while you’re here?” He asked. Montse had been asked this on her prior visit to the States, but she realized that she did not have the paper statements with her on this trip. In an effort to keep the process moving so she didn’t miss her next flight, she offered to pull her statements up on her phone for the officer. What she didn’t realize is that once she handed over her phone, it was essentially giving him permission to look through it. It was then that he discovered pictures Montse had been sending to Jeremy of her growing belly--documenting their pregnancy since Jeremy could not be with her. She had no way of knowing that those innocent images would be the start of an almost three year fight to keep her family together.
Montse was sent back to Mexico, and Jeremy joined her a few weeks later, where they were married shortly thereafter. This also allowed them to start the formal process of getting Montse’s green card. They discovered quickly that this was not going to be a quick process. Jeremy flew back to Oregon, only to turn around and take family medical leave so that he could be present for the birth of their son, Vincent, the following June. Jeremy literally made it back for Vinnie’s birth with only moments to spare. He arrived at the hospital with his bags still in his hands, and ran down the hall to accompany Montse into the operating room. But he made it. For that moment, they were able to be a “normal” family.
Jeremy stayed Montse and Vinnie for the next few months, but ultimately had to return to Oregon for work. He would fly to Mexico whenever he had the time accrued at work, but this was hardly an ideal situation. On the day he returned to work from one of his last trips to Mexico, his boss called him in to the office and said, “Because you have needed to be gone so much, we have to make changes. We are sorry, but where we are a team, it's time for us to part ways.” Before he left, a contact at his company asked Jeremy how the Visa process was going. When Jeremy said, “Slow. We’re on a waiting list, but we don’t know how long it will take,” the company contact gave Jeremy the number to another contact who worked on other immigration cases. It would prove to be the silver lining on the dark cloud that had come to hang over their family.
Jeremy returned to Mexico to be with Montse and Vinnie until the Visa process could be completed. It was long, arduous, and sometimes scary, as the interviews and appointments were often in dangerous cities and neighborhoods in Mexico. Montse dotted all her i’s and crossed all her t’s, but the day of the final interview was still nerve-wracking. Jeremy was not allowed in the building that the interview was held in, so Montse was on her own.
Jeremy returned to Mexico to be with Montse and Vinnie until the Visa process could be completed. It was long, arduous, and sometimes scary, as the interviews and appointments were often in dangerous cities and neighborhoods in Mexico. Montse dotted all her i’s and crossed all her t’s, but the day of the final interview was still nerve-wracking. Jeremy was not allowed in the building that the interview was held in, so Montse was on her own.
Understandably, Montse was a mix of overwhelming emotions. She was crying, and when she walked outside to tell Jeremy, he couldn’t read her face. “What! What is it?!” he asked her. Montse said it was at that moment she felt the weight of a giant rock release from her back, where she had been carrying all of the stress of the prior two years.
“We’re going home,” she cried.
Since arriving back in Oregon in May 2019, Montse, Jeremy, and Vinnie have been adjusting to their new life relatively well. Overall, the family seems very positive and forward-thinking. But the remnants of Montse’s fear of losing her life and family here are still palpable. When I visited the family to take images for this blog post, they not only warmly invited me in, but kindly made me dinner and we made conversation over great food (like, really great food!). We talked about Vinnie and what he was learning to do, but we mostly chatted about their lives now. Montse recalled her current fear of “making a mistake” that could count against her getting her permanent U.S. citizenship. “One night when we were in a hurry to get home after shopping, we got on the Max. After I sat down, I realized that in my hurry to catch the train, I hadn’t paid for my Max ticket. The Max was stopping and I saw two officers outside. I immediately started freaking out and having major anxiety, telling Jeremy that this would be reported and put into my record and it would count against getting my citizenship approved.” Jeremy tried to assure her everything would be fine, but Montse was not convinced, and it was not the only time she was worried. “I worry that I will make a dumb mistake while driving and get a ticket and that will count against me. I’m always aware of it. It could be the smallest thing, but I get concerned it could be a big thing.”
Fears aside, the family seems to be adjusting to Oregon life pretty well. Vinnie is a beautiful, smart, and funny child who is probably none the wiser to the hardships his parents faced to keep his family together, and Montse and Jeremy seem to be just as in love now as I imagine they were when they first met. As I was leaving that night, all three gave me hugs goodbye, but it was Montse’s words that stuck with me. “Thank you for sharing our story, Nicki. Please know that no matter what, you will always have a home here with us.” I was so humbled and grateful for her words that I was a bit caught off guard and didn’t know what to say at that moment.
But I know now.
I would say, “if it were up to me, Montse (and Jeremy and Vinnie), you will always have a home here as well.”
DISCLAIMER: #seetheinvisible stories are stories told to me, nothing more, nothing less. I make no judgment as to their claims of validity of facts or circumstances, but rather I see myself only as the conduit people choose to help tell their story to the world. It's my hope that through the process of bringing this story to the public, it will foster connection, inspiration, and brotherhood. One human to another. I hope that by reading others' invisible stories, you find a bit more of your own story.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Nicole Severson is the owner of Nicole Severson Photography in Beaverton, Oregon. While she adores all types of photography, her heart lies in photographing families through documentary photography. She grew up in small-town Wisconsin where she was a middle school English teacher for 13 years. Storytelling has always been a theme in her life, and when she started photography professionally five years ago, she knew she had found the perfect outlet to tell stories in a visual way. Photography finally beat out teaching (it was a hard fought battle, though), and after resigning from teaching, she and her family moved to Oregon to be close to her oldest son (she is self-proclaimed “bad empty-nester”) and to restructure her photography business into a full time gig. Her newest venture is blog titled #seetheinvisible in which she talks to people about their invisible every day stories and visually tells their story through a photo essay component, which she hopes to continue doing well into the future.
4 Comments
Dec 17, 2019 3:37:45 PM
Sheryl Buechter - You are awesome!
Dec 14, 2019 8:47:14 PM
Nancy Wynn - What a beautiful way to use the talent you are blessed with! You are an amazing person and you are where you were meant to be, doing what you are meant to do! Thank you for your continuing efforts to tell the stories you do for all to see inside/past the exterior of things to the true heart of people, their lives and experiences. Continue your labor of love for your fellow man/woman.
Dec 12, 2019 3:45:40 PM
Treisa - I love that you are helping people get their stories out there! ❤️ What a great thing to do!
Dec 12, 2019 10:54:18 AM
Montse - Nicki! What can I say? Thank you for listening, thank you for seeing us and thank you for your amazing words and awesome pictures!