The Rapidian Home

Deportation affects family

Grandville Avenue Arts & Humanities
5/02/12 07:39am
culture opinion
This article is one in a series discussing immigration issues through artwork and words, through the eyes of a student.
Underwriting support from:

The series & assignment

This article is one in a series created by students in Mr. Alex Escamilla's journalism class at Southwest Community Campus. Students were asked to complete artwork and write an article regarding immigration issues in Grand Rapids, and America as a whole. Students worked with artist Reyna Garcia and Grandville Avenue Arts and Humanities to complete artwork that best showed their views on immigration.

 

For more information on the project and those involved, click here.

 

All artwork will be displayed in an upcoming art show, open to the public.

 

Users may vote, comment, share, or tweet these articles up until the art show.  The student whose article and artwork receives the most votes, comments, shares, and tweets will receive a special Rapidian award.

By: Gerardo G.

Hilario Gamboa, a 45-year-old male was deported back to Mexico. He had just left his six-year-old son's birthday party on June 20, 2004. After he left the Chicago birthday party was when trouble started. Soon after leaving the party, he was aprehended by three dark male thugs. They asked him to give up his wallet, and he said no. They then started hitting him repeatedly. When they were finished beating him, they took his jewelry and all his money. Money was important to Gamboa as he was a successful drug dealer.

From his hospital bed in Chicago, he called his son. His son answered the phone, and asked, "Dad, what's wrong?" Gamboa told his son he had bruises all over his body, but he soon had to leave the hospital to protect himself. After telling his son to take care of his mother and two older sisters, he hung up. Soon after leaving the hospital, police arrested Gamboa in Chicago.

Unfortunately, Gamboa was deported, leaving his family with deep emotional scars. The separation has created a wide gap between father and son.

The Rapidian, a program of the 501(c)3 nonprofit Community Media Center, relies on the community’s support to help cover the cost of training reporters and publishing content.

We need your help.

If each of our readers and content creators who values this community platform help support its creation and maintenance, The Rapidian can continue to educate and facilitate a conversation around issues for years to come.

Please support The Rapidian and make a contribution today.

Related Articles

Comments, like all content, are held to The Rapidian standards of civility and open identity as outlined in our Terms of Use and Values Statement. We reserve the right to remove any content that does not hold to these standards.

Browse