2,782 Miles: Distance between a family and their dream.

CAMP ARIFJAN, KUWAIT

10.11.2023

Story by Spc. Yancy Mendoza 

Task Force Spartan

CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait - “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

"The New Colossus" is a sonnet engraved on a bronze plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty, written by American essayist and poet Emma Lazarus.

In the U.S., it’s called the Rio Grande. Many migrants drown in its deceptively calm waters every year, with more than 800 recorded deaths in 2022 alone. Across the border, it has a different name. El Rio Bravo. The Angry River. Fear gripped the hearts of Yessenia and Humberto Escobar as they approached it. They were given instructions on what to do. They were told the specific embankment to climb down, where to swim, what direction to swim in, and what time they needed to cross the river. Even so, it seemed like an impossible task. The plan had to work perfectly, and a mistake could be the difference between life and death. The only thing separating them now from the life they wanted was the water, and the only thing to help get them across was a raft made of scrap.

Under the dark of night, Yessenia got on the raft as Humberto pushed it into the water. He would have to swim while pushing the raft to get him and his wife to safety.

The frigid water sent shocks through his body as he waded through the river. He could barely see where he was swimming to. He didn’t know how long he could keep going before his body gave out.

When they finally made it across, Humberto laid down in the dirt next to the river, exhausted but alive. The most dangerous part of the journey was over.

2,782 Miles. That’s the distance from Guatemala City, Guatemala, to Los Angeles, California. That’s how far Yessenia and Humberto went to make sure that their unborn children could have the opportunity for a better life than the ones they had. The struggle they endured that night is what allowed Dereck Escobar, their son, to be in the U.S. Army National Guard.

Autumn, 1999

Upon arriving in L.A., Mr. and Mrs. Escobar filed for their papers to be naturalized as U.S. Citizens, but the process for them would prove more difficult than they anticipated. Their efforts would soon grind to a halt following the attacks on September 11, 2001.

“Sadly, my parents were affected by it and they weren't able to get papers at all,” said Dereck. “They were basically stuck. They knew if they made it known that they were illegals, they would've been deported, or knew that people would hate them.”

"The American Dream" wouldn’t come easily. Despite finally arriving in California, their hardship had just begun. Even with the threat of deportation constantly looming, they pressed on.

His father started out in landscaping, and his mother found work in housekeeping. The work was hard, and the hours were long, but they were able to stay afloat despite the challenges.

Dereck Escobar was born in 2003. Mr. and Mrs. Escobar decided they needed a space of their own for him and his older sister; and eventually moved out of their relatives’ place and started renting the top floor of a house. His parents made enough money to send Dereck and his sister to school in Anaheim for a few years, but had to move out again because the person they were renting from needed the space back. Once again, they were forced to find somewhere else to live.

After finding a small affordable apartment in Yorba Linda, California, Dereck and his older sister continued schooling.

“My mom and dad, no matter the long hours they worked and even if they were exhausted still made time to help me out with homework or to help me with assignments that I had to do,” said Dereck. “Even though they had work of their own and had to be up early, they would always sacrifice sleep to make sure I was doing good in school.”

His mother always told him how grateful he should be to live within walking distance of school, because when she was growing up in Guatemala, she had to walk over three hours just to get an education.

“Although they were immigrants and they were receiving under the table pay, they would still pay their taxes,” Dereck recalled. “My parents would still do everything that they could. They followed the law, and were hard working members of society, even if that society didn't see them as a valid people to be living there. They didn't care for that because they came here for one thing, one thing only. That was to give us a better future.”

Their lives were filled with uncertainty. At any moment, his parents could be deported, leaving Dereck and his sister alone.

Dereck’s younger brother was born in 2011, which financially strained his family. At the time, Dereck couldn’t understand the scope of their situation. He wondered, as many kids do, why he couldn’t have the things that other families did. In retrospect, he realized that his parents made sure to give Dereck and his siblings the best experience they could have.

“My life is full of happy memories,” he said. “My parents were always saving up money to take us to Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, and Buena Park. They were just trying their hardest to make our lives as amazing so we wouldn't have to go through what they did.”

Through the guidance and support from his mother, he joined a police explorer program in Buena Park, California, when he was 15. Being a police officer was something Dereck had always dreamed of, and he attributes his mother as the one who pushed him to take the step in that direction. Many of the connections that he made in that program he keeps to this day, and those connections are what led him to look into the military.

When Dereck was a teenager, his mother had to endure the death of both of her own parents in Guatemala. His fathers’ parents had both passed earlier when Dereck was only a kid. Because of their illegal status as citizens, they weren’t able to go to their funeral or burial. They weren’t able to mourn that loss with the rest of their family.

At that point, he truly realized how much his parents had sacrificed for him and his siblings, and the massive responsibility that they bore to ensure the future of their family.

“Once you think about it and put yourself in that situation, it’s terrible,” he said. “You can’t leave. Even if your parents die you can’t leave the country, because if you do, you’ll never be able to come back, and all will be lost.”

When Dereck put that into perspective, he knew that it was time to act.

He struggled for months searching for options. Through this search, he found out that not only would the military give you citizenship if you didn’t have it, but that you can also help get citizenship for your parents.

Spring, 2021

“I enlisted not only for my parents, but for the love I have for this country,” he said. “It would give me an even better future than what my parents built me up to get while also helping my parents get an amazing future too.”

After the trials and tribulations of Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training, he got help from not only his recruiter, but also from the Non-Commissioned Officers around him. They helped him find out who to go to, when to go to them, and how to go about the entire process. From there, he enlisted the assistance of lawyers to get the paperwork started to help his parents.

Now Spc. Dereck Escobar, a wheeled vehicle mechanic with California Army National Guard's 40th Infantry Division Headquarters Support Company, deployed with the 40th ID to Kuwait on June 11, 2023.

Dereck woke up during his deployment on the morning of August 24th, 2023, thinking it was just any other day in Kuwait. He received a text from his family saying that they had something to tell him and called his mother apprehensively, bracing himself for bad news.

She told him that his father had finally, after two decades, gotten his citizenship. His mother got her papers just a few days later.

“I cried knowing that my parents got their citizenship,” said Dereck. “Not only did the military give me amazing career opportunities, but they also were able to help me secure my parents’ citizenship. Instead of it taking forever and jumping through 1,000 hoops as it normally would be, in a matter of two years I was able to get their [American Citizenship] papers.”

Dereck emphasized that it was a joint effort, attributing much success to his NCOs, his family, his love for his country, and his love for his parents.

When he returns to California from his deployment next year, he and his family plan to take a trip together to Guatemala so they can finally reunite with family and visit the graves of his grandparents. It will be the first time his parents have seen Guatemala in 23 years.

“I wanted to buy them their tickets to go to Guatemala,” said Dereck. “Not only is that gift from me to them, it’s a thank you for doing everything that they did, and for sacrificing so much for me to be here.”

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• Date Taken: 10.11.2023
• Date Posted: 12.27.2023 00:05
• Story ID: 459114
• Location: CAMP ARIFJAN, KW
• Hometown: BUENA PARK, CA, US