Joseph MacKenzie, Fall 2009
For some United States citizens, illegal immigration is the cause of much concern. For most who hold this position, the obvious worries are terrorists sneaking in through our loosely protected borders, loss of jobs to immigrants who are paid under the table, and non-taxpayers who receive the same benefits as legal citizens. For others, the anxiety stems from a sense of national pride. They do not want anyone to get a free ride in this country. They believe that the safety of their families and the security of their jobs is a liberty far too sacred to be compromised by the intrusion of outsiders. If asked at the beginning of my junior year in high school where my opinion lay in this matter, I would have shrugged off the question, stating that it was of no importance to me at that point in my life. This is not to say that I was a selfish kid-I read the papers, watched the news, and stayed on top of current events for the most part. My disinterest came from the fact that I had never had to deal with this particular situation. That would change later in the year.
I was working at a CVS in Attleboro, Massachusetts. I had just started the job the previous summer and was still learning the ins and outs of customer service, as well as trying to balance the responsibilities of work with the demands of school. I was working the night shift, as most of the new employees were forced to do, leaving the afternoon shifts for the more veteran crew members. This particular night I had been called in to cover for a girl who was sick-something I often did at the beginning. The shift was only three hours, but the lack of customers and my resentment towards my managers for calling me in made the night drag on. Finally, nine o’clock rolled around and I began the usual closing tasks, desperate to get in my car and go home.
Just about this time, in another part of town, a man was getting on his bike to ride home from his job at a local L.A. Roberts restaurant. He had nothing with him but his bike and a brown paper bag; I will never be sure what was inside. He was headed towards his house, and his path led right past CVS.
At age 17, getting out of work always came with a mixture of joy that the night was over and anxiousness to get home. This night, after a shift that I’d voluntarily taken on short notice and an excruciatingly boring three hours trapped behind a register, my mind was elsewhere when it should have been focused on driving. I came to the red light at the exit of the parking lot as I always did at night-fast. Not out of carelessness, but because this part of the street was always dead at this hour. It was the right-on-red rule in Massachusetts that killed me. Due to a lack of cars on the road and my desire to get home, I looked to my left at the light, and because no cars were coming, I accelerated.
The man must have had his mind elsewhere as well, because the signs show that he didn’t brake as he rode right towards my car.
My first reaction was to check if this man was injured. After he stood up and walked over to me, showing that he’d sustained no injuries, I was desperate to leave the scene as soon as possible. Everyone in the parking lot was staring at me with a mix of shock and anger. Never having dealt well with pressure, I asked the man if he would like a ride home-I was willing to do anything to avoid getting in trouble. Not a minute after I asked him, the police arrived.
The man’s ethnicity had not occurred to me, but it would be the most important factor in whether I was arrested that night. He was a Hispanic man, about 5’4”, wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt and black baseball cap that covered most of his face. He seemed calm after the hit, but when the police were mentioned, his demeanor changed completely. I could not figure out why this man, struck by a car, would be scared of the police. But after running the man’s ID, the police found that not only did he have no social security number, there was an arrest warrant out for him as well. As the officer approached me, my stomach dropped and all I could think of was the embarrassment that I would have to face from my family and in court. After talking with the officer, I found out that he was arresting the man because of his warrant, and that the man was an illegal immigrant. I asked what would happen to me-if charges would be pressed, if I would have to come to the station to file a report. The policeman told me to go home. I was going home; the man I’d just hit was going to jail.
It took me a few days to realize what had happened that night. In the meantime, I rushed to tell my friends about what had happened. “I helped capture a criminal…by hitting him with my car!” I told my friends, receiving laughs and disbelief at first. Their excitement diverted me from how I really felt. With all of the cocky ignorance of a 17 year old, I told everyone I could about how I had captured a criminal and illegal immigrant. Friends joked about me becoming a police officer and working for border control, and naturally, I laughed. I couldn’t tell anyone that I was sorry for my negligence, for hitting a man with my car, whether he was wanted or not. That was not what people would have wanted to hear, especially since this man was an illegal immigrant.
I still feel guilt about what happened that night, and it comes from more than just hitting another man with my car. I feel guilty that when the accident occurred, all I could think about was what would happen to me and not to this man who was lying in the road with his broken bicycle three feet away. I feel guilty that I tried to leave the scene as soon as possible to avoid getting in any kind of trouble. I feel guilty for telling this story to my friends as if I was proud of what I had done. I tend not to think about the fact that he had a warrant out for his arrest. That does not change what I did. I also don’t think about him being an illegal immigrant. Afterwards, I realized that I did not care. It did not change the fact that he was a man coming home from work, who was struck off of his bike by a moving car, only to be arrested fifteen minutes later. To add to my guilt, I did not hear from anyone about the accident afterward-no call from the police, no charges pressed; it was as if the whole thing never happened. I felt that I deserved some kind of punishment. I can only hope that this man got things straightened out with the police; I have not seen him around the area in four years of working at the same CVS. I like to believe that he was harmless despite the arrest warrant-probably just going home to his family. As for the brown paper bag that he was holding, I like to believe that it contained nothing more than his weeks pay.
The issue of illegal immigration cannot be reduced to two sides. It takes actual human encounters to understand the issues complexity. So if I were asked today which side I take, I would reply that I take neither of the two common sides on the matter. I would say that the issue is more complicated than either one. I’ve come to terms with what happened, but my feelings of unease will always be there when I think about this man. Did he get things straightened out and go home? Did he get deported? Is he still sitting in jail for an unknown crime? I’ll never know the answers, but I will always feel connected to this man. What happened that night will have a hold over both of us for a long time.