Story Photos
 Musician Amparo Tinoco can no longer play bijuela after the bus he was in went off an Oregon cliff in the early 1990s. His is a tale of patience and perserverance, and immigration. Greg Ebersole / The Daily News.
|
The long road to citizenship
Wednesday, August 6, 2008 11:36 PM PDT
By Thacher Schmid
Printable version
E-mail this articleAmparo Tinoco’s eyes fill with tears when he recalls the morning in February 1992 when the used school bus he and nine other tree planters were riding in went off a cliff, flipped over 10 times and changed his life forever. When he talks about becoming a U.S. citizen two years ago, however, his face lights up, his eyebrows lift.
He had already failed the citizenship test once, missing the tester’s question: “What are the colors of my tie?”
Undeterred, he went back to Seattle and retested. With his limited English, he answered questions like “who liberated the slaves?” and “who is the father of the country?” But he wasn’t told whether he passed. Weeks later, he received a letter from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for a date in Tacoma.
“We went up, and I thought they were going to grab me for more questions,” Tinoco, 63, recalls in Spanish. When his name was called, he walked up to the podium with his “mica” or legal permanent residency papers.
“He said, ‘give me that mica,’” Tinoco said, smiling. “Then he said, ‘No more,’ and handed me a little flag.”
An American flag.
“Now I don’t have to renew nothing,” Tinoco said. “Now I’m from here.”
Tinoco’s zeal to obtain citizenship conflicts with assertions of advocates of tougher immigration laws, who say Mexicans who enter illegally don’t want to blend in to American society or become citizens. Not only did Tinoco become a citizen, he’s hopeful that his three children in Longview all will become citizens, having fought for a decade to bring them here on a visa after their mother died in Mexico years ago.
Frequent deportations
Amparo (am-PA-ro) Tinoco waited two decades to get his citizenship after receiving his legal permanent resident status as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 — popularly known as “amnesty” approved by President Ronald Reagan.
His resolve to become an American wasn’t derailed by a tragic accident that put him in a wheelchair and nearly took his life.
Like many of the migrant workers of the 1980s, Tinoco regularly travelled between the fruit farms in California’s Central Valley and his home in Morelia, in the Mexican state of Michoacan.
Sometimes, the trips south weren’t of own choosing.
“I was deported so many times,” Tinoco says. In one year alone he was dropped off in Tijuana or Mexicali “four or five times.”
Travelling between Longview and other locales as a migrant worker, Tinoco began working as a tree planter in the southern Cascades, near Roseburg, Ore. He and eight other pineros, “men of the pine,” would hop into a small used school bus and drive up into the mountains.
One early Monday morning in February 1992, the group’s foreman was still drunk from a weekend binge, and put his young nephew behind the wheel, Tinoco said. The nephew had never negotiated the steep mountain roads. Halfway up, the driver lost control and the bus tumbled down a steep ravine, falling 300 feet and flipping multiple times.
“When the bus crashed, I didn’t have a single hope of living,” Tinoco said. “But then, I said, Father, give me force to resist this blow that I’m going to receive. Immediately after that, the bus hit a small tree” and stopped.
The driver died. Tinoco’s C6 and C7 vertebrae were broken. He couldn’t feel his legs, and his arms spasmed wildly.
“My head was wide open,” cut by glass, Tinoco recalls. “I couldn’t feel anything, but my hands kept moving. But my consciousness was tranquil. ... I said to my brother, take out my bag and get my wallet, so that my papers won’t be lost. In my wallet, I had many saints along, but those saints didn’t help me, the one who helped me was the highest God. And I give thanks to him for the patience that he’s given me.”
Perserverance
Tinoco spent the four years after his accident working to regain use of his arms. Since the accident, his primary income has been the industrial insurance payments he receives twice a month. Social Security helps pay for his medications, he said, but does not pay other bills.
Along the way he grew close to his nurse’s aide, Sherrie Smith, who eventually married Tinoco’s son Nicolas, becoming Sherrie Tinoco, now Executive Director of the Emergency Support Shelter in Kelso.
Sherrie Tinoco watched the injured man progress from “completely dependent” — unable to eat, dress or get out of bed by himself — to doing “a heck of a lot independently.”
Today, Amparo has strong arms from swimming and lifting weights. He easily moves around inside and outside his home in Longview’s Highlands neighborhood, where neighbors know him well. Considering the severity of the injury, his daughter-in-law says, it’s amazing he has regained so much independence.
Where other patients with spinal injuries may shrink from the public, Amparo Tinoco embraced his struggle.
“Any opportunity, it was always ‘yes, let’s go,’” Sherrie Tinoco said. “Never even a thought of, ‘how will people look at me?’ It’s just, ‘let’s go,’ and laughing and having fun and grateful to be there.”
Though he regained much use of his arms, Amparo Tinoco still can close his hands only halfway, and had to give up playing music. He used to play bijuela — a traditional instrument, like a small guitar — and sing with a group named Los Tigres in the belt-it-out norteno style.
“It’s the hardest part for him, those are the only times I’ve actually seen him cry is when he is watching people play (music),” Sherrie Tinoco said. “He used to sing, and with the lack of strength in his chest and his lungs, he can’t sing anymore.”
Immigrating
Tinoco’s patience is perhaps most clearly visible in his decade-long wait to secure visas to bring children Maria and Araceli from Mexico after his wife Victoria died in the mid-1980s.
He first applied in 1986 to bring the teenagers here. Having come across the border illegally himself when such trips were common, he chose not to have his girls risk the dangerous journey.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approves visas based on time of application and family relationships, and hardship does not factor into the process. In 1996, Tinoco was finally able to bring the pair to Longview on visas. Araceli is now a legal permanent resident but not yet a citizen. Maria’s tangled in a bureaucratic process that requires long waits: as the adult child of a citizen, she’s on a list now accepting applicants from 1993, Sherrie Tinoco said.
Nicolas became a citizen several years ago after years as a legal permanent resident.
Tinoco’s neighbor Hannelore Massey, a German immigrant who also became a U.S. citizen — waiting only six months in 1976 — shares frequent tacos and laughs with Tinoco. She said she helped build the wheelchair ramp in front of Tinoco’s bungalow.
“He’s the nicest man I know. A lot of people don’t like Mexicans, but if I hear somebody say something about these guys, I open my mouth, I really defend them.”
Amparo Tinoco said he wanted to share details of his own long, strange trip to becoming American with a reporter because he can’t grip a pen or type.
“I give my testimony to help others,” he said, giving thanks to God. “I feel peaceful, happy.”
Blogger Jogger wrote on Aug 7, 2008 7:52 AM:
I don't want to take anything away from this story, but I do want to say that it's time to open the border. OPEN it! Throw the gates open and welcome the native people back to their land. There is no difference between our neighbors from Mexico and Native Americans. There were no fences, borders, boundaries until "Americans" arrived. "
cahuita wrote on Aug 7, 2008 8:35 AM:
Mr. Chinook wrote on Aug 7, 2008 9:17 AM:
Kelso Guy wrote on Aug 7, 2008 9:46 AM:
skeezix wrote on Aug 7, 2008 9:49 AM:
By your reasoning, then we might be able to call you El Ignorant Fat Head. "
klb65 wrote on Aug 7, 2008 10:03 AM:
Mr. Chinook, you are a bigot and shame on you! Have you read what is on the base of the Statue of Liberty? A partial quote from the plaque on the base it says, "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-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
It doesn't say we only accept those of European ancestry...it is for all. It is shameful to hear your kind of remark and I hope that Mr. Tinoco will forgive an "ugly American" statement that serves no purpose but to be unkind. "
Thought wrote on Aug 7, 2008 10:18 AM:
Maybe we should just open the prisons and declare amnesty for everyone that has broken our laws!!!! NOT "
bmoc wrote on Aug 7, 2008 10:28 AM:
Mr. Chinook wrote on Aug 7, 2008 10:43 AM:
owlcreekcats wrote on Aug 7, 2008 11:01 AM:
klb65 wrote on Aug 7, 2008 11:23 AM:
just an opinion wrote on Aug 7, 2008 11:25 AM:
bmoc wrote on Aug 7, 2008 11:27 AM:
DADDYO45 wrote on Aug 7, 2008 11:29 AM:
If a break the rules or drive drunk, well I go to jail. Shouldn't you? "
Thought wrote on Aug 7, 2008 11:44 AM:
How many dead Americans are there due to the illegal activities of the people not here legally?? Thats NOT racist dude its a fact.. I also feel anyone coming here legally should be welcome but those are not the ones we are speaking of. I'm Thought and I approve this message. So its been said so let it be written !!!!!! "
just an opinion wrote on Aug 7, 2008 12:22 PM:
LviewLocal wrote on Aug 7, 2008 12:41 PM:
DUH wrote on Aug 7, 2008 12:59 PM:
klb65 wrote on Aug 7, 2008 1:03 PM:
Adolph Oliver-Bush wrote on Aug 7, 2008 1:28 PM:
Billy Hill wrote on Aug 7, 2008 1:35 PM:
Common Sense wrote on Aug 7, 2008 1:55 PM:
Thought wrote on Aug 7, 2008 2:02 PM:
The MexicanAmerican War was an armed military conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848 in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas. Mexico did not recognize the secession and subsequent military victory by Texas in 1836.
"Remember the Alamo" "
owlcreekcats wrote on Aug 7, 2008 2:03 PM:
bmoc wrote on Aug 7, 2008 2:03 PM:
mclovin it wrote on Aug 7, 2008 2:31 PM:
owlcreekcats wrote on Aug 7, 2008 2:37 PM:
TheGenius wrote on Aug 7, 2008 2:37 PM:
mclovin it wrote on Aug 7, 2008 2:43 PM:
DUH wrote on Aug 7, 2008 2:59 PM:
The United States received all of the land originally sought by John Slidell, including present-day New Mexico, Arizona, California, Texas and parts of Colorado, Utah and Nevada; this area is often called the "Mexican Cession"
The Mexicans received $15 million for those lands and were relieved of responsibility for claims by American citizens (about $3 million)
The border between the two nations was fixed at the Rio Grande.
I don't see it as we stole anything from the Mexicans. "
owlcreekcats wrote on Aug 7, 2008 3:28 PM:
oh yes....we paid the mexicans and treated them fairly just like when we put the indians on reservations and for their own good... "
Kalama98625 wrote on Aug 7, 2008 3:33 PM:
Thank you Amparo for sharing your amazing story, for contributing to our community and for not being afraid of the judgements of other people. "
DUH wrote on Aug 7, 2008 4:23 PM:
Adolph Oliver-Bush wrote on Aug 7, 2008 5:23 PM:
kelso gringo wrote on Aug 7, 2008 5:53 PM:
The U.S. government took land from the Native Americans as well as the Mexicans. We put Natives onto reservations and pushed Mexicans to the south, onto the land that we did not want. "
bmoc wrote on Aug 7, 2008 6:18 PM:
stink wrote on Aug 7, 2008 7:37 PM:
And the guy is 63.. seems like my parents are that age and also no SS... not like it's a strange thing. "
Adolph Oliver-Bush wrote on Aug 7, 2008 7:55 PM:
PINEAPPLE wrote on Aug 7, 2008 8:08 PM:
Aloha Pumehana God Bless,
Mutters Eldest Son
Thomas "
loudly wrote on Aug 7, 2008 8:16 PM:
owlcreekcats wrote on Aug 8, 2008 11:14 AM:
here's an unknown quote that was given me many years ago:
Really great people always see the good in others; it's the little man who
looks for the worst and finds it.
and,we all have the right to our opinions. "
DUH wrote on Aug 8, 2008 12:49 PM:
ThereGoesThatTriptoHawaii wrote on Aug 8, 2008 11:10 PM:
vet wrote on Aug 16, 2008 9:22 PM:
Ms. Z wrote on Aug 19, 2008 5:54 PM:
vet wrote on Aug 20, 2008 6:31 PM:
banana hammock wrote on Aug 27, 2008 12:42 PM:
There were no fences, borders, boundaries until "Americans" arrived. "
have you lookedinto the social structure back then. They had a few raids now and agian and you could probably figure your child wh=ould be stolen from time to time., Oh wait that hasnt changed has it? "
Past Month's Most Commented Stories