When my boss got the communication, no questions were asked. We employees gathered quickly. I stood alongside immigrant field workers as the only American-born citizen on the crew; almost everyone else was Filipino. Generally, a mother, father, and their children all worked, though the youngsters weren’t on the payroll. Other hands came up from Mexico.

Like everyone else, I was on my feet all day, my arms deep in cream-colored, lavender, yellow, and scarlet flowers, my face and arms slicked with sweat. We nearly always ate lunch together, peaceably drinking Fresca, and, ironically, listening to “They’re Coming to Take Me Away!” on the radio. It was piecework, every “man” (or family) for himself, but we went into action together when our livelihood and safety were threatened.

The center of the Quonset hut around which we worked was half full of four-foot-long cardboard boxes, called coffins, each packed with dry flowers. Because our product was so light, the employees easily tossed the boxes into what rapidly became a chaotic pile. Some of the undocumented workers were quickly hidden in these. Others curled into crates, and we covered them with fresh, wet flowers. Every U.S. citizen had to be busy working—which meant the owners, their relatives (grandma down to children), and I were hustling around the edges of the hut.

Summer Bouquet, watercolor and ink by Susie Alterman Hauptman

I stood at a bench against the east wall doing a job called “wiring.” First, I sorted the blooms for color and pulled off any plant material left on the flowers; then I replaced each stem with a wire and put the flowers in neat rows on big screens to dry in huge roll-in ovens. The fresh, wet flowers came in heavy wooden crates that served as my supply box. But that day was different. A man was buried under flowers beneath my workbench, literally at my feet. My task was to keep wiring the blooms without uncovering him.

A Border Patrol contingent burst into the Quonset hut. Dressed in blackest black, each man wore dark glasses and a bulletproof vest, carried sidearms, and brandished a machete. I was familiar with Hell’s Angels, who cruised through our town, population 600, on their Harleys, decked out in dark leather, with thick chains around their necks and waists to intimidate us or use as weapons. Yet, I thought the Border Patrol agents were far more frightening. They were officers of the law, and nothing could stop them.

The agents used hand signals and didn’t say a word to each other, but they smirked at us. They didn’t draw their guns either. They didn’t have to. Moving quietly, they started poking, cutting, and slicing whatever they felt like, slinking around the Quonset hut like big black cats. Whoosh! Pop! Then, whoosh again. Their machetes whizzed through the air.  Sometimes they hacked coffins in half with their sharp knives. They knew what they were doing, and they acted with impunity.

I was terrified someone would be murdered or have their limbs severed in front of me. I was so jittery I rammed wires through the flowers and into my thumbs. Finally the agents stormed out as fast as they came in, hoping to surprise another farm for a haul of “illegals.”

None of them struck human beings with their machetes that day, thanks be to the Universe.

I still haven’t recovered. My heart races and my body tenses to this day, more than 50 years after the fact, when I think of that afternoon,. I was 13 going on 14, part Mexican, passably white, with all the rights of a child, which is to say, none. But my white skin protected me. My coworkers had no protection at all.

That summer day was my first taste of political injustice, and it was bitter as nightshade. The experience tattooed me with skepticism about the unquestioned goodness of the government; and I learned what it was like to be a refugee, when the only crime was wanting to live, doing the work other Americans didn’t want to do.

The Border Patrol was established in 1924, to stop illegal immigration as well as the smuggling of alcohol across U.S. borders during Prohibition.  The force remained small until after WWII. After 9/11, it became one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and its agents wore distinctive green, not black, uniforms. Its main purpose is still to intercept contraband, including guns and drugs as well as illegal aliens.

Forty years after my childhood experience with the Border Patrol, I was living in Ames, Iowa when one of the largest workplace raids in U.S. history was executed in nearby Postville. On May 12, 2008, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers used helicopters, buses, and vans to raid a Kosher meatpacking plant, the largest in the U.S. It looked like a military assault. The raid felt all too familiar to me. The agents’ uniforms were black, they wore bulletproof vests and carried rifles. The takedown had been planned for months, based on allegations of a methamphetamine lab in the slaughterhouse, underage children working, and other criminal complaints. The invasion frightened me. I had flashbacks to the California raid, and my nightmares began again in earnest. Others in my town and Postville cried; some genuflected.

The 900 officers involved in the raid found no evidence of a meth lab, but they arrested 389 workers, including 18 juveniles. Most of those arrested were Latino, along with some Ukrainians and Russians. They were sentenced to five months in prison for aggravated identity theft (due to false social security numbers) and sent to prisons all over the country. When their time was up, the convicts were deported. The raid cost $5 million and tore the town apart.

That appalling raid was an economic and humanitarian disaster. Postville’s population of 2000 dropped by 25 percent overnight. The meat plant went bankrupt. Some families were terrorized and separated. When children returned from school, they found no one home. Some of the little ones were found hiding under their beds. The community cared for them; the Catholic Church provided food when immediately after the raid, the children’s parents were housed at the fairgrounds behind barbed wire. The story made national news, but there was no accountability. And that set a precedent. Today, undocumented workers are immediately deported without criminal charges.

While Covid lingered in 2021, Homeland Security announced a halt to large-scale raids and deportations at job sites. The Biden administration wanted a moratorium. Employers of alien immigrants were targeted instead, and ICE used local law enforcement, including SWAT teams, to investigate, identify, and deport immigrants. The net result in targeted communities was likely worse than before. Imagine being a child whose best friend’s father arrested your parents.

Blue and Purple Happiness, watercolor and ink by Susie Alterman Hauptman

In 2025, under a new administration, the threats, concerns, and fear multiplied like fruit flies on rotten nectarines.

In the meantime, I went to therapy to relieve my PTSD. The evening news still tends to trigger me. Sometimes I feel paralyzed. The research is clear. Early childhood trauma has lifelong effects. I can’t imagine the mental health of my childhood coworkers, let alone the effects on the tens of thousands experiencing similar trauma today.

We’re not at war, and yet the red alerts haunt us all, especially the children. This is the United States of America. We are supposed to be different. And we must do better.

A TREE WITH MY NAME ON IT

A memoir by Victress Hitchcock

    A Tree with My Name on It: Finding a Way Home is the living, breathing, messy story of one woman trying her hardest to free her wounded heart and uncover her true self.  It is a memoir, told with grace and humor, of the years at the turn of the 21st century when the author moved to a ranch in a remote valley in the Colorado mountains and a path opened to a radically new way of living. Winner of the 2025 Colorado Authors League Memoir Award, this is a story that will resonate with anyone who is seeking a way to connect with their own authentic voice.   “A riveting intimate tale of a woman's journey in search of a home, in her body, her spirit and in the land.” — Tsultrim Allione, Wisdom Rising: Journey into the Mandala of the Sacred Feminine “A heart-wrenching and healing story...” — Jesse Rene Gibbs, Girl Hidden "A quiet triumph of a memoir” — Readers Favorites Silver Medal Winner Learn more about A Tree with My Name on It and the author www.victresshitchock.com

Available from Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and your local independent bookstore. Audiobook available on Audible.

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