My University of Arizona
Journalism Courses
Fall 2008
Online Journalism 498-d
Border Beat syllabus
Web Resources
Journalism 411 Syllabus
Links for J-411
Web Resources - Features
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My Writing
Roque
By Jay Rochlin
As a writer and photographer, I frequently meet interesting and engaging people. In this business, you never know what you might learn or from whom. In the southwest, immigration is a continuing part of the desert landscape. So is the story of how new members of our community perceive life in America. In addition to some exposed film, I took away a touch of inspiration from a new acquaintance.
I met Roque Galdamez while photographing a story about University medical students who volunteer at a clinic for refugees and torture victims. Roque’s personal story was gripping. I’ll tell you about that. But that’s not what why I’ll remember him. Roque’s lesson about gratitude will stay with me.
Roque was 41, a small man with thinning hair, bright, alert, but sad eyes, and a smile that warms a room.
Roque was in a tough spot back home in El Salvador. It was in the early 1980s, the time of death squads, a time when men disappeared and were never seen again.
Even though he had been forcibly drafted, the guerillas didn’t trust him because he was in the army. The army suspected he was collaborating with the guerillas because he refused to obey an order to rough up an older couple who couldn’t produce ID at a routine checkpoint. And, several members of his immediate family, including his sister and two aunts, were members of the resistance.
A civil defense squad fired shots at his home and threatened to kill the family.
Then, the army arrested Roque.
After enduring two weeks of torture — beatings, sleep deprivation, dripping water, and constant interrogation — the soldiers holding Roque decided he wasn’t a guerilla after all and reassigned him to his post.
Once free, Roque slipped out of El Salvador and made his way to Tucson.
His journey was not unique – crossing Guatemala, a dangerous trip through Mexico, making friends with other people on similar journeys, trusting a coyote (a people smuggler) to lead him across the desert into Arizona, the rip off by the coyote, the near death trek through the arid frontier wilderness that landed him in America thirsty, hungry, and penniless, and nearly a year hiding in a Tucson church.
Roque applied for political asylum. He listened intently to English language radio and television, and he studied. He landed a job washing dishes at a Greek restaurant. Whenever he caught up with his own work, he volunteered to help others in the kitchen. Soon, he won a promotion and a raise. Roque became a prep cook.
Eventually, Roque won asylum.
Roque and Veronica, his wife, a woman from his home town in El Salvador, have two children, Manuel and Enrique. He and his family are Americans. They own a modest home, and like a true American, he joked that it wasn’t really his — it was the bank’s.
I probed about his torture. Roque was forthcoming, even though his hands twisted tightly and he squirmed in his chair as spoke.
And I asked Roque whether he still has nightmares about the awful time in El Salvador.
After a couple of moments, his hands loosened, he face brightened, and his eyes moistened.
He answered, “How can I have nightmares? My life in America is so good.”