Neighbor Turns Ugly When American Dream Disappears

November 20, 2008 by Sarah Viets
Filed under: American Identity, Immigration 
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Buying a home can be a ticket out of poverty. It can symbolize a shift from the poor camp to the middle class.  Owning a house can represent a sense of financial security and mobility for many families and their children.

A few days ago, Kate Brumback from the Associated Press reported that Lorenzo Jimenez finally found his ticket about four years ago to buy his first home in a suburb outside Atlanta. But Mr. Jimenez had one problem that many working fathers don’t have to consider when buying a house for their family.

While Mr. Jimenez had been working and paying taxes in the United States for about a decade, he didn’t have the documents required to prove his American patriotism. In other words, Mr. Jimenez didn’t have the papers to prove his citizenship. But he could prove his work ethic and that he was a lovely father by taking a quick survey from his closest neighbors, even from Nicole Griffin – but only before Mr. Jimenez put his house on the market.

Nicole Griffin is a 28-year-old single mother that lives down the street with her mom. She also didn’t mind if her two kids played with Mr. Jimenez’s children inside of his home. But all of this changed after Mr. Jimenez decided to sell his house.

After he put his house up for sale, Nicole Griffin, like Lorenzo Jimenez, finally found her ticket to live the American dream. She decided to buy his first home for $164,500 and Jimenez accepted.  But the deal didn’t run as smoothly as either party hoped. Instead, Griffin and Jimenez’s dream disappeared.

The deal went bad for a couple of reasons: 1) Since Jimenez didn’t have required documentation for citizenship, he put the house in his two year old daughter’s name, a maneuver that made it hard to switch the title of the house into Griffin’s name; 2) Griffin needed to prolong the sell until she could find a lower interest rate, a problem for anyone that needs the cash from selling a house.

As the deal began to fall apart, Griffin searched for every trick in the book to hold onto her dream house, even if it meant tearing the Jimenez family apart.

Griffin reported Jimenez’s immigration status to the local authorities. She called her local congressman, and even trespassed on his private property to put a big red sign in his front yard that read, “This house is owned by an illegal alien.” In response, Jimenez took his house off the market, lost his job, and looked for a lawyer to get the correct documentation to continue to pay taxes and work, so he could give his kids the life he never had.

Today, the Jimenez family lives in an apartment, while his first home remains empty. Griffin’s dream, of owning her first home, remains on the back burner, while she continues living with her mom.

It’s funny how quickly people turn ugly and irrational when they don’t get what they want. When her dream began to die, Griffin attacked Jimenez personally for not having the required documentation for citizenship.  She didn’t blame high interest rates. She didn’t blame the huge bureaucratic immigration mess that kept Jimenez from putting the house in his own name. Instead, she labeled Lorenzo Jimenez a dishonest criminal by calling him “illegal.”

But her response is nothing new. It’s becoming more common to blame immigrants for low wages, unemployment, health care costs, global warming, and the list goes on and on. To think of it, I should start blaming immigrants for forgetting to buy toilet paper, and why not?  I’m sure we can find some Washington organization, like Center for Immigrant Studies (CIS) and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) to manipulate some study to blame immigrants for my toilet paper situation.

What’s interesting is that neither organization actually fights to increase the minimum wage. CIS and FAIR aren’t helping Griffin find a better interest rate to buy her first home.

I guess FAIR and CIS really don’t care what happens to Griffin and Jimenez. But then again, I guess when someone doesn’t have to worry about interest rates, helping people give their children a brighter future is the least of FAIR’s and CIS’ concern. Or maybe CIS and FAIR are more interested in keeping the American dream away from people with names like Lorenzo Jimenez.

Maybe names should define citizenship and not work ethic and family values. I can definitely trust the name Franklin Raines – the CEO of Fannie Mae. When it comes to washing the American economy down the toilet, look no farther than someone with the same first name as Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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Comments

One Response to “Neighbor Turns Ugly When American Dream Disappears”

  1. Michael Main on November 24th, 2008 12:42 pm

    Very good, Sarah! You had me right up until the Franklin D. Roosevelt part…I was a bit confused by that. And why “forgetting to buy” toilet paper instead of “the price of toilet paper?” But an excellent piece overall, very well written!

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