I know my mother-in-law doesn’t necessarily talk to me about the family issues, but I really don’t like being taken by surprise by problems. My husband asked me if I knew why Dacia left her boyfriend and said that he was told there had been abuse within the relationship. Now I know Dacia’s father Ignacio has been abusive to my sister-in-law and Dacia has pleaded with her mother to leave him before, so I was surprised to hear this. I promised I would find out what I could and tell him what I’d learned at our next visit. I talked to my mother-in-law and she told me that Roberto had hit Dacia several times and even cut her once with a razor when they had been fighting. I was shocked, but the only other thing Gisela could tell me is that Dacia’s father told her to come to Mexico with Junior.
As luck would have it, Dacia decided to visit her uncle today so I had the opportunity to speak with her alone. I didn’t ask her about the situation on our way to the jail, but instead used what she said to Alberto during the visit as the foundation for my own questions. She asked me about traveling to Mexico and what Junior would need to fly, or to cross the border in a car. She wouldn’t be able to fly to Mexico with Junior if he didn’t have a passport, but they could cross the border in a vehicle as long as she had a certified copy of his birth certificate. I told her it was in her best interest to apply for Junior’s passport and postpone traveling until she had it, but that apparently is not an option. It’s something she needs to take care of as soon as possible or Junior will have trouble getting one in the future if the USCIS decides to claim he stole someone else’s identity. I asked her why she was leaving all of a sudden and she told me she did something stupid; she went out with another guy. I asked if the relationship could be fixed or was Roberto abusive. She told me Roberto wants her to come back to him, but she doesn’t want to be with him anymore because he’s too jealous. She stated that he wasn’t abusive to her or their son; she just didn’t want to deal with his jealousies anymore. She sheepishly told me that she wove a story for her Abuelita about abuse because she was afraid that Gisela wouldn’t let her come home if she knew the truth. I said something about the fact that Roberto is a Mexican/Chicano male, implying that she should’ve known he would be somewhat jealous. Alberto was the same way when he was Roberto’s age, that’s why I quit working at McDonalds – we were fighting all the time over stupid things.
