My First Path to Freedom

Ana Reza was born in Mexico City. She came to New York looking for new challenges to improve her personal and professional life. From an early age, she enjoyed writing and illustrating short stories and books. She studied journalism, and her constant need to communicate her ideas, thoughts, and concerns in the English language has led her to take several English writing courses. Thanks to New Women New Yorkers she has discovered that her voice has no limits, no matter what language you speak. 

My first day in the New York subway system was an Odyssey. I never imagined that a labyrinth of tunnels could create such a discovery adventure.

My first experience was interesting, different, and not easy to explain. It began with me not being able to find the entrance to  the subway station! Where are you? Did I need to lift  the rocks to find you? Oh no, I am done…

Calm down… The secret was revealed: the entrances are indicated by globes of different colors, such as green, yellow, and red. It is a good clue, but some people are not aware of it. Ok, it was a good beginning, now I knew how to find the subway entrance. What was the next step? I entered and I saw machines, turnstiles, and a lot of people. I thought, it doesn’t look so complicated; I can do it! I took a deep breath and swiped my card. And now off I am, looking at my destiny, ready to travel on the trains!

I saw signs inside the wagons in different languages – English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, and Hindi, about changes in the train routes, advertisements, and more. Wow! Still, I saw a lot of signs in Spanish. I felt lost with so much information. I felt like the Minotaur in his labyrinth, walking between tunnels that went up and down, and that disappeared in the infinite.

I needed a break. Like a lost piece, I must fit into this colossal puzzle. Fortunately, I had a paper map. I opened it and my eyes popped up: what is this? I am done. Do I go back home and confess to my family that I failed on my first subway journey? I put my head down and I was silent, I was very close to crying but I did not. Ok, I double-checked the map. I saw colors, lines, numbers, letters, and names that I tried to decipher as if looking at the Rosetta Stone.

I marked with a red cross my final destination on the map, and I started climbing down the stairs. My first impression was not good enough, I felt scared. The train looked incomplete, like the construction foundation of a building with bare columns dirty with  mud. The place was too noisy, my ears rumbled when I heard the thunder of the trains as they ran at full speed on the tracks, creating sparks with the friction between the metallic surfaces. I looked down to the tracks and caught sight of plenty of garbage, with pieces of food intermixed with rats and cockroaches of all sizes running around and enjoying the feast. I felt nauseous. The air on the platform felt so hot. Am I in hell?

I looked at my watch, the tic-tac seemed to be in pace with my heartbeat, I had been waiting for a long time. Meanwhile, travelers rushed to their destinations, pushing and faintly rubbing each other with their elbows and shoulders to make way, and speaking to themselves.

The subway finally came and yeah, an empty wagon stopped in front of me! I saw the other wagons were full, and I felt so happy that I could enter a wagon with an available seat, my trip was long, and I needed to rest. I happily sat but my enthusiasm quickly disappeared: what was that smell? The car stank, and a poor man was sleeping in the corner carrying all his belongings with him, like an infinite nomad  trapped in an unimaginable world outside of his searing reality.

I saw how other travelers boarded the train and avoided him. He woke up suddenly, and he seemed to have created a shield circle protecting him against the indifferent, judgmental, or toxic glazes and murmurs of passengers.

I covered my nose with discretion, I understand that being a homeless person is not always an option. Little by little the smell mixed with other smells: chicken wings, brown rice, instant coffee, and other non-pleasant common body odors.

The trip was fast. I saw by the windows of the wagon the “guts” of the MTA system: more infinite tunnels with bright lights, shiny graffiti, sandbags, helmets, lamps, stuck construction carry wagons, brave workers in the dark walking amidst stagnant water, and angry rats. Inside, in this momentarily secure metallic machine, the Tower of Babel emerged very vividly from the pages of the Bible: people with diverse outfits from around the world spoke multiple languages that I did not understand, with their unique faces and bodies, listening to all types of music, all this giving the journey a special touch.

My destination was approaching, I was ready to get off the train. The door was close to me, but it still looked like I needed to cross an ocean to get there. I asked myself, how can I pass this huge tide of people squeezed against each other and complaining all the time and saying don’t push me? How am I going to cross that immensity? Miraculously, most of the travelers got off at my station and I reached the exit. Still, the door hit me so hard that I was reminded of all the bad words I hear in the streets of my beloved country of origin, and I pressed my lips very tightly so as not to let them escape from my mouth and avoid the embarrassment of being discovered as a furious foreigner lost in the bowels of the Manhattan subway.

I breathed a sigh of relief, but my destiny did not end there, I needed to find my way out of the train station. Again, I confronted the complexity of the multilingual signs about changes in the routes but the permanent direction signs in English guided me better. Where is the exit? I faced more tunnels, more doors, more turnstiles, and more people. I decided to do what we all do in school when we don’t know the answer to a question on the exam sheet: “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” and I chose the closest exit. I felt free when I got outside, I felt the breeze, the liberty of my body, and the fresh smell of the cut grass. I walked to the pier, and I admired the exotic color of the water, the strong smell of the marine salt, and the touch of the burning sun on my chicks. I was free! I saw at a distance the enigmatic and  imposing green lady that for decades has welcomed so many immigrants traveling with suitcases full of dreams. I felt so happy. Wow! New York, how beautiful you are!

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Moved by Ana’s story? She’s just one of the many voices in our vibrant tapestry of immigrant women storytellers.

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A Heartfelt Thank You: Our ‘Immigrant Women Writing Series – Writing the Self’ initiative is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Learning, supported by the New York State Council on the Arts and administered by LMCC.