María And José: A Christmas Story For 'A Welcoming City'

Fearing the president’s deportation orders, María and José fled Nazareth, Texas, and hitched a ride with a friendly trucker hauling Donkey forklifts to Chicago.

José had heard a Chicago political boss — a short guy missing part of his middle finger — tell a late-night talk show host that Chicago was a safe haven for people like them.

“I call it a welcoming city … and we welcome immigrants from around the world,” the boss said, declaring Chicago a “Trump-free zone.”

María and José believed him.

They arrived in Little Village nearly broke. They didn’t have any family in Chicago and needed a place to stay.

María was pregnant, due any day.

They hiked down 26th Street under the arch and deep into the neighborhood. José knocked on the door of St. Agnes of Bohemia, but no one answered.

A man huddled in a doorway shaking pennies in a cup called out, “Spare change?” José crouched down and dropped a coin in the man’s cup and asked where they might find a cheap hotel for the night.

“No hotels,” he said. “Only Airbnb. … Or the shelter.”

Snow started to fall, coating the sidewalk. The beggar, noticing María’s condition, gave her a blanket and pointed them on their way.

When María and José arrived at San Jose Obrero Mission, the volunteer on duty shook her head. No room tonight, she said.

María and José stopped to rest in a pedestrian plaza on Kolin where a few homeless folks had set up a makeshift camp. They fell asleep huddled together under the beggar’s blanket until blue lights and sirens woke them.

A beat cop threw José against the wall and placed him under arrest. Maria’s water broke. As José got hauled off to the 10th District lockup, an ambulance rushed Maria to Stroger Hospital.

At the police station, a detective demanded a confession. José divulged his secret. He wasn’t the father of his wife’s baby, a detail that only enraged his interrogator. José was spared a customary beating thanks to a lieutenant who stepped in after realizing they had the wrong bearded Mexican named José listed as a Latin King on the department’s gang-member registry.

That night María had a baby boy. She named him Jesús. The nurse filling out the birth certificate asked Maria for the name of the boy’s father. She answered.

The nurse called for the doctor, who scribbled something on a tablet and asked the nurse to take the baby to the nursery and restrain María to the bed.

José walked two miles from the police station to Stroger Hospital to look for María. A clerk told him that his wife had been involuntarily admitted to the psychiatric unit, and the baby was placed in foster care by the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services. José demanded to talk to a doctor.

The clerk told José to have a seat next to María’s visitors, three dark-skinned men wrapped in long fur coats and elegant scarves who smelled of funky herbs.

When the doctor arrived to explain the details of María’s post-partum delusion, José grabbed the doctor by his white coat and screamed, “My wife is telling the truth.” Security guards put José in a choke hold until he passed out, and hauled him off for a psychiatric evaluation.

Cook County sheriff’s deputies questioned the three men who showed up during the night asking about María and the baby. They had traveled a long way to meet the boy and his mother. The deputies placed all three men under arrest on suspicion of human trafficking and drug possession with intent to deliver, and hauled them off to jail.

A sympathetic nurse allowed María and José to visit each other against doctor’s orders. They decided they would tell the doctors they lied about the boy’s father. After José signed the birth certificate, they were declared sane and released.

María and José rushed to meet with a DCFS agent who told them that their boy would remain a ward of the state until they got jobs and found a suitable place to care for him.

A man selling tamales from a cart told Maria a lot of neighborhood ladies have found work through Labor Temps, a staffing agency a few blocks away. She took his advice, but missed out on a good-paying job packing boxes in Berwyn because she didn’t have a state ID.

José, who had worked as a carpenter back in Texas, stood with a group of men in the McDonald’s parking lot across from Home Depot at 29th and Cicero hoping to score work on a construction site.

After hearing of José's ordeal, a sympathetic contractor agreed to pay cash for 12 hours of work. Future employment, however, depended on whether José got a Social Security card.

When he heard that, José broke down. The contractor handed Jose his pay plus a little extra, and whispered in his ear, “Go to 26th and Albany. Tell them I sent you. See you tomorrow.”

María and José did as they were told. They used all of José earnings to buy fake Wisconsin drivers’ licenses and fraudulent Social Security cards that allowed them to get steady work. They saved up enough money to afford a room to rent in a bungalow crowded with three other families.

Meanwhile, the three men suspected of pimping and drug dealing were released from custody when investigators failed to establish probable cause, and lab tests determined the sacks of stinky herbs in their possession were not medical-grade marijuana.

After a few days of searching, the three men tracked down María and José at the crowded bungalow. They told the couple of the visions that launched their journey to their special boy a tribute of frankincense and myrrh, and a sack of golden dollars. María and José used the cash to hire a lawyer with clout. And a short time later, a judge ordered DCFS to return the baby to them.

On the afternoon that their family was reunited, María and José returned home to find the federal immigration agents hauling out their housemates in shackles.

María and José blended in with a crowd that had gathered across the street. Jose wrapped his arm round Maria, who held on tight to their precious boy.

José turned to a neighbor in disbelief.

“How could this happen?” José said. “We came to Chicago because the Chicago boss said this welcoming city was Trump-free.”

The neighbor chuckled.

“That guy lost clout,” he said. “He ain’t no boss anymore.”

Mark Konkol is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Emmy-nominated producer, writer, narrator, and founder of Monumental Stories. He lives on the South Side. On Twitter: @Konkolskorner.

» Read Mike Royko's original Chicago Daily News column, "Mary and Joe, A Christmas Story," first published in 1967.

Photo of Chicago's skyline by Scott Olson/Getty Images