Nineteen-year-old Diana Garcia, who came to Maryland from Mexico a decade ago with her mother, is one of those seeking to apply (cost: $465) for the two-year “deferred action” deportation reprieve. Bright, attractive, and bilingual, she graduated from Annapolis’s Broadneck High School in 2011.
“They say it could take a few days to several weeks after the applications are sent in to find out if it’s been approved,” she says. “We’ll see. This is a great opportunity. We all know that.”
Garcia says would like to study medicine and become a holistic health practitioner. Currently, she’s employed at a gas station whose name she’s afraid to reveal.
“If I can drive, work legally, I can get a better job,” she says. “Then maybe I can afford in-state tuition.”
Later, inside one of CASA’s small conference rooms, stack of paperwork in hand, Garcia spends an hour and a half with trained volunteers documenting the schools she’s attended, her medical vaccinations—even offering proof of her Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation—to show she’s been in the U.S. continually for at least the past five years. Afterward, she waits as everything is photocopied and scanned.
“I didn’t understand when I was little that I was illegal. It wasn’t until high school when my friends started to drive and get jobs, which I couldn’t, that I began to realize I probably couldn’t go to college, either,” she says. “You’re really happy watching all these good things happen for your friends, you truly are, but at the same time, it’s really hard.”
Canton
South Ellwood Avenue
September 15, 2012
13. Blast Off
Moshe Hochman is getting precious few touches during a Saturday scrimmage on the indoor turf at DuBurns Arena. The Baltimore Blast, 5-time Major Arena Soccer League champions, are holding their first open tryouts in two decades this morning and 53 would-be pros—ranging from 18-45—take their best shot at their boyhood dream. Most are local, but an assistant coach at Evergreen State College has traveled here from Washington State; another hopeful is schedule to fly in from Brazil.
Normally a forward, but recognizing he’s stuck on an inferior squad, the 29-year-old Hochman, an Israel-native and locksmith by trade, switches to defense in an attempt to flash some skills and catch head coach Danny Kelly’s attention. Aggressive and quick, he manages to distribute a couple of sharp, no-look passes upfield to teammates, who nonetheless fail to convert the plays into scoring chances.
Meanwhile, opposing goalkeeper Jeff Estep, who plays in the Sunday night men’s league here with the Dundalk Soccer Club, keeps up a steady chatter on the field, directing his teammates, some of whom have limited indoor experience.
After their match, Hochman and Estep, 33, sit near one another in the metal bleachers, catching their breath and eyeing the competition in the second scrimmage. Estep, whose had a good day in the net, recognizes Hochman from their Sunday night league, and informs him a couple of former Blast players he knows encouraged him to tryout. Then he reminds Hochman that their respective rec clubs play against each other on his same field tomorrow night.
“You better be ready,” Estep says, smiling. “We haven’t lost to anybody this season.”
Hochman, coming to grips with the fact that a professional soccer career isn’t likely in his future, grasps a sore foot. He suggests that the match against Estep’s team should be postponed.
“I’m going to be too tired after two days of tryouts.”
(Postscript: Neither Hochman or Estep were signed by the Blast, but Estep later caught on with the Harrisburg Heat where he played professionally for five years.)
Dundalk
Sollers Point Road
September 22, 2012
14. Pin-Up Girls
As the Motorettes close a rocking set of Motown standards, 14 mostly young, mostly tattooed women, step in front of the stage outside the Dundalk Moose Lodge. Dressed in back-seam stockings, bullet bras, peep-toe pumps, tight skirts and vintage blouses—primped with winged eyeliner, bright red lipstick and retro-inspired “half updo” hairstyles— they’re competing for the prestigious title of Miss Mobtown Greaseball.
The pin-up contest winner is promised, among other gifts, a professional photo session with Atomic Cheesecake and a portrait in Retro Lovely magazine. She’ll also appear at several events in the next year, such as Baltimore’s annual Night of 100 Elvises at Lithuanian Hall
The concurrent car show attracts some 600 classic automobiles and hot rods on a picture-perfect early fall Saturday afternoon event. But the day was as much about putting an updated twist on post-World War II style—as rebuilding late model Fairlaines and GTOs. Naturally, a big crowd turns out for a gander at the pin-up girls. “A lot of these girls certainly would not have been comfortable living in the 1950s, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, not having the choice to work,” says Stacy Barich, owner of Atomic Cheesecake in Parkville. “But they can appreciate the aesthetic. Besides, it’s also just fun to dress up and be a girl and embrace your femininity. In those days, they wouldn’t have liked being ‘ogled’— today, their like, ‘That’s right! I got it.’ They’ve turned the tables.”
The sideshow announcer calls out Stacy “Firecracker” Bucklaw and the brunette hairstylist from Hanover, PA, saunters to the microphone to big applause. Wearing a hand-painted skirt and yellow halter top, sporting a Betty Crocker tattoo one on shoulder and a U.S. Navy tat on the other, she’s an easy pick by judges for the finals.
“It may only be the Mobtown Greaseball,” she says later, smiling, glamorous behind orange, cat-eyed sunglasses. “But I feel like Miss America.”
Patterson Park
Eastern Avenue
October 27, 2012
15. Illuminati
Under a hazy, pre-Super Storm Sandy moon, thousands of costumed kids and families fill Patterson Park for a Saturday night parade like none other in the city. As the Raya Brass Band, of Brooklyn, New York, warms up their accordions, tubas, saxophones, and bass drums, a black hearse with a dead-eyed, tuxedoed driver, various ghosts and goblins, and later, a half-dozen giant white mice on stilts arrive in line behind the band.
Following an afternoon of hayrides, live music, art installations, chili, BBQ, funnel cake, and lantern-making workshops, the 12th annual Halloween Lantern Parade begins its park march to big cheers. Several dogs with neon, glowing collars jump into the mix along the way, pulling their owners in with them.
“I love it,” says Matthew Fass, Raya Brass Band accordionist, and coincidentally, music director for the annual New York Village Halloween Parade. “The New York parade started just like this, 39 years ago, as a small neighborhood parade in the West Village and just kept growing. This has the same community-building spirit.”
As the procession stretches forward in the dark, lanterns constructed from decorated plastic bottles and the occasional street lamp illuminate the parade’s underworld characters as well as the wild dancing and drumming of the Baltimore Rockers and Baltimore All-Stars Marching Bands. “I moved to the city two years ago,” says one of the young women, dressed, with 15 college friends, in red, white and blue Harlem Globetrotters jerseys, shorts, and headbands. “To me, Patterson Park is like the epicenter of all the good things that are going in Baltimore.”
After the parade, in front of the Pulaski Monument park entrance, acrobatic, flaming-baton twirlers entertain the departing crowds. Most people on hand don’t look anxious to leave.
When someone in their audience asks the name of the troupe that the flaming baton-twirlers belong to, one of the male twirlers shakes his head: “Oh, were not in an organized group or anything,” he explains. “Just a bunch of friends who got together for fun.”
Inner Harbor