Waiting for Manuel

[vimeo video_id="19530437" width="400" height="300" title="Yes" byline="Yes" portrait="Yes" autoplay="No" loop="No" color="00adef"] By Amanda Voisard

Last fall, Sylvia Velasquez was an hour late to her own wedding. She moved from her native country, Colombia—first to Long Island, then to Auburn, N.Y.—to be closer to her new husband. She took on two shifts at a local restaurant to support her children. She waited months for her birth certificate to be translated from Spanish, and then for the marriage license. But by the time she arrived and the justice of the peace began the ceremony at the Auburn Correctional Facility, the wait no longer mattered. “It was beautiful. I would never imagine such a beautiful marriage,” Sylvia said, “much less in jail.”

Sylvia and Manuel Cruz met for the first time at the prison two years earlier. Manuel is serving a 32-year prison sentence, convicted of killing a clerk during an attempted robbery. He has seven years left.

Sylvia met Manuel when she visited the States for a baptism; she was the Godmother, and Manuel was the Godfather. But it wasn’t long before she began planning her move to the States to see Manuel more. “Remove the bars, remove the barriers, and I can assure you he’s a perfect man,” she said. Arriving in the States, Sylvia began visiting as often as possible. Once a month turned into twice a month and, eventually, she moved her two children to Auburn so she could see Manuel almost every day. They were in love.

“The situation is sad. I can’t say that it’s not,” Sylvia said. “But that is just part of our marriage, the waiting.”

And so Sylvia will wait: “Like Manuel said, the future is ours and we are going to get it,” she said. “This is a life project. This is a project of love.”

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