washed, brushed, fed, like a prize pig

And will as tenderly be led by th' noseAs asses are

Even now, now, very now, an old black ramIs tupping your white ewe.

you’ll have yourdaughter covered with a Barbary horse. You’ll have yournephews neigh to you. You’ll have coursers for cousinsand gennets for germans.

The Doctrine of Discovery established a spiritual, political, and legal justification for colonization and seizure of land not inhabited by Christians.

Sergio: What's one of the first memories you have of the US?Rodolfo: One of the very first memories I have of the US, was, I was in a truck with my mom—I'm not sure if this was before or after the fact, that we had already arrived because we arrived in Phoenix, Arizona—was somebody asking my mom, "Have you and your son ate?" I remember my mom telling him, "No, but I have a sandwich here and some snacks for him." He went, "No, here, you're in America now, you're in Phoenix now, let's go get a burger." I remember that somebody bought me—I don't know if it was her or him, the driver—a kid's meal from MacDonald's. This is when they had... I'm not sure…it was like the little hand-held games. I'm not sure, I think it was the Rug Rats or something like that. I remember getting that little toy and thinking, wow, it's a kid's... It had little fries and a burger, and you get a toy.Rodolfo: It was the first time I had ever saw that, and I got really happy, because I was playing the little game and all that. I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. After then, we went into a room... it couldn't have been more... It was just a standard living room, but there was probably like 50 or 60 people in there. Some of them were sitting and it smelled horrible. It obviously wasn't the best place. I guess it was just for people waiting for their relatives to go pick them up or something, I'm not sure. It was just my mother and I and I remember there was a lady with a big pot, and she was just cooking. I'm not sure what she was cooking but we went into another room and all I remember hearing was a big slam.Rodolfo: I looked back and it was a cage. It was literally like they fashioned a metal door with metal bars between the thresholds of the living room from end to end so nobody could get out. Then the windows were the same, they had burglar bars so nobody would get out. I was wondering, why is this happening? At that time, obviously, you were a kid, you don't understand what's going on. First I got fed, I have a little game, and now I'm in this steel cage that smells horrible. I remember somebody arguing with the other person that, "The bucket was full. The bucket was full." I was hearing that, "You need to empty out this bucket." I realized that was the bathroom, that's why it smelled so horrible.Rodolfo: I remember the guy just closing a curtain, and just telling me to, "Shut up." That's when I felt fear for the first time. Even though I was in the desert and everything, that's the very, very first time I felt genuine fear. I didn't know what was going on. I felt it because my mom felt it. She was just hugging me, and that was like the last thing I remember. After that I remember just waking up in the apartment complex. In a room, but it was completely different, it was somebody else. I guess these people knew my mother, because they spoke to her by name and everything. That was one of the very first memories.

Isabel: Yeah. I understand how you would really not want to ask anything from your dad, but it seems like you had to ask for help there. I skipped one part of the story and I just want to backtrack because I think it’s important. You were held by ICE [Immigrations and Customs Enforcemen] for detention for two months?Angelo: Yes.Isabel: Two months. Do you mind just touching on the conditions or like the treatment you experienced there?Angelo: As soon as I got into immigration…it was Houston. So I mean the immigration center, was, I can't say it was things falling down, things breaking apart, it was all right. What the thing that was scary, very scary was that before the first time that I went to court just talking to people, they will tell me that they'd been there three, four years fighting their case. And they had moms and dads that were United States, residents, citizens, and they were still there fighting their case. And I would ask them, "If you don't fight your case, what happens? And they said, "Well, you know, they deport you tomorrow." And I called my dad and I told him, "Look, dad, I don't want to be here three, four years. I don't want to be here. I'll sign my deportation."Angelo: And whenever I went to court, even though I had already told that to my dad, I still tried to fight for me being there, I talked to the judge and the judge told me, “You have a criminal charge in the United States and you're considered a threat, you're considered a criminal and you're considered a threat to the safety of our citizens.” Those are the exact words that he said, “You are a threat to our citizens.” And I told him, "Okay, well hold on. I have 20 years here, I have four kids here, my brothers are here and my whole family's here. You can't tell me this." And it was literally a one, two, three step process with him. There was no emotion with him. It was, "No, this is your option, sign, fight your case. But I guarantee you right now that you're not going to win your case."Angelo: So it was like, "Why are you giving me the option to fight my case if...[Sigh]" So I told him, "Okay, well let's sign." And literally the next day, that's when I got deported. And it was just me not wanting to be there, seeing everybody at immigration being there three or four years, and literally they had more chance of staying than I did. Favors were more on their side than they were ever on mine. So I said to myself, "If they can't do it, what makes you think that you're going to be able to stay?" And that was my main decision for me signing the voluntary deportation so I wouldn't be incarcerated anymore. I didn't want to be treated as a criminal anymore. I never felt like I was a criminal, and I got surrounded with criminals.Angelo: I got surrounded with people that -- I had to change my whole way of being. I had to exercise a lot, I had to change my way of being, I had to be so cold, so reserved just stay to myself because I didn't want anybody to mess with me. I wasn't meant for that. I was meant to be a father, I was meant to be a household person, I wasn't meant to be imprisoned, and it even got to me and I told myself, “No,” because there will be a lot of guards that would tell me, "You're a dirty Mexican." And there will be a lot of times where I would question myself, and I said, "Okay, well your bunkmate, he's here for murder, he's spending here his rest of his life, you're getting treated bad. Well, maybe you are a criminal, maybe you should just start being a criminal." And it was just so hard for me to stay focused on, "No, you got to get out of this, you're going to get out of this."Angelo: And at any given moment it would've been so easy for me to just explode or something bad to happen, and I just had to concentrate so much on just getting through that. Every single time that I got called something, it was just put your head down and, "Okay, no, you're right." And it was like that throughout the whole time of me being in prison and in immigration. It was just that, "You're a dirty Mexican." And there was nothing that you could ever say to them. If you said something to them, it was a five-year charge added to you. So it was just keep your mouth shut, do what they're telling you, and just keep your head down and stay out the way. And that's literally how I survived being in prison. I stuck to myself and I didn't mess what anybody.

Largely from this fact, have arisen their cultural gifts to America