Mike: And it hit me in the face. I was like, "Damn, my mom went through a lot of sacrifices and it sucks." I was embarrassed because I'm like, "Damn, I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything with the blessings that I got." I felt bad. But in a way I feel like everything is for a reason.Mike: I feel like I'm here for a reason and whatever I need to do to help, or whatever my little part I have to put in, I feel like this is why I'm here, and I'm just waiting on that so I could go back and just be with my kids.

Mike: And a lot of thing is survival too. A lot of people have to survive. A lot of people don't have the luxury of being able to get up, go to work every day. A lot of people wish that they had a job. Would kill to just get up early and just get that paycheck. I know a lot of families that they have to go through the most, but they still do it, because they have to. They have no choice. And it's way better than here. And I didn't understand that until now.

Mike: I feel like it has a lot to do with you realizing that it's not like people say, because in America you're taught to believe if you really want something you could achieve it. And when you realize that that doesn't apply to you, that's what I feel like that's the big spiral down that you go to.

Mike: But I believe that if you're really, really dedicated, anything is possible, and I feel like that country made me realize it. That hope. That even though I'm here, if I made it out there I could make it out here. And I just love America. There's nowhere else that's the same as that spot. It taught me a lot of things and I feel like both of them are like my mother countries. They're just like my stepmother. But I love both countries to death.

Mike: I feel like I'm a Mexican American. You learn to love your country when you're young, because of your parents and your culture, but at the same time you see all these opportunities that are given to you by going to the United States. And a lot of things that people say in the United States is bullshit.

Mike: It's funny as I used to always have a dream of me actually speaking. You know how Martin Luther King did? And this is crazy because I always had this dream every night where I'd be speaking just like him and I'd have crowds just like him. I still feel like I'm going to change society in a positive way.Mike: I don't know why. I'm just the type of person that I care about everybody. I see the bigger picture, because I used to be selfish and only for myself, but I got my eyes open. I just want to be a help. I want to be the person that I wish I had growing up. That's what I want to do. Whatever it is.Anne: And so your dreams are the same? US, Mexico, that's what you want to be?Mike: Yeah. I still don't know because I don't even know what road to take. There's so many, but I just want to help. Like I said, I want to be the person that I never had growing up. I don't know what that is though still, or whatever it is.

Mike: My kids. My kids. That's the one thing that I just—I don't even need anything. It's just my kids.

Anne: Yeah. Are you in contact with your mother—Mike: Oh yeah.Anne: And your siblings?Mike: Oh yeah. Every day. They're really good. My sister's going to get married pretty soon. My brother just opened a company. This little LLC for solar. And then my other brother just got a house. But yeah, everybody's doing good.Anne: Are they permanent residents or not?Mike: My younger brothers are not from there, but my two sisters are.Mike: My stepdad is not.

Mike: Because this is the reason that I moved, my dad was telling me that rent was one thing, but he was just telling the landlord that he knew to charge me extra. He was telling me it was 3,500, but the landlord was keeping 2,500 and giving him 1,000 of it. And I had found out, because the own landlord lady told me, and I had to move and I had to lose my job.

Mike: I remember this is the first time that he played me too and I was like, "Oh I got to watch out for this guy." So they charged me 200 pesos to do a whole bag of laundry, right? Well I hadn't remembered that when I first moved in, I had a smaller bag of laundry and my dad gave me the receipt and it was like 600 pesos, right?Mike: A couple of months later I had gone to the laundry place and I had an even bigger bag, because I had bought more clothes. So I know I had more clothes than before. So they gave me the receipt, and it's written 200 pesos. I told my dad, "Dad, remember the last time you told me that it was this," he started laughing like in my face, like, "Oh, what are you talking about?"Mike: And that's when I knew I was like, "Damn, I got to watch out for this guy." You know what I mean? Because they love you, that's your family, but they feel like you got it—because you're from there, or you came from there, or your family's going to support you. So he'd always try to get as much as he could. That's why I felt like I got to kind of stay away from him. Those are the people you've got to love, but keep your distance from.

Mike: Yeah. Teletech. I had to quit though because I was moving. I didn't have enough money, because I feel like over here when people know that you're not from here—or that you're from over there—they take advantage. And I feel like my dad kind of took advantage of me. He basically said that things were one price, but they were totally different.

. It’s the hardest at night—just knowing that you used to sleep everyday with them in your bed. And just when you're alone in that bed, just thinking about everything, that's when it really hits you. It just like bop right in the face. But other than that, Mexico has been good to me. I’ve gotten blessed with that job.

Mike: So they were like, "Dude, you got to do something. You either going to jail or to fight it, the case. But you're going to jail. You've got to be in jail and you can't be out while you're fighting this case, or you do a voluntary departure and you go." At that time I felt like I wasn't any good to anybody. I didn’t want to be a burden on my family." So I just left. This is just something that I felt like I had to do. I knew if I ran away, I was never going to be able to provide for my kids, because I was always going to have to try to find a way to provide for myself. And I didn't want that for them. So I just did a voluntary departure. I just said, "Screw it."

Mike: They took me downstairs, checked me, and then they let me go. But then they told me that I had a court date. Little did I know in the next two days somebody came to pick me up from ICE, so I had to go with them. They placed me there for a couple of days, more. Two or three days more. I stayed in the ICE facility for two or three days and then they let me out and then that's when I had to go to court. Keep going to court. Keep going to court until finally I couldn't stall it anymore.

Mike: I had it in my ear when I was coming out of the—there was a hotel and the casino and in the middle they joined and in that middle part there is security. So I was walking out going to the casino and they seen it in my ear and they're like, "What is that?" And I was like, "Aw damn, I'm done." I knew it so I was like, "Dude, I'm done."

And that's the day I got caught up with the blunt in my ear and the security caught me. From there on, I had to go to court fighting the cases and then basically I just like—

Mike: Yeah. I had to. That's the only thing that I could do. And I remembered to try to be good with the mother of my kids, I went after she invited me to go with one of her friends because they had a hotel in a resort casino. And I remember that I just wanted to please her. I wanted to make her happy.Mike: So again it's really hard to make someone happy when you can't provide for them. So every little thing, I was just trying to be kind of a kiss ass. And yeah, I went with her. I didn't like her friend. I hated her friend. It's just one of her friends that always made her do bad stuff.

Mike: Yeah. And it takes a long time the process for immigration. So I had some time there, actually I was like a year and a half, where I was doing everything legal. Doing my taxes, getting my taxes back, just doing everything that normal US citizens got to do. And then just one day I got that letter in the mail and I just had to give it all up.Mike: I remember we had to go in this office, we gave everything back and then they told us like, "Basically don't get in trouble, because that's your ass" [Chuckle]. I was just stunned. I'm like, "How could people do you like..." You know what I mean? Especially me growing up, I wanted to be something in my community. I wanted to change for the better. I felt like I could have contributed to my community, not only to my community, but basically just become something that people look up to or follow. But it didn't work out like it does.

Mike: So that was our rainbow child, Eli, and that's when I started going downhill, because my stuff got denied. I didn't have the privileges that every normal US citizen gets to have. So I had two kids, no way to provide for them.

Mike: No, no, no. I got us an apartment. I was working, I had gotten a car and the thing was crazy because everything started working out all by itself. I feel like it was blessing, after blessing, after blessing. And at that time, that's when I was getting my work permit. I got my social. That was all at that time. So I was able to provide for my kids. I was able to provide for the mother of my kids.

Mike: Oh yeah, drugs, man. It's just it didn't really get to me. But I could see if I didn't have that motivation in myself, I could see how it would be really easy to just go down a spiral and just drug binge. But luckily thank God that that didn't happen to me. But weed I would usually use it a lot, because it was my coping mechanism.Mike: When you smoke, it makes you feel like nothing is important. All your problems go away basically. And it was just like a coping mechanism to just go on every day with my life. I felt like if I didn't have that, there was no point. My life was whack.... There was one point in time that I had to smoke before I do something fun.Mike: It got to that point and it sucked, because I'm like, "You had so much energy. You did so many things and now it's like you got to smoke weed to have fun." You know what I mean? But that's the only thing I had a problem with. I've tried drugs, but it never really got something to where I could say like, "Dang bro, you're addicted. You need to stop."

Mike: Yeah. Marijuana. I feel like some people don't classify it as a drug, but at the same time, when you're depressed or when you're going through stuff, it really affects you. It affects every decision that you make. And, of course, everybody—I've tried drugs, I'm not going to say exactly which one, but I've experimented.Mike: I've never really liked it though. I don't like to be high because I used to fight a lot. I would always see that when I would smoke, I would always get beat up. This is an everyday thing fighting, because you have to. You are in the wrong hood, you're wearing the wrong color, you're going to get beat up.

Mike: Not even that, it's just getting with my stepdad. I'd always had trouble listening to male authority, just because I didn't have that at all. So every time he would tell me to do something, I'd get so mad. I just want to punch him in the face. And it sucked, man, because he would always try to tell me stuff—he would do it for my own good.Mike: He would never get out of hand talk to me, but I would always explode on him. I would treat him like the parent that I never had who wanted to be back in my life. So you know you could kind of treat him like however you want? That's how I would treat him. And I just started realizing over time my dad just—this guy really cares about us. He's providing for five kids and still doesn't ask for anything.Mike: It just started growing on me and we started getting along and it started getting better. But yeah, I would not get along with my mom, or my dad at all. And my mom was—I feel like a lot of Mexican women and men, they have something against black folks even if you want to or not. I feel like that's racist too, because my mom would always be like, "Why do you hang out with them? Why do you do this? Why do you do that?"Mike: I'm like, "Because they're cool, man. They're like... I feel like these are my people. They've gone through the same struggles, a lot of the same stuff that happened to them. They would happen to me." So I would always bring them over, and I remember one time my mom got so mad she grabbed an orange and threw it at my friend, but my friend was so tall, he just caught it.Mike: These were kids from Nigeria. They're African—these guys are like, "Whoa." So he caught it and then he just said hi to my mom. My mom was so mad that day, man. I didn't come home for like two or three days just because of that. I got a lot of stories. I'm sorry I get out of track.

Mike: Basically it was just petty things. They would always catch us for skipping school. One time I remember my friend went into a gas station and stole some cigarettes, which is—how do you grab the cigarettes in the back counter? And I was with that guy. Fights. I also loved fighting. It's just a way of me just getting my anger out.Mike: I got a lot of disorderly conducts and it was for fighting. It's just something about fighting that just releases the stress. It just releases my anger. And since I didn't want to take it on my family, I would just always, whoever wanted it, I'd be the first one to step in. And it's crazy because I was the shortest one I remember. I was the shortest one man.

Mike: No, that was actually... She was still in high school. She was in senior year I believe. I wasn't in high school anymore, I was working at that time, working for the Solar Spot. I had barely started working for the Solar Spot and she kind of gave me motivation to do better. When you have somebody, you want to take them out and do extra stuff. So you're like, "Yeah man, I got to get this money."Mike: And that was another motivation that helped me kind of get up at a higher level than I was. But it was just a lot of stuff. When you have kids young, you think you want something, but you don't know. It's just like you think you like the person but you don't like them. You just like them for their looks or their body, and that was my mistake. And yes, she actually told me if I wanted to marry her.Mike: I didn't like her and I didn't want to do that to her. But she was just wanting to help me out so I could get my papers, but I couldn't do it to her, man. I just imagine myself like, "Damn, she's going to marry me." And then like, "What if I'm not the right one, and then she's going to have to go. She's taking that sacrifice for me. I don't feel like that's fair."

Mike: I was almost there, and my AIMS... Everything I passed it except for the math. I passed all my AIMS exams. You know the test that you take at the end of the year, Stanford or AIMS or whatever they are?Anne: Yeah.Mike: I passed all of them except for my math. My senior year I actually passed it, but I didn't graduate. I just would go to school, literally eat lunch, just get out. It got boring for me and I was really good. I should have never started.Mike: I remember I was taking Japanese, I was taking English, social studies, a bunch of extra stuff just to try to advance my knowledge and stuff, but I don't know. Once you don't get that motivation and wants to stop, it sucks.

I remember my teacher, Ms. Garcia—I'll never forget her, she's an angel. She signed us up for this program where you could go ride along with the cop and you would go to a store, you had $200 and you could buy whatever you want.

Mike: That was going on high school. I think it was my freshman year, because like I said man, it's just all these things that happen to you, there's just only so much you could take to where you're like, "You know what? Eff it." You're just done with everybody and you're just like, "You know what? If life paid me back like this, then why should I care?" You know what I mean? And it makes me feel like inferior at times.Mike: So yeah, I feel like it was around my freshman year, everything started going downhill, because I used to be in events, classes, and all my teachers loved me. I would have conversations like this with my teachers and they'd be amazed sometimes like, "Wow, this kid has so much insight. So much to talk about." And they would always encourage me, but the thing about it is I wouldn't feel like that.

Mike: I feel like I kind of took the burden of kind of being the man of the house that, that kind of just wore me down. So my brothers and sisters seen that and I was kind of like the black sheep, but I was like an example. Like, "Oh, don't be like him." So I feel like I wasn't there to help them, or to actually guide them like a big brother should, but at least I was like, "Okay, don't be like him." You know what I mean?

Mike: It was gang members. I used to hang out with people that they didn't care for themselves. I remember walking into my friend's house and the house was just like, "Oh my God." It was like a tornado went in and I usually don't hang out with people like this. I was so scared just being in that house and I just started getting used to it, because those are the people that I could not relate to, but I had something in common like, "Okay if you're not ish, then I'm not an ish either."Mike: So we relate and I feel like kind of adopted. They kind of adopted me. The streets adopted me kind of in a way. I didn't really have a relationship with my family. When there was a family events or anything, I felt like an outcast. I would never go to them. Christmas, I was always in my room. Every little... It's just weird man. Everything messed me up. I feel like traumatic. Just the trauma of everything.

Mike: I started hanging out with the wrong kind of kids. These other kids that wouldn't go to school and I noticed what type of kids I was hanging out with. I noticed the difference, because there's productive people that make you want to do better, and there's this people that just see you and they want to see you do as bad as them.Mike: So they kind of drag you down under. I felt like I just wanted to fit in kind of because all my life I felt like I wasn't equal—I don't know how to explain it. It's just I just wanted to fit in kind of, not feel like I wasn't as good as them, because I felt like I was always inferior, because I didn't have the things that they had.

Mike: Yeah. But they didn't tell us that if he wasn't from there, that it didn't apply to us. And since he's not a resident, or he's not anything, they just took it all away. But they gave me a social security card. They gave me a work permit. They gave me everything that I needed. I even got my taxes one year [Emotional]. I got $3,000 back, put my taxes on my wall, like I'm really doing it.

Mike: None of them, they still don't have kids. So I look up to that man a lot, because he's done a lot of sacrifices. At the same time, we're like the push he needed. So we both helped each other out.Anne: They're still in Arizona?Mike: Yeah, he's actually married to my mom. They got a house. I don't know how they do it, but they're blessed. Good people, do good things, I feel like you get blessed. Yeah, good karma just come back.

Mike: Yes. Yes. A lot of them. A lot of things. If we didn't do, they probably would have had to do, because if it wasn't me, it would've been the next one. And they did have to go through that stuff too, in a way, because sometimes I couldn't do it, because I'd be in school doing something really, really important. My mom would be like, "No, just stay in school. Do this. Do that."Mike: So it's like she would take my other little brothers. But somebody always had to watch my little sisters. Yeah, it was just we took turns and stuff, but I feel like everybody felt it. Everybody got a chance to go through that stuff even if they didn't want to [Chuckle].

Mike: Sometimes you'd go to school, sometimes you wouldn't. It just depended on if you had money or if there was food on the table. But I got used to it. There's just only so much crying you could do basically until you're like, "You know what? You just got to have that solid heart so nothing can hurt you."

Mike: Yeah. I would sell CDs. Me and my mom would be the breadwinners basically. There was no other way. I was the only one that talked English, and it was just hard.

Mike: Yeah. But we were used to it though. I was used to it at least, because growing up my mom didn't have a job so she couldn't provide for us even if she wanted to, because she's illegal. So what we would do is we would make fake CDs, and every morning I would just wake up, go to different little towns and stuff, sell CDs.

Mike: Yeah. I didn't go to school, because my dad thought that if something happened... And I remember one time the cops came to my house, because my little brother was playing outside and it was school hours. And they're like, "What is this kid doing outside?" And I remember him crying outside, because the cops got him. And I was like, "Oh my God, what do I do?"

On the last day of the month, I opened the freezer, and there's nothing in there. Nothing at all. And I'm like, "What am I going to do? What am I going to feed my little brothers and sisters?" And then I was just like, "You know what? I'm just going to go to the store and just steal something. A bag of chips, whatever." So I go in the store and the guy was really nice. He was an Arab guy. He was always telling me, "Hey, just pay me back tomorrow."

So I was with my two little brothers and my little sister was born by that time. She was like three, four. We stayed a whole month with nobody just by ourselves in the house.

Mike: She took us to Los Angeles to live with my uncle, and I remember we moved back to Arizona, because we thought my dad wasn't there anymore. Well, we were staying in this little spot called Conway, Arizona—like two, three months. And at that time my dad found us—because one of my family members told him where we were—and he tied my mom up, went in there with another guy, masks on and kidnapped us.Mike: He took us to Texas for two years. We were actually on the news as missing children. If you look me up, I have all our photos. We were gone for two years, and the reason that they found us was because my dad was actually trying to rob a wheel store—rim store. He broke in and the police got him, and they took him to jail, but they had no idea who he was or he was being looked for.

Yes. I remember the first place I got to was Tucson. We had gone to Taco Bell. I love Taco Bell. That's why I love Taco Bell. I remember that now. I was like, "Damn, why do I like Taco Bell?" But yeah, I remember I came in a Taco Bell and I had thorns from the cactus stuck in my feet and I remember they got infected.Mike: All this green and pus was coming out and a lady from the Taco Bell gave us some food, and let us stay with her. Really good people too. I remember that every time I think about that. But we started living with them and then we started getting side jobs here and there. There was also a point in time where my dad and my mom really didn't get along.

Mike: My dad was already in the States. But a couple of years passed after we crossed the border, my mom and my dad didn't get along, and my dad was really controlling and abusive. So my mom ran away and took us to Los Angeles to live with my uncle. And, at that time, my dad didn't know where we were, because my mom was really scared.

So, but I did a voluntary departure, because I want to see my kids. I got two kids actually. So I want to see my kids and I want to do it legally.

Something in my ear. A blunt in my ear. And it was in a hotel.Mike: It was a hotel casino. And the security stopped me and they told me, “What was that?” And since it was marijuana was illegal they told me I had to go to jail. So I went to jail. I stayed a day—

I was blessed to find a job actually with my stepdad. My stepdad did all the solar stuff—solar panels.Anne: Solar panels?Mike: Yeah. So I started working in the solar business with him, and it was actually good money. Really, really good money.

Mike: Yeah. And right there, from then on I was just like, "You know what? It's whatever. What's the point of even trying?" It kind of messed me up, got me depressed a little bit. I started hanging out with bad people, doing the wrong things, and I dropped out my senior year.

I noticed all my friends getting jobs and having new shoes and this and that. And I would ask him like, "What are you doing?" And he was like, "I just got a job. I got a car. I got this."Mike: I could see them--that they were advancing in life, and I was still in the same spot. So I asked my mom if I could get a job, and that's when she broke it down to me that I wasn't even from here. And that was right there like a slap in the face.

Mike: I was doing really good. I was actually doing advanced classes, and this was all from first grade onto middle school. I was doing a lot of extra stuff,

Mike: After that I got to the United States and I started going to school. I didn't really know English, so that was kind of tough, but I picked it up quick, because kids out there are just like—or kids anywhere you know how they could be.

Mike: I was in kindergarten when I crossed the border and, yeah, I remember it was tough. I remember we didn't have any water, and the coyotes had beer and I was so thirsty and they kept telling me, "No, you don't want this. You don't want this." But I was so thirsty, I just took a drink and it was the best thing in life. [Laughs] I think that's why I kind of like it now, but I don't have a problem with it, but...

Mike: And I remember it was me, my mother, my two little brothers—my sisters weren't born at the time—and the two coyotes, the people that cross you. Yeah, I remember that, because that was really, really hard. Just being three days in the desert, especially when you're like three or four, that right there just takes a toll—

When I was really young, I had gotten accident that required surgery and I needed to get that surgery done, so when I went to the hospital and get it done there was actually a couple of people from a criminal organization that were supposed to, I guess, kill somebody in there. I remember this like it was yesterday. I had a little breathing mask on and the doctor was telling me to breathe when he counted the eight, I could just hear the gunshots.

Luisa: I think they've gained a lot. I think Mexico has gained a lot, but they don't know how to appreciate it. They pretty much throw us aside. Unfortunately, the Mexican government does not think that people who are returning from the States have anything to offer, and they're dead wrong about that. Honestly, if you look at a lot of these people that are coming back, they have so much to offer. They have so much to give and they have so much drive and they're hungry, but they don't make it easy for us.

Luisa: International relations because I am a fucking citizen of the world. Every time somebody asks me, "Where are you from?" I have no idea how to answer because I don't feel Mexican and I don't feel American. I don't know what I am, so fuck it. I'm going to be a citizen of the world [Chuckles]. I'm going to take all of this and I'm going to be international. That's it. That's it. We're going to be international. That's it, because genuinely, honest to God, I don't know how to answer when somebody asks me.

Anita: Was the snow Chicago?Luisa: Yes. I miss the snow like crazy [Continues crying]. I remember the first Christmas we spent here was … It didn't feel like Christmas. It did not feel like Christmas. It felt weird. I wasn't used to it.

My literature teacher was extremely understanding. I thank him for that. He was the one that asked me to write and I wrote a short story about a sparrow getting lost in the snow and then turning up in the jungle, and the sparrow makes friends with all the cockatoos and the snake and the anaconda and they're all bros and he learns to speak their language—not very well, but he learns.Luisa: The sparrow gets old and keeps living there and he's like, "You know what? I love this place and I love my friends, and even though it kills me to leave all my friends behind here in the jungle, I need to go back to my home," [Chokes up] so the sparrow makes his journey and he dies. He makes it to the snow and he dies looking at the tree where he had his nest. [Crying] My literature teacher I think was pretty impacted by that. He was pretty understanding.

Luisa: I was extremely depressed. I didn't even want to leave the house because I didn't want to be reminded of the fact that I was not in the States anymore, because it was ugly. It was ugly where we lived.

Luisa: I do. I remember my dogs. I remember my mom. I remember my dad. I remember my grandparents. I remember everything, and they didn't remember anything. Their entire life was over there, so that's just my bitterness. We moved back and I was so depressed. I don't think I've ever been that depressed in my life. I had to go back to high school because … even with the IB program. I killed myself. What was that worth, all that effort, and all that [Chokes up]? What was it worth? Nothing. I had to go back to this broken education system in Mexico which I could run laps around the fucking curriculum and I had to redo it in order to go to university, and fuck, that sucked.

Luisa: I made the decision of returning, and I uprooted my sisters. My little sister was a year old when we left. She knew nothing about Mexico. She barely spoke Spanish, so I selfishly made everyone move back to Mexico.Anita: Because?Luisa: Because I wanted to continue my education.

Luisa: Yes, and that's when it had come out. Right when I had graduated high school was when DACA came out, and my mom said no. She made me feel extremely selfish for wanting it. She let me know that, "You know what? Yes, you're going to get what you want, but you're going to affect all of us." But in my mom's mind and I think in every single Mexican or undocumented person's mind is that distrust of the government. That they're going to have you in this database and they're going to know exactly where you live and who lives with you and where you are. I don't want that, and she did not allow that. I know. I know. I could've, but I didn't.

Luisa: I was set to go into a good future. That's what it was, but when it came down to it, my mom was like, "No. You know what? You can't. You don't have papers. You can't continue your education here. We cannot afford to pay your entire tuition. We cannot afford to pay for your housing or your books. Each book, that's like $5000 for books. We can't do that. I'm sorry."

Luisa: I wanted Northwestern. I had my eye set on Northwestern. I don't know what it was about Northwestern that called to me, but I wanted Northwestern. That's what I wanted, and it wasn't unachievable. One of my friends got into Brown University and she had worse grades than I did, so I was like, "Northwestern's going to be easy. I got this." I wanted to be an oncologist—yes, an oncologist, cancer. I don't know why [Chuckles]. I don't know. Human tragedy, I wanted to save people. That's been my thing. I want to save people. I want to make people better. So [Pause] I killed myself in school. 4.6 GPA. I had all these extracurriculars.

The environmental club, everything. I started doing a bunch of community work—I always liked community work anyway. Shelters, dog shelters, everything. I did everything.

So I started swimming, track, volleyball, softball, everything, extracurriculars like crazy, book club.

Luisa: I wanted to be challenged and I did my research. Whitney Young is supposed to be for people who are gifted and I wanted to be challenged. I wanted something more. Everything has always been extremely easy for me. When I put my mind to it, I get what I want. It sounds bad, but it's true. I think the problem with human beings is that you’re your only true enemy. You block yourself from doing everything in life, and the moment that you accept you can do everything, you can actually do everything [Laughs, sniffles].Luisa: That's what I wanted. I wanted a challenge. I wanted something more. I wanted teachers who actually listened. I wanted teachers who paid attention. I didn't want teachers who were bored and sick of it because these students are like Puerto Rican and gang members and they don't matter. I didn't want that. I wanted somebody who cared, but I didn't get that. I kind of got it. I got the IB program, which was great [Chuckles]. Still not a challenge. It was still not a challenge.

The first time was when I wanted to apply to Whitney Young—when I wanted to go to a different high school. I had the grades for it [Chuckles]. I've always had the grades for it, but they were asking … I don't remember what kind of document they were asking for that scared me into not applying, and I was like, "You know what? Let’s not. I don't want to. It's not worth it if I get deported. I don't need to be—it's not necessary." So I went to my local high school, which … not the best high school, Washington High School, but they had the IB program.

You can't let them know, so they don't really know you. It's a big part of it. You can't share the fear with anyone. You can't share this anxiety that you live with every single day. My mom was driving around and every time she'd drive, it was anxiety. I'd feel anxiety because what if she got pulled over? My mom—she’s an amazing driver—but what if she got pulled over? What if we got caught? That's it for everyone. We're done. That kind of thing affects you and you're not allowed to tell anyone. You have to live in the shadows. Nobody really knows.

Luisa: J___, who was a friend of mine, was undocumented and she said, "I am undocumented. I am a Mexican citizen. I am not an American." She was put into a little room and she was not allowed to go in. She was just caged in there and that was very … that marked me like, no, I can't tell anyone. I'm seeing what's happening to these people. I can't tell anyone, so nobody ever knew.

Luisa: Yes, this is a secret. My mother did not allow us to talk about it. Even when it came up, I could feel my heart shake and my palms get sweaty because I was so scared of getting deported. That was such a big thing. I remember we went to this science center.

Luisa: Her mother, I remember one time she's driving me home, and she asks extremely aggressively if I am illegal or not. And I remember being scared like a deer in the headlights. “No, I'm not. I'm not.” I was so scared of this mostly because one of my uncles saw somebody—an ex-girlfriend, I think it was, pretty much accused him of being illegal. He was deported and we had this huge thing in our heads that if somebody knew we were illegal, we were going to be deported and ripped away from everything that we knew. So I was not allowed to tell anyone.Luisa: To this day, none of my friends know that I had no papers. None of them. That's saying a lot because [Chuckles]—

For example, my best friend, a Yugoslavian, her family is extremely very, very white [Chuckles]. Her grandparents are Yugoslavian. Fun fact, her grandfather was in the Second World War. I got a lot of good stories from him. [Laughs]Luisa: He was a prisoner of war. [Pause] Her mother asked me—and I mean this girl would spend every single day at my home, or I would spend every single day at her home or her grandparents’ home. If my mom couldn't find me, she'd call L___’s mom and if L___'s mom couldn't find me, she'd call my mom, and that's how it was. Her sister would call me like, "Hey. Could you tell L___ that she needs to come on this day because we're going to have the family barbecue? You're invited, too, obviously." All family events I was invited to. I was at her cousin's wedding. That's how involved we were. We were best friends.

Luisa: She allowed him. Honestly, I respect my mom a lot for never speaking badly upon my dad. To this day, she will not say bad things about my father. Whatever may have happened with them, she knows that that's on them and she knows that our relationship with my father is completely separate from their relationship, and I admire that greatly because I don't think I'd be able to separate the two that easily. No, she never spoke badly upon him, but I think ... My dad said this in the entire life that I'm his favorite child, and I think that was also the way of my mother getting back at him for everything that he did to her, which is not right, but we're human beings.

Luisa: Yes, my dad hired somebody to find us. My mom really did not leave any trace at all. She just pretty much left like a thief in the night, literally [Chuckles]. They eventually tracked us down and I got a phone call. We got a phone call. I think it was one of my grandparents who answered. Very reluctantly, they handed over the phone and it was my dad and I remember crying. I remember being hysterical. I remember being like, "Oh, my God. This is my dad. He's here. This is my dad. He's not gone.” It's weird, but I thought it was two different worlds and, in this world, I no longer can have my dad. That was the way I started to cope with it. The States were not my dad and this is where my dad was, so we were on different planets now. It was not something that was possible.Luisa: Then my dad came to visit and I remember begging him to take me with him, and my mom was not having it. She was not having it at all. By this point, I think he had already remarried, but she was not having it.

Luisa: Yes. There came a point. We were in the [Pause] process of getting our permanent residency card in order to be able to go to school, and the lawyer let my mother know that me and my sister—my other sister—were not going to make it because once you hit eighteen, you're no longer under the case that you originally filed, so the best option for us would be adoption. We would be adopted by an American citizen in order to get our American status fixed, and that was something my mom and I contemplated for a long, long time, and she was going to go through with it, but my dad put a huge stop to that and was like, "That's not happening. You're stupid. That's not a thing. These are my kids. You're not letting that happen."Luisa: It was going to be a family member, not a close family member, but these were the lengths that you go through to try to get through this. I didn't have a normal childhood. I never got to learn to drive. I didn't go to drivers ed. I didn't get to travel with my best friend to DisneyLand because my mom was so scared of—

Luisa: [Sniffles] Because of my mom, I got to meet extremely interesting people that opened up my worldview more so than it already was, because reading transports you to different places and different languages and cultures and you learn so much, and you feel like you have actually been there, but you've never been. It's funny, but that's how it works. My mom, she started working for this store [unclear] and she was doing her design school, and they specialized in Muslim attire and my mom was like, "You know what? I'm going to be independent," so she moves aside. She starts her own thing, and she starts making a bunch of clothes.

Luisa: I'm not sure if you're familiar with Maus, the comic books. I painted this huge painting because I painted as well [Chuckles]. Yes, I paint, as well. It was another emotional or creative outlet that I had, and I painted this huge thing for him and he still has it. I've asked him about it recently and he'll take a picture of the painting.

Luisa: There was this one book by Clive Owen, I believe, something about the demons. I don't know. We had a huge discussion about that book. He would give me a bunch of books from his collection and we would discuss it. We would discuss the original. We would discuss Niccolò Machiavelli. I actually have “the end justifies the means” tattooed on me.It’s tattooed back here. Realism to me was … it's real. Human beings are selfish by nature, but the beauty of it is that we have our own free will and we can go above our nature and we can do great things, so this just reminds me that I'm not just an animal that's looking for my own benefit, if that makes sense.

Luisa: Mr. R. is the best teacher I have had and he changed my life. Mr. R is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful human being. [Pause] I had a lot of teachers that would not … They would question me and they would ... All the stuff that I would write, they would question if I was okay mentally because of all this darkness [Chuckles] that I would write about, because a lot of my stories or a lot of my poetry was extremely dark. I don't think that's a bad thing you know. I think that's just trying to get rid of the … it's a catalyst. You're trying to get rid of everything that's inside of you, and that's how I did it.Luisa: Mr. R was the first one that recognized it as something good. We still keep in touch—beautiful human being. I knew this. He would speak to me like we were adults—like I was an adult. I was a thirteen-year-old girl and we had conversations like adults. I don't know how appropriate it was or what he saw in me, but we had conversations like adults. I would stay after class for hours just discussing books that he would give me, and he would give me books out of his collection for me to read.

Luisa: Yes. I've read Freud, Nietzsche. Crime and Punishment was a huge one. That one changed me a lot. There's this thought of, “are you above the law? Is anybody above the law?” Yes, I was big on reading. I loved reading [Chuckles]. Then absurdism. I'm big on reading [Chuckles].

Luisa: No, I read historical fiction as well. I had an obsession with the Yellow Fever and the Bubonic Plague. I had an obsession with the original Los Cantos [Los Cantos de Maldoror], The Iliad, The Odyssey, Dante's Inferno. I was fascinated with Dante's Inferno, and then I got into Boticelli, the man who actually portrayed Dante's Inferno. So yes, I was a huge reader [Chuckles].Luisa: I was fascinated by human tragedy—extremely fascinated by human tragedy. There came a point where all I read was about the Holocaust, children's tales, Anne Frank's tales, and The Book Thief. I have a signed copy of The Book Thief because it is one of my favorite books ever. Have you read The Book Thief? [Exclamation] Great. I haven't seen the movie. Don't ever want to watch it [Chuckles], but the book … I don't know. [Pause] I don't know why I'm so fascinated by human tragedy [Pained Laughter]. And the Black Plague, huge thing. I got really into the Black Plague. That was about in the 1400s where Mr. Shakespeare was around and when Mr. Niccolò Machiavelli was around, as well. Yes, I was into history, historical fiction. I was into everything.

Luisa: My favorite genre was fantasy, of course, because at that point, it was an alternate reality where magic and anything was possible. Harry Potter. I grew up with Harry Potter. Grew up with Tolkien, grew up with Eragon, grew up with the series for the Lady Knight, grew up with the Chronicler. Grew up with all these fantasy books. I grew up with them. I still read them over and over and over again because every time you read a book, you find something that you missed and I love that. So yes, reading was my thing [Chuckles]. I love reading.

Luisa: Yes. That says a lot about the education system [Chuckles]. One of my best friends is a teacher right now. It's awful. Then I picked up reading pretty fast. I think in fourth grade was the first largest book that I read. It was the Bram Stoker's Dracula, the big one. That was the first biggest book that I read, and then I had an obsession with Roald Dahl. Roald Dahl was my thing. I loved Roald Dahl. The BFG, the Twitches, the Witches, all of it, I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. Matilda, Matilda. Oh, my God. I loved Matilda. Roald Dahl was a huge thing -- as well childrens’ books -- but I was also reading adult books at the same time. Around this time is when I started getting my obsession with the Holocaust, with all this tragedy.

Not until later. I switched schools and then I was bullied at my other school. In this school, I think the school that I went into at first was extremely about academia. If you said the word “shoot,” it was a very, very bad word. I had never heard a bad word in my life [Chuckles]. When I moved schools, the new school that I got to was a lot higher. It was in a different area. We moved. My grandparents bought a house someplace else. It was a cheap house, but not in a good neighborhood, so the school that I had to go to was not a good school.

: In Miss S. class, I remember there were two boys who were nice to me, J___ and— what's his name? Sorry. I still know him. He's still a good friend of mine. O___. They both kind of spoke Spanish, so they kind of helped me out as well, but I wasn't allowed to speak to anyone.

so I had to pretty much be invisible for half the class. Just put my head down and not say a word. So I picked up English extremely fast because I had to [Chuckles]. I had to pick up English very, very, very fast or that was going to keep happening. I didn't want that to keep happening, so I picked it up.

Luisa: Yes, [Chuckles] very sarcastic. Did not speak a lick of Spanish. Not one sentence. I don't think she knew how to pronounce anything, and she was as WASP [White Anglo-Saxon Protestant] as you can get. This woman would get extremely frustrated with me—extremely—and I didn't know what was going on. To me, it was a completely … [Disgusted sound] it was mind-boggling how I could go from—I knew how to read and write in Spanish. I was a pretty smart kid. I knew how to read and write in Spanish at six years old. So I go into first grade and I can't even understand what my teachers are saying, so it was extremely frustrating and this teacher found it extremely frustrating as well, so she would lay me down face down half the day on the magic carpet where she would read stories to everyone because she didn't want to deal with it anymore. I told my mom—

Luisa: I moved to Chicago and that's where I started going to school. I started going to school at the age of six. Unfortunately, the school that I went to did not have a bilingual program.

Thank God for Cook County Hospital [Chuckles]. They don't charge you a thing, but she got the medical treatment that she needed. She had brain surgery. They removed the tumor and she had to be in therapy for a few years in order to gain … she couldn't talk. She didn't have movement in half of her face, so she couldn't speak because her tongue was numb on one side, so she had to have physical therapy. I went with her a couple times because I had to translate. Sometimes they didn't have people who would translate for my mother. At this point, I had already learned English, but she had to practice every single day. Still to this day, there are a few words that she cannot say.

since my mom … my mom at the time, we did not know she had a tumor in the back of her brain. Right where her brain stem is, she had a huge tumor there and we had no idea. Nobody knew. She doesn't remember a lot of this. I don't know if it's because of the emotional trauma or because of the tumor, but once we got to Chicago, it was evident that something was wrong with my mother and she started going to the doctor.

The apartment that we moved into in California was a one-bedroom apartment. It was a big complex and I remember it. There was a pool in the middle and there were a lot of families like us that shared a one-bedroom apartment. And there were eight to twelve people in this one space, and we were trying to find something bigger, but it was impossible.

Luisa: Of course. I grew up fairly wealthy in Mexico. I had a big, big house. I had two German Shepherds that ran around everywhere. I had a playroom, my own room. I had a great childhood. I went to private school. It was amazing, so to go from that ... My dad and I were inseparable. I have extremely fond memories as a child, and I remember I didn't want to go to my own room. I would sleep on top of my father. That was my place. They had to buy a king-sized bed because I would not leave my father's side. I would lay and sleep on my dad's chest always. Always, always, always, always, always, so it was extremely difficult to leave my dad behind the most. My dad was my world back then. But my dad, my friends, school—school was great, I loved school [Chuckles]—I had to leave it all behind.

Was there any domestic abuse in your family?Luisa: With my parents? My mother, yes. She doesn't like to talk about it. The older I get, the more she opens up, but it's not something that she likes to talk about. It was never in front of us, it was behind closed doors. I thank my father. He's a piece of shit, but I thank him for at least having the thought of not wanting to traumatize us. So yes, it was behind closed doors, but the more I get out of my mom, it was a lot of emotional abuse as well, a lot. I think there was some physical abuse. My mom's never touched upon it, but that's what happened.

Luisa: We moved to Chicago with my grandparents because my grandparents were my second parents by this point. My mother is the eldest—she took care of seven of my grandparents’ children, so my grandmother really, really loves my mother. We moved to Chicago to an apartment on Green Bay on the East Side, and that's how it went.

We arrived to ____ California. We arrived at an apartment that we were sharing with about eight other people—my grandparents, my sisters and I, my mother, my uncles, then eventually my uncle's wife. One of my uncles got the opportunity to move to Chicago—a job opportunity—so he moved. I think after my parents divorced, all of my uncles saw us as their kids, because two of the ones that really took care of us never really had kids, so they loved us and they brought us in.

My mother, she had to cross the bad way. She went through the desert, she went through the river. My sisters and I, we went through the bridge, like the regular crossing, but we used other people's papers. My middle sister, they cut her hair off completely, and I had to call her Jose.

My dad's family is on the wealthier side and a little bit on the powerful side, and my mom has no money nor connections, and she's poor. When they were divorcing, by the end of their marriage—I think it was the most awful marriage that I've seen—he was threatening her with taking us away and completely …

Luisa: I had to go through hell in order to get my paperwork done for school—through hell, and then I still had to do two years. If that was somebody else with a little bit less drive or a little bit less enthusiasm, they would've given up and they wouldn't have continued with their studies. They would've said, "Fuck it. Why? They're putting me against the wall. How am I supposed to do anything?” Anyone else for sure would've, and I know a lot of cases where they're like, "Dude, it's just too hard. It's too hard to keep going. They're asking me to do everything that I've already done, and what they're asking me to do is subpar compared to the education that I've had." So it's extremely discouraging.