Anne:        That's great. So are you still in contact with your daughter?Uriel:        Yeah. I talk to her actually every other day, when I have a chance.Anne:        And she's eight.Uriel:        She's eight.Anne:        And how about her mother?Uriel:        We’re actually… we’re not together no more, but yeah. I talk to her because I have to, in order to talk to my daughter.Anne:        Did your daughter come visit you in jail?Uriel:        Actually, she did. I got a couple pictures of her. Me and her.Anne:        How's she doing?Uriel:        She's doing good.Anne:        Yeah. Third grade?Uriel:        Third grade.Anne:        She likes school?Uriel:        She does. I tell her… tell her to keep doing good, you know?

Anne:        Yeah. You were an American. That's what you thought about.Uriel:        Yeah, like if my parents wouldn't have told me that I was born here, like I would have thought myself that I was born in the States.Anne:        When did you figure it out? That you were not?Uriel:        Well, when my mom, my mother told me one time to behave, because I wasn't born there. She said behave or you know, you can't be doing stuff that you're not supposed to. She told me that.Anne:        How old were you?Uriel:        It was like 16, 17.

Anne:        So you had... Did you know that they were going to take you and deport you as soon as you got out?Uriel:        Well, I had a detainer. I had an ICE hold. So I knew something was up.[a]Anne:        So you sort of wonder if they're going to deport you, why keep you in jail for seven years? Did you think about that? If you're going to deport me, why keep me in jail for seven years?Uriel:        Yeah, I did. But they just did. They gave me seven years.Anne:        So once the seven years were done, you...Uriel:        They brought me straight to Mexico. Right after my time.Anne:        You didn’t see a judge?Uriel:        I never seen a federal judge or an immigration judge. Never.Anne:        Was that the first time that ICE had detained you? When you were caught for...Uriel:        Actually, they detained me twice, but like I said, I never seen a federal judge, like an ICE judge, immigration judge, no.Anne:        And the first time they detained you, was it for another criminal stuff?Uriel:        Yeah. But a minor one.Anne:        Minor. And then they let you go.Uriel:        Um, no.Anne:        Then what happened?Uriel:        They tried to deport me and I post bond and...Anne:        Oh you posted bond?Uriel:        Yeah. And then I got out and then the situation happened with me with the guns and drugs and...Anne:        Oh, so you were in a bond when that happened?Uriel:        Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).Anne:        Wow. Um, so how much did you have to pay for the bond?Uriel:        Uh, $5,000.Anne:        That's okay. So you got out and the idea was that you were going to try and fight the?Uriel:        Yeah, fight it, yeah. Because like I said, I was basically born over there, since I was two years old. Yeah. So I tried to fight it, but then I got in trouble and this happened.

Anne:        So when you were in prison, what were you thinking, in terms of how your future would unfold?Uriel:        I actually... Well, I was just wondering what they were going to do with me. And try to better myself, you know like thinking about the future and try to change my bad ways… to be a better person.Anne:        Did you do any education in prison at all?Uriel:        I actually do, I have like 20 certificates that I took. Classes that they had provided there.Anne:        What kind of classes?Uriel:        Like, exercise classes. What's it called? Computer classes, soldering classes. They had plenty of stuff. Automotive mechanics class.Anne:        That's good.Uriel:        Yeah.

Anne:        So once you were caught, did you go to court?Uriel:        Yeah, I got, went to court. I got sentenced. They gave me seven years.Anne:        So is that a lot for the crime, do you think?Uriel:        I think it is a long time. It means seven years of my life… gone. In the trash.Anne:        Yeah. And so what kind of prison did you go to?Uriel:        Federal prison.Anne:        It's tough.Uriel:        Yeah. It's tough.Anne:        Tell me about it. Was it hard to survive it?Uriel:        Yeah, it is. It is. It's hard, but, you just got to mind your own business and stick to yourself and you'll be all right.Anne:        So you did? You stuck to your own business and kept clean and?Uriel:        Yeah. That's how you survive.

Anne:        So what happened? What was the crime?Uriel:        I got charged for two firearms and possession of narcotics.Anne:        So you were just caught in it.Uriel:        I was driving and they stopped me and they found the guns and the drugs.Anne:        Were you going anywhere in particular, or you always had guns?Uriel:        Well, I used to sell drugs over there.

Anne:        Yeah. So did you feel like you just needed more money to live, to succeed? Were you on drugs?Uriel:        Yeah I was. I was.Anne:        Okay. And so a lot of it was to...Uriel:        Yeah, it was just the way was… you know, the way I lived when I was young and then this escalated to a higher level and then I ended up in Mexico.

Anne:        You were… Gangs?Uriel:        Yeah. I'm an ex-gang member. You know?Anne:        So why do you think kids like you end up in gangs?Uriel:        I think because of the way that they live, you know, and the things that happened to them. You know? It's hard, sometimes.Anne:        Hard to avoid?Uriel:        Yeah. Not only that, but just the experience you know that happens. Like for instance, me and my brothers, like our parents were never there, so we were running the streets.Anne:        Do your parents know?Uriel:        Yeah. My parents know.Anne:        They knew that you were out in the streets?Uriel:        No, they didn't at the time, but...Anne:        Eventually.Uriel:        Yeah.

Anne:        And did you get in trouble?Uriel:        Yeah, I actually did. I did seven years in prison, ma'am.Anne:        Oh no. So how old were you?Uriel:        I was 21 when I got arrested.

Anne:        What did you like best about growing up in the States?Uriel:        Everything, everything, right. Everything. The life, everything. Everything is just way better over there.

Anne:        Uh-huh (affirmative). So your family, what was family life like?Uriel:        It was hard, but your family is your family at the end of the day. So you got to deal with it.Anne:        Yeah. Yeah. So it was hard because they were working...Uriel:        Yeah. I didn't really get to see my parents during the day. You know? It was hard.Anne:        Did you have the older siblings that took care of you, or?Uriel:        Well… it was something like that.Anne:        Babysitters?

Anne:        So then you started school in the States?Uriel:        Mm-hmm (affirmative). I started from kindergarten all the way to high school. I got my high school diploma.

Anne:        And your parents located in Los Angeles? Did they work?Uriel:        Yeah. My mom actually had two jobs and had to work hard to provide us with food and the things we needed.Anne:        Yeah. And what kind of jobs? Was it… ?Uriel:        Cleaning houses and stuff.Anne:        And how about your dad?Uriel:        My dad, construction.Anne:        Construction. So they worked hard.

So maybe we could start by, you can tell me the circumstances behind you coming to the United States, how old you were, why you came, your first impressions.Uriel:        Yeah. Well, I was two years old when my parents brought me to the States and well, I really was a baby, I didn't really know much about it. But the reason we went over there… money. You know, we needed money, so we went over there to the States.

Claudia:        And what can the U.S. government do to help Mexican deportees and the families that they leave behind?Ana:        Well, I think that it depends on the kids, because I know that a lot of people there have like this bad experiences about people robbing and doing bad stuff. I understand that that's a real problem, but of course it's not all of the people. So some people just wanting to have a better life and they don't know how to read and they don't have enough experience, but they're working hard, I don't know. Maybe they already build their family, they have kids or something. Maybe they didn't get married with someone there so that's why they didn't have the residency. But I feel there's a lot of people that gets away from their families because of that. So, I think that will be priority number one, so check if they have a job, if they have a family so they can maybe see the way they can help them by proving what are they doing. So, it can be something safe for people staying and for the residents.

Claudia:        That's awesome. So, my last few questions are more reflective, like I have said. So, I'm just going to ask them, so what can the Mexican government do to help returning migrants reintegrate into Mexican society?Ana:        Well, I think that maybe they can do like a group support or something because when you have your own family, you can share those experiences with them. But I mean, your father is older than you and he has an old perspective and your mom as well. So, if you have people from your same age, that is going through the same thing that you are, I feel maybe they can give you some advice or shared experiences so you don't feel like that alone, like you’re going through that process with yourself. And I don't know. I think that will be really, really good. And also for the kids that doesn't know that much of the Spanish, give them some classes, because that's really a problem here when they go to school. So, I feel like those two things will be really, really good.

Claudia:        Yeah. I know you've been back in Mexico for a while, but now that you're here, what would you like to do? What are your dreams and your goals?Ana:        Well, actually next year, I'm probably going to be an au pair in the United States again, but with all my papers and stuff. And after that a year, I'm going to do that in another country maybe. Maybe, I don't know, Paris or something. And then I'm going to start traveling around the world.

Claudia:        So, do you feel like you've gotten discriminated against or had had negative experiences in Mexico because you were a returning migrant?Ana:        No, never. But I actually know a lot of people that have that problem, but no, luckily for me, I didn't, that was not the case, but my sister, she stayed for two years or something and then when she came back, she really didn't remember that much of the Spanish, because she was younger when we left. So, she was struggling to pronounce some words or in school. And sometimes the kids were a little bit mean with her because they were just like, I mean, "You're Mexican. Why can you not speak Spanish?" And stuff like that. So, she was really sad about it because she was not faking it, she just didn't know. So that was kind of hard for her.

Ana:        Well, I don't know, like when I was here, I was in this really small group of people, because even when my parents didn't have that much money, they have a lot of friends [inaudible 00:08:13]. So, I mean, they all know each other, just like families that do everything together, they go to all the places together. So, I don't know, they were so, so close. So, I didn't have the chance to know more people here until the time. I still have friends from those families and it's pretty cool. But when I went there, I get to know more people, so they were all different. So, I don't know. Talking with them, knowing their own stories. There were also some people from other countries that have migrated. So, getting to know all of that, it's just like a completely different world. You understand that the place you born or the things that you know, are not the only things that actually exist. So, it made me have more dreams and I wanted to get to know more part of parts of the world and stuff like that. So basically, this is what I do right now. I go to places, I take some photographs, I do a lot of research about the story behind those places. So, I think that's something that I learned while I was there.

Claudia:        Got it. And do you remember anything about your return to Mexico?Ana:        Yeah, I mean, at the time we actually got into a plane, so it was pretty friendly crossing the border of course. But it was like I don't know, I felt like I was going to feel like I was in home or something, but it didn't feel like that at all. It was just like... I feel like everything have changed too much in three years and I didn't really knew the people and I have like friends from my childhood, but I don't know. It was just weird. We didn't share the same type of experiences. So, it was weird to adapt the first two or three years.Claudia:        Yeah. What was the hardest part?Ana:        Well, I think leaving my uncle because we had a really strong connection and we're still seeing each other like every year, but I don't know, it was like we were building a family there and suddenly all the plans just changed. So, I think that was the hardest part.

Claudia:        And do you remember why you came back to Mexico?Ana:        Yes. My father was actually doing pretty good and the company, a lot of things started happening. I don't really know exactly why, because, well, of course when you're a child, your parents are not going to tell you everything. So, I just knew that they were letting a lot of people go. So, it was a chance that my father was one of them because, well he had not the residency or anything. So, he decided that it will be better with the money that he was saving to buy a house here and just come back.

Claudia:         And did you go to school in the States while you were there?Ana:        Not really. Actually, we have a particular teacher because our parents didn't know how everything was going to work. So, they didn't want to expose us to maybe being on the school and if any of them have a problem, they take us out from school, and I don't know. They didn't really want that. So we have our own teacher.Claudia:        And how was your life in the States?Ana:        I mean, it was really quiet to be honest. It was fine because I have my siblings, but it was... I don't know. We have a lot of friends in the neighborhood. They were all like super friendly. It was nice. But since we didn't went to school there, it was... I don't know. It was kind of weird, but I mean, I liked it because we had the chance to go to a lot of places. And I don't know. I think right now I'm actually studying to be a journalist. So, I don't know, I think that's something that probably not at that time, but right now I'm grateful for, because I had the chance to actually explore a lot of things and take pictures. And my uncle is a photographer, so he teached me a lot of that. So I think that it's something that actually helped me be who I am right now.

Ana:        Yeah, actually that day was like really bad because we were... I don't know how they call it, but the police actually catch us crossing the border, but my dad is really persuasive. So, he was talking with this guy and he was actually Mexican and he was talking to him a little bit more about his childhood and everything. So, he let us leave. So, it was kind of confusing for me because I mean I was four years old, so I was just not understanding what was going on. And my dad was just like trying to make us think that they were playing.Ana:        So, they were just like telling us it was like a cool game and we have to go with it. But I mean, at that time we didn't speak English. So, I was not really aware of the situation. So, whenever we get with our uncle, they were all crying and they were all really sad. So, I didn't understand why, because it was supposed to be a game. Right? So, I'm the older, so my brother and my sister were also like really freaking out and I don't know, it was just so weird to be far away from my house.

Claudia:         Okay. So, my first question for you is why did you leave Mexico?Ana:        Well, basically when my dad was a kid, they were really, really poor. So they really didn't have that much opportunity of growing up here and actually both of my friends, they have careers, they’re a psychologist, so it was really bad for them because they went to college, they try really hard but they were not able to actually find a job. And I have a brother and a sister, so of course they wanted to give us the best, but they were not able to. So, I have an uncle in the States, so they decided to move there.

Claudia:        I guess the last few questions to reflect. What can the Mexican government do to help returning migrants reintegrate into Mexican society?Jayden Lee:        Just make them feel safer. I'm not saying just Mexican immigrants, just for every Mexican to feel safer, to make them feel more safer. That no delinquency are going to like... Or just to have more jobs because people without a job go to that source, I believe. It's like when you have nothing to do. When you take your phone out or when they take your phone... That's what I experienced this week. I got robbed. Like literally. I love reading. Right now, I'm reading Mujer Millonaria, I think Rich Woman, because that's my dream, to become a rich woman. I literally stopped reading that book because I've been doing so many things. But then, I said, "Why stop reading it? You have time. I mean, the only thing that was stopping you was your phone."Jayden Lee:        So, without my phone, I started reading, and that's what I've seen. That's what I've noticed. That people who are doing positive things go further, and they educate themselves more. Other than people that are not doing positive things, that are not even doing anything, they just stay in one place that they're comfortable with, with one place. So, just make them feel safer here in Mexico.

Claudia:        If you could have stayed in the United States, what do you think you might have done?Jayden Lee:        Okay. What I want in my life is… I've wanted, I've always wanted to have my own line like Jayden Lee cosmetics, like have my own personal line of business. I think being there... I would have been making it big already. Here in Mexico, yes, I'm making it big, but in a different way. You know, owning my dad's business, which I'm both working here, and I'm also working at my dad's business. So, it's like, "Oh, I'm doing two things at once," but I'm not doing what I love, what I want, what I want to do.Claudia:        Yeah. Is that your dream to have that?Jayden Lee:        To have my own business, have like extensions, but just to have my name, like do collabs with people, but my own line, obviously.

Claudia:        Do you feel Mexican or American?Jayden Lee:        I feel Mexican. I feel Mexican because, obviously, I was born here in Mexico. But I mean, I feel also American because I was in the US and I got that experience. I wasn't just there chilling. I mean, I was learning, preparing myself for life, for what's now. And also, with learning English. Not many people have that opportunity to experience and be like, "Oh, I was in the States. I know English." To compare to someone who was here in Mexico learning English, it's different perspective. Even their accent is way different. So, it's like, okay.

Claudia:        Do you feel safe in Mexico?Jayden Lee:        Honestly, being... Well, I think, at a point, yes sometimes, but I know me, and I really, really have to stand up for myself and be like, I don't have to show that fear of being here because people will eat you, literally, they will harass you. I've been harassed and it's not good. Because being trans, being both Mexican and having that English background, people, especially delinquents will harass you because of that. Like, "Oh, she has money. She's gringa [foreigner] or something," or "She's trans..." they take advantage of that, and yeah, I don't feel safe.

Claudia:        And how has it been? How was it to separate from your family who’s in the States?Jayden Lee:        It was hard. I mean, I love both of my parents. Part of my transition, and part of being who I am, it's because I didn't have that paternal, like that fatherly presence in my life. So, I think... What I've been told by psychologists, that I need, probably, at one point, I need that paternal. That's why I need that paternal figure in my life. But you know, I'm happy right now. Like I'm happy making it big. And my mom is with me. My other brother is with me. So it's like, okay, I have family support. Like what else do I want? Money.

Jayden Lee:        I've been all by myself for like almost two years now, almost two years, and it's been going good. I've done a lot of things. I'm working on my dad’s -  My dad has a house here in Mexico, so I'm fighting for that, and I wanted to have it be mine now. Because you know, I want to have apartments and everything. I want to make it like big.

Jayden Lee:        It's been good. I worked at TP before. Teleperformance. I used to work at Teleperformance. But it's a whole story. I was engaged three years ago. He broke my heart. It was just a toxic relationship, and I wasn't able to stand up for that. And we were going to get engaged. Well, married, but.. We were already engaged, but we're going to get married. It turns out, he ended up cheating on me with a girl. So, it's like, "Oh, okay." I really, really... That's where I put my hands down and was like, "You know what, it's your life, do whatever you want." We went through illegal issues. Yeah, we did, because we were like a united couple, relationship, I think, so we had a business together. It was just awful. So, I decided to just give everything to him. I didn't want to deal with him. I was like, "No. No. You hurt me already, so I don't want to stand up for that anymore." So we broke up. Well, no. He cheated on me, so yeah, we broke up.

Jayden Lee:        Yeah. I like that. I mean, I've always had a dream of being... One thing was being a woman, becoming a woman. I know for me, it's like different becoming a woman because, obviously, for being a woman, you need to have the natural parts and everything. I know that. Right?Claudia:        No, you don’t.Jayden Lee:        But I think if you can behave like a woman, act like a woman, or respect yourself like a woman, you're already done.Claudia:        Yeah.Jayden Lee:        Okay? It doesn't matter what's on the outside, it matters what's in the inside. So, being through that and going through all that process made me think, I want to have a nice body. Yeah. Obviously, I want to have a nice body. Work for myself. Evolve, evolve in my self-esteem. But you know, working and everything, it's just like, "Oh my gosh. I need to put that aside."

Claudia:        Yeah. What's been the hardest part about being back in Mexico?Jayden Lee:        The hardest part of being back here in Mexico, I think it's adapting, adapting to the whole situation, to a whole new way of living here in Mexico. To earn pesos, instead of dollars. I think that's the hardest thing. Because here, you have to have... Obviously, here in Mexico and anywhere else, you have an administrative way. But yeah, it's just really hard, like earning few little money and being killed over time, and be paid very less little money.

Claudia:        What was it like coming back to Mexico from the United States, especially as a transgender woman?Jayden Lee:        It was hard, because here in Mexico, they discriminate a lot. Even though they say they don't, like you feel. Like people literally harassing you. I'm not talking just like transgender women, I'm talking about just like regular woman, born natural female. I've seen it here and there. People harass them literally. It just hurts. It just hurts, because you're like... Some people don't have a good self-esteem, and it could hurt them really bad.Jayden Lee:        I resigned of my other work. I used to work at a photo studio with a few colleagues back in Monterrey, but I quit that job because they had comments about the whole being gay and transition issue that I didn't feel comfortable with. I wasn't able to tolerate. I'm a very tolerable person. I think I'm the most calmful person. Like literally, it's hard to get me angry. I do get frustrated, but I’d never -- it's hard to get someone angry like me. But I got to a point where I wasn't able to tolerate that. So, I quit that job. Came here to TT, and it was way better. I mean, it's so much better. People here are really nice. I mean, they don't discriminate as much.Claudia:        Yeah.Jayden Lee:        As much. There's like 5% of discrimination, but they don't say mean things that are going to hurt people. Because I remember back in the States, I had a friend who committed suicide because of that issue. And I didn't want people to do that. I mean, what's not to love about life. I mean, it's hard, it's hard. But if it was easy, we’d all be like frustrated all the time.

Jayden Lee:        My mom got to a point where she got depression, and it just wasn't good. It wasn't really good. We started our own business here in Mexico. We started a bakery. Yeah.Claudia:        Oh, cool.Jayden Lee:        After like three years, we closed it. My mom had a tumor. I think it's... Can I say it in Spanish? I don't know how to say it in English. Es un derrame cerebral [stroke].Claudia:        I don't know how to say that in English.Jayden Lee:        I know.Claudia:        I know exactly what you're talking about.Jayden Lee:        Yeah. It was really, really bad. Okay. My mom got well. I wanted to go through my transition. Like I really, really wanted, but all that money was like, "Oh my gosh, like I need to focus on my mom. My mom's first." I did the whole thing, the surgery, the thing where you're like.. I was so happy about it. I talked to my mom. I remember she was in bed, and I was like, "Mom, I need to do this for me, for myself. I don't want to be selfish, but I need to do this for me." She's like, "I know. I know you've been holding up a long time, and you need to do it for yourself. And if it's something that you want to do, do it. Just do it. Just go for it. If it's going to make you happy, go for it. If it's going to make you unhappy, don't do it. Don't do something that's going to make you unhappy. Do something that you're happy about. Do something that you're going to be waking up every day, and you're going to look at yourself and have a big smile for you."Jayden Lee:        So, I went through the whole transition. It's the woman I am today now. I'm still working on the whole name changes and all that stuff. Because when I was in the US... Here in Mexico, you have to do the whole paper issue, which is another like discrimination here in Mexico that they do. Because basically, just go, give yourself and be like, “Okay, I am a trans woman. What's next? Here's the paper. Fill this out.” But they don't do that. You have to go through the whole process here in Mexico. So, it's like, "Oh my gosh."

Jayden Lee:        Okay. I ended up coming here to Mexico because my grandma had cancer. So, my mom, for a long time, she hadn't seen my grandma and she knew about this. She's like, "I want to spend time with my mom. Even if it's just three months, one year, I want to see her." So, I put myself in her shoes. I'm like, "Okay, mom, let's risk it all. And let's go to Mexico." You know, I didn't had what I have now. So, we came here in Mexico and we're like, "Okay, let's..." My grandma passed away three months after we arrived to Mexico.

Jayden Lee:        Well, my life in the States, obviously, I went as a boy, and it comes to a point where you just like, you're not comfortable with who you are. You knew you were made to go further in life, you're meant for something else. First of all, I was coming out as a gay boy. That was when I was 14. When I was 15, I went to a psychologist, and he told me that there was something with me that I wasn't happy with myself. I wasn't happy with myself. I wasn't happy with the guy who I was. I wasn't happy with seeing myself every day and waking up and like, "Oh my gosh. Yeah, I have a boy body." I felt disgusted in that way. So, I told my dad, I told my family, they were very supportive. My brothers, my sisters, everybody was so supportive. They're like, "Okay, let's go through the transition." You know, first, the psychologist, you have to go through all that therapy. Then, it's the hormone changes.Jayden Lee:        I started transitioning when I was 17. So, I wanted to do my transition back in the States, but I couldn't because it's more expensive there. So, I told my dad, if we ever go back to Mexico, it's cheaper. It turns out here in Mexico, it's cheaper. It's way, way cheaper. So, that's why also I ended up doing my whole transition here in Mexico as well.Claudia:        How old are you now?Jayden Lee:        I'm 26 years old.Claudia:        Oh, cool.Jayden Lee:        So, yeah, it's been a long journey.

Claudia:        Did you get DACA?Jayden Lee:        No, I never applied for DACA. No. I knew about it after.Claudia:        But would you have qualified?Jayden Lee:        Yeah, I believe I would have qualified for DACA, because I did stay over more than 10 years.

Like none of them knew. Basically, none of my closest friends knew. Also, because I was afraid of, if I tell them, what if they go tell someone, and I get deported, you know?Claudia:        But you knew?Jayden Lee:        I knew I was an immigrant.

Jayden Lee:        I do. I remember my teacher, ____ and she was my English teacher, and a few others that... right now, I can’t think of their names, but also, my ESL teacher, my math teacher. My history teacher was so nice to me. He knew I was an immigrant. Like none of them knew. Basically, none of my closest friends knew. Also, because I was afraid of, if I tell them, what if they go tell someone, and I get deported, you know?

Claudia:        Do you remember your first day in the States?Jayden Lee:        Yeah. I remember... I don't exactly know the day of it, but I remember it was snowing, and it was my first time seeing snow. That's how I got so excited. I remember I was with my... I think it was like school uniform from here Mexico, just like a jacket. I remember I wasn't cold. Yeah, probably I was freezing, but I didn't feel the cold. I just wanted to go outside, touch the snow, like feel it, how was snow like. I remember I was eating it and I was like, "It tastes good."Claudia:        Not the yellow snow.Jayden Lee:        Not the yellow snow, no. Just the white snow. The pure.

Claudia:        Yeah. All right. My first question for you is why did you leave Mexico?Jayden Lee:        I left Mexico when I was five years old, I mean, I was very little. My brother, my older brother... We're four brothers. Well, two girls, one boy now. My older brother is in the US, and my older sister was in the US as well, and my other brother and me were here in Mexico. So, my mom and my dad decided to move over there to join them, just reunite with the family, start a new life, a better life for me. And that's how we moved there to the US.

Anita:         So did you know you were undocumented when you were in the States?MARIA:        I don't know.Anita:        Did you know you didn't have papers?MARIA:        I noticed when I was in middle school.Anita:        How did you notice?MARIA:        Because I was talking to my mom about studying more, finish my high school, start college. But she was like, "No, college is too expensive. We don't have paper, we're not going to... You're not going to be able to study." And I was like, "Well, okay."Anita:        Yeah, that’s rough. MARIA:        That sucks.

Anita:        So what do you miss most about the United States? What have you missed most?MARIA:        Going out to the beach, hanging out with friends from over there, going to... I don't know, it was the place that we used to go with my friends, to the movies and everything. Because it's different from here. So I think that-Anita:        What's different?MARIA:        I don't know, the food is different. Even if it's food from over there, it tastes different, it's not the same. But I think... Well now I got used to it.Anita:        So what food did you like over there?MARIA:        Pizza. Because it was like, the bread was slim and here it's all fat and only bread, and no cheese. Yeah.

My sister came to... The one that was born over there, she came and she didn't like school. She went like, "Ah, no. I want to go back." So she went back with my stepdad. My stepdad lives over there too. So she left and we stayed here.Anita:        Wow. That must've been hard?MARIA:        Yes, it was.Anita:        To have a sister who was American, who could leave and you couldn't.MARIA:        Mm-hmm (affirmative).Anita:        Were you mad?MARIA:        Yes, I was mad. Because then my mom left again.Anita:        Your mom left again too? She went back to the States?MARIA:        Yeah.Anita:        And why didn't you go back?MARIA:        I don't know. She told me to stay with my grandma, because my grandma was alone. So I stayed with my grandma and my other sister.Anita:        Mm-hmm (affirmative). Wow.MARIA:        Yeah.Anita:        So they all went back except you?MARIA:        My mom and my sister, yes. And my other sister, she stayed with me and my grandma, we stayed.Anita:        Was your other sister a U.S. citizen?MARIA:        No.Anita:        Just the one who was born in the U.S. went back?MARIA:        Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Anita:        Was it hard to leave the U.S?MARIA:        Yes, it was. Yeah. Because it was different, because when I left I was a child and when I came back I was all grown, and the city was different. So yeah, it was difficult.Anita:        What was different?MARIA:        The place where we used to live and the people, I didn't recognize all the people, my family, I didn't know much of my family just because they... Well, my mom would just show me pictures and this, and then, "There's your aunt, there's your uncle, your cousins." But it was really hard.Anita:        Did you ever say, "I want to go back to the United States?"MARIA:        At first, yes, I want to go back.

MARIA:        No, no. When I leave, it was because we didn't have money and we were poor and my family just wanted a better life.

MARIA:        I went when I was seven, I came back when I was 17, I had just turned 17. Yeah, it was 10 years.Anita:        And so why did you come back?MARIA:        Because of my grandfather, he died. So we had to came to the funeral.Anita:        So that's why you came back?MARIA:        Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Anita:        And then you liked school?MARIA:        Yes, I did. I was pretty good. I had As and Bs. It was good.Anita:        Did you have favorite subjects?MARIA:        Math. I used to love math over there, it was my favorite. I used to always get As or A plus.Anita:        Wow.MARIA:        It was good. But here it's hard, math now, because I didn't understand it good. But it's okay now.

Anita:        And did you like going to school there?MARIA:        At first, no.Anita:        Why not?MARIA:        Because, I don't know, I was scared and I didn't know English. I was talking in Spanish and they couldn't understand me. I didn't have friends at first until fifth grade, I guess. And… it was hard.

Anita:        One night. And what was it like when you arrived in the United States?MARIA:        Well, I don't know. It was pretty good. I was like, "Oh my God, look at all those buildings." And it was nice. [Laughs.] I was happy to be over there. Yeah.

Anita:        What was hard?MARIA:        You mean going over there?Anita:        Yeah.MARIA:        The way we left.Anita:        What do you mean?MARIA:        We couldn't take stuff, we was cold, we was in the desert and the animals and everything. It was scary. It was...Anita:        Tell me about it a bit.MARIA:        Well I don't remember that much, because I was small. I was like…well, my mom was like, "Oh, we're going to go over there, it's going to be prettier, and were going to have a better life." And I was like, "Oh, okay." And my other sister was like, "Okay." So we left and we was not thinking about what was going to happen or anything. We were just happy that we was going to go and visit and see how was it.Anita:        But you said it was scary crossing?MARIA:        Yes, it was.Anita:        Do you remember that?MARIA:        Because we were cold, because we were in the desert and it was at night, and it was cold we could hear a lot of animals. And that was scary.Anita:        How long were you in the desert for? Do you remember?MARIA:        Like one night.

Anita:        Okay. So tell me a little bit, why did you leave for the United States as a child?MARIA:        Because my grandpa died, my mom decided to come back, to come to the funeral and then we decided to stay.

Olimpya: Yes. There's more time than life. That's something I want. I just want, even if it's for a day, just go back, step to United States, look around, and remember everything that happened to me there. I'll be happy. I'll be happy because I miss my house. I miss my family. [Emotional]. Even though I got most of my family here, it's not the same. They don't care about you. When I needed my kidney transplant, because I need one, and my mom told my family that if anybody wanted to donate, nobody answered. Nobody said, "Hey, I can't, but I'll pray for you." Nobody. They just changed the topic. When I told my family in the States that I needed a kidney, my smallest cousin, he's around eighteen, he said, "Hey, I'll give it to you" right away. It makes me feel like I don't need to see you every day to be family. You're not my family. My family is in the States. They are my family. They love me. They care about me.

Olimpya: I think I changed my attitude a little bit. I said, "Okay. If I'm going to stay here, I'm going to do everything so when I'm older, I can leave this place." [Chuckles]. That was what I was always thinking about. After I finished middle school, I went onto high school. I was studying tourism. It was really cool, but then I got some friends that weren't really nice. [Chuckles]. So, I remember that's when I met alcohol. The school was really open. They wouldn't check on your backpacks. They wouldn't check on you like, "It's your responsibility to come to school, stay in school, and do your work. It's not ours. It's yours." Basically, what we used to do in the mornings, we had to be at school at 5:00 AM because we used to cook in the morning. Then around 7:00—we had, 7:00 to 8:00, a break. So we would call breakfast, but most of the time, when we would go breakfast, we would buy beers or stuff like that, and put it in cups and stuff. We would go back to school and be drinking during classes. So by 12:00, we were drunk. [Chuckles]. We wouldn't do anything. We would just be, "Yeah, yeah." Trying to study, but not doing nothing at all.Olimpya: By the time we would leave the school, we would go eat and get drunk again. Basically, that year, I was really drunk the whole time. My mom, she noticed that, what was going on. She said, "No, I'm taking you out of that school. It's too expensive and you're not doing anything. You already flunk every single class." I was like, "Okay, no. Cooking class is good." She would get mad at me, really mad. She's like, "No, you're going to another school, not so expensive, so you can value what you have. Come on." So she signed me up in another school. It was less money where she used to pay. The kids were other level. It wasn't beer. It was tequila. It was everything you can find. [Chuckles].

Olimpya: I was really mad because I had so much things on me on that moment, and it was so hard that I was like, "Oi. Fuck it. I'm just going to go and do what I have to do. I'm not going to let them hit me." So I hit them back. She got really bad because I hit her really bad. Since I didn't have stitches or anything, I was the one that got suspended and they didn't do anything to her. I was like, "I was just defending myself." It was like, "I don't care. You did this." "I did it, but why? You need to look at the background. Why did this happen? They're calling me names every single day. They're doing this. They're ripping my books. They're hitting me. They're pushing me. They can't do that to somebody and expect to just stay there." They didn't care. The principal was like, "No, you're suspended. You're leaving."Anita: What happened?Olimpya: I spent a week at home. My mom was really mad at me because she said I was taking everything in a really bad attitude, that it was just an attitude problem because I wanted to go back, but it was impossible. I was like, "It's not that. It's just that you don't take me in consideration. You don't see what's going on in my life. You're not looking at everything. This is not a place for me. If I was saved once by my aunt that keep me from everything that's going on right now with me, I shouldn't be going through this. She did so much for me, so I didn't have to go through this. And look at me where I am. The school is horrible. It's a jail." I can show you. Well, right now, it's not that bad because they fix it up, but when I was there, it was horrible. [Chuckling].Anita: Was that here in Mexico City?Olimpya: Yeah. Every time I pass that because I live really close, and every time I pass by the school, I get really mad. I still have problems with that because it's like... It gets me really mad. I was an excellent student in California and here, when I got here, I barely passed the year. It would get me frustrated because I was like, "Hey, I already saw this back in the States. This was third-grade things." I'm like, "Come on," but I couldn't remember. I couldn't do it even though I knew I could, and I knew it. It was really frustrating for me. I was just—

Once I go to school, they signed me up, I was like, "Mom, you're not going to leave me here. They're going to do something to me. They're going to kill me. They can kill me or violate me. This is not a school." It was a really, really, really bad school. If you look at a jail in a school, that was my school. [Chuckles]. They didn't have windows like this. I don't know. It was bad. The principal, for some reason, she said that I came to Mexico as an exchange to study. So they thought I was an American girl like tall, blond, blue-eyed girl, and that wasn't me. [Chuckles]. Once they present me at school like that, and once they saw me, they were like, "You don't come from the States." Like, "Well, I do. I wasn't born there, but I do come from the States. I basically come from there." Like, "No, you don't. You're just a Oaxaqueña." Start calling me names again, "You're brown. You're short. You're skinny."Olimpya: I don't need to be like another person to come from the States. You need to understand that. Thousands of people go to States to have a better life, and then they need to come back. Why are you being so rude if they don't treat us like that? If I'm at my home country, why you being so rude? They start calling me really bad nicknames. They'll start stealing my stuff, my backpack, my books, everything. I would go to the bathroom, come back, and I wouldn't find my notebooks. I was like, "Okay. Just give it back." Then since they noticed I wouldn't respond to that, they would start getting aggressive, getting in front of me, calling me names, saying bad words and stuff. I would just turn around and leave. Since I wouldn't respond to that, they would start getting physical. They would pass by and push me or punch me or do something. Once I got mad because I was sitting down studying, they came and pulled my chair from the back. I fell off, and this girl started punching me. So I was like, "Hey, I need to protect myself now." So I did, and I got expelled because of that.

Anita: Did you have dreams of what you were going to do? What were they?Olimpya: I wanted to go in the army.Anita: In what?Olimpya: Army.Anita: You wanted to join the army?Olimpya: Yeah, that was my path.Anita: Why?Olimpya: I wanted to serve the country that has given me a lot, the best thing that I lived. I just wanted to do it [Softly]. I thought it was a nice way to thank for everything that happened to me while I was there, for the protection because I was protected. Because I know people are scared of the police because we are undocumented and everything, but every time I saw a police, I was like, "Hey, thank you. You're taking care of me." [Laughing]. And the firefighters, I was like, "Hey, you're the best." Every time I saw somebody dressed in the army uniform, I was like, "Damn. I want to be them. Just want to look like that. I want to do that." That was my biggest dream.

Olimpya: My first year of high school, I almost finished it, but my mom decided to come back. She said that it was time. I was like, "It's your time, not mine. You can leave." [Laughs]. Yeah, but she said that she didn't want to be there anymore. Since I was underage, so I had to grab my stuff. It was kind of the same way that we came. One day, she was talking on the phone. Then she woke me up and said, "We're leaving."Anita: So again—Olimpya: We start all over.Anita: All over again.Olimpya: Yes.Anita: How old were you?Olimpya: Around fifteen?Olimpya: Yeah. It was hard because I don't know if it's a lot of years that I lived there or not, but I had a life. I had friends. I had family. I had school. My life was there. I didn't know anything about here in Mexico. I know I was born here, and it's my country, and it has nice things, but, hey, it's not my house.

I was in sixth grade when I moved in with my aunt. I remember that they were already starting with the girl gangs, and all that stuff, and fighting. I didn't like it because I was like, "Hey, why fight? We can play. We can do something else.” [Chuckles]. But, no, they liked to fight. So they will be fighting and if you wanted to be their friends, you had to do it. I remember one. The first fight I went to, I was standing in the back. [Chuckles]. So they started fighting, and I was like, "I'm just going to leave." Then the police came, so everybody started running. I was like, "Why are you running?" [Chuckles]. I would just sit down, and I was just like, "Okay. Well, I'm not doing anything. I'm just sitting down here." They came. Then they asked me, "What was going on?" I was like, "They started fighting. I was sitting." Since they saw I wasn't scratch or anything, they were like, "Okay. Just go home." I remember that fight because they ripped out an earring. There was a lot of blood. Then somebody bite somebody's eyebrow, and I was like, "What?"

Olimpya: Yeah, I was happy because I would get to do everything I wanted to. If I wanted to play football, I would play football. If I wanted to do this, track days, everything, I could do it because it was there for me. [Chuckles]. I used to like it. I would just get home, eat, finish my homework, and then go to another activity. So I was always busy, always busy, always busy. I don't know. That would keep my mind going. Here, you barely get physical education, so imagine the change. [Chuckles]Olimpya: [Laughs]. I was a happy kid. No, because even though we were a small family, like my mom, my brothers, my aunt, uncle, cousins, and my grandparents, we were very unite. We used to love to spend time with each other. My aunt, she's like my angel. It's really fun because we were born on the same day.

Olimpya: Great. The best. [Chuckles]. I used to love school there because I remember you—in the morning until 3:00 in the afternoon, something like that—will actually learn. I was really bad at math. I know that. [Laughs]. But I remember in middle school, there was a teacher that will give afterschool classes for the ones that needed help. So I would stay. You would see me the whole week there, an hour, two hours, studying, studying, studying, but I will actually learn. I went from an F, [Chuckle] because I was really bad, to a B+ in one month because I was actually learning. I used to play the violin. I used to play basketball. I used to love all those activities that you got in school. I was happy in school. If I would live there, I was happy.

Anita: What kind of jobs did your mom have?Olimpya: Factories. She used to work in factories in morning and then at afternoon, and then during the night. It was really weird. [Chuckles]. She used to sleep around one hour a day, one or two hours a day, go work and come back. It was really hard for her.

Olimpya: Yeah, but not that much. At the beginning, it was really weird to talk to him because my mom didn't want him to know that we were over there, so it was once a month maybe? Then after that, we tried to contact him, but he was working or with his new family and this lady wouldn't let us talk to him. Every time I call, she would say, "Ah, he's not here.” I could hear his voice on the back, so I was like, "I know he's here." So she wouldn't let... so things like that.

Anita: How old were you when you left for the US?Olimpya: I was small. I was around five or six years. I was in first grade.Anita: You were in first grade?Olimpya: Yes.Anita: You grew up in Mexico City or somewhere else?Olimpya: Yes, here in—Anita: Here in Mexico City.Olimpya: [Affirmative noise].

uis: So I always like to dance. Right? So I thought, okay, maybe if a formal education is not from me, I can do something more attainable, that requires no money and I can still be somebody. So, I decided to start breakdancing a lot [Choking up]. A lot of hip-hop dancing.Anne: Oh, yeah.Luis: And a lot of breakdancing. I will focus on breakdancing because I saw these incredible athletes on TV. And I was like, “Oh, this is what I do for fun. I can really focus on that thing and maybe become a pro. Maybe even get papers.” But it didn't work out, because competitions were all over the country and I couldn't move.Anne: You couldn't get on a plane, right?Luis: Yeah. So I was really disappointed. I just told my parents, "You know I'm out. This country doesn't want us here and my dreams keep getting obstacles and obstacles, I just can't.” They didn't want me to and for two years they were like really against it. But I mean at the end of the day I was almost over eighteen, so what could they do, right? So, I came back with the hopes of going to school, be better. I'm actually the only one in my family that has a bachelor's. [Emotional] So anyway, I come back because I want to keep studying and I want to stop that cycle of not being free to do what I want to do. Because after break dance I was like, what if I become a firefighter? Never mind, I can't do that. So yeah. And so I came back and I thought, “Okay, this is going to be…this is going to be kind of difficult. But I mean I already been here. Right? I already been here and—"

Luis: And I did that. And the first obstacle was that since I wasn't really a resident, or even a citizen or whatever, the fee, the tuition for, per credit was triple. So it was, I had to work a lot just to pay for mediocre education.Anne: They've changed that now, in California.Luis: They have, that's what I heard. I was like, [annoyed sound]. It's okay though. I mean, because my little brother actually graduated and he's like a mechanic or something. And he has DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals], so.

Anyway, those first years were really tough because I couldn't really talk to people. I didn't have friends at school. The high school that I went to, is supposed to be the closest to my house, but it was forty minutes away walking. And yeah, I don't really have a choice. So I had to walk. So yeah, sometimes it would rain and I had to cross a field of strawberries to get into the high school. I mean, it was good when there were strawberries.Anne: Yeah, I was just going to say.

Ruben: It's hard. It's hard. Depends on what kind of ideas they have when they got here. A lot of these guys think, "Oh, I'm a gang member. If I just walk up to them and look at them all crazy, they're going to give me something." and that's not the way to do it. I'd rather be like, "Hey man, you got 5 pesos I can borrow? I'll give them to you later on." People will be like "Nah, I don't think you'll give them to me." I work right here. They start to get to know you, they start giving you a little bit of trust. Like the guy in the bathroom, he leaves me right there sitting down, charging people, sitting there watching TV, while he goes and does something else. He comes back, and I have never seen him counting his money.Ruben: I didn't even know he had a camera, but he was like, "I seen you on the camera, and I don't see you grabbing anything else but grabbing your stuff." And he goes, "I never seen you taking money. I never see you not even eating the chocolate without asking me. So why should I ask you how much did you make?" No, he just comes and be like, "Hey, thanks man. Are you hungry? Do you need anything?" He'll give you money, and on the side he'll buy you something to eat. Me, I will say, "No man, you don't have to give me nothing. I'm not asking you for nothing. I'm not asking you to pay me. All I'm asking is just to get to know me. You think I'm cool or the nice person that you don't think I was, well that's all I want to earn." These people's respect, you know? So he can see me like them. No quiero que me vean diferente (I don’t want to be seen differently), you know?

When I got to Whittier, California, there was an officer there. His last name was Fuentes. He was Mexican. I don't know if he wanted to show off for his coworkers or the rest of the cops, but he will always, always stop me. Even if I was with my mom, he would get me off the car and search me. I don't think that was legal. But at the same time, I wasn't legal.Anita: How old were you?Ruben: I was 11 and 12 when he kept harassing me, harassing me, harassing me. When he saw that I became a gang member, I mean, he saw a whole different person. When I was 14, he came to me and he apologized. He said, "I should've never picked on you. I think I made you the person you are now." I said, "Look, everybody has a choice and I made one." I said, "I became a rebel. Now, you're going to see what you wanted to see. Just some advice. The next kids, just don't do that. Instead of picking them up, taking them to a Boys & Girls Club or taking them to the police station, show them what you guys do. What's important, what's bad. That's what you guys should do, not poking us and searching us and taking off our shoes."It's embarrassing for people or neighbors to see you. Even when cops come to your door and knock and say, "What do you have in your pockets?" I will say, "Excuse me? I mean, I'm in my house." He will say, "I know. You're just a person I like to mess with."

Ruben: No. Actually, if you're going to come over here and do the same thing you were doing over there, I think you would be wrong. A lot of people say, "Oh, they deported me. That's messed up. And the new president..." It's not that. Look if you basically see it in a good way. All right, let me see what I can do. Okay, if I can become a manager here, I can get paid good. I can have my car, I could probably buy an apartment and I can live free. But other people don't see it like that. They come over here, and they want to start fighting with people, or try to intimidate the people from the area, and I don't think that's good.Ruben: Instead of intimidating them, show them what you can do. "Oh, my bathroom is messed up. It's leaking.", "Hey, I can fix it.", stuff like that. I worked with my dad a lot of times. Trust me, I could do that upside down. But a lot of these guys don't see it that way, and you've got to put it in them. I try to tell them, "I'm going to give you a little bit of line, it's to you if you can get it. Because people here, they judge you by how you look, not by what you want, and that's what you've got to change.

Ruben: Now those that come here, I try to tell them. I try to give them knowledge that people here are different. People that are 60 and up, they don't like us. Some of them are grouchy when you say, "Hey, buenas tardes", they look at you like "What's good about?" but they have to get to like you. There's a lady right here who has been living 50 years. She was like, "You're the first-" she calls us cholos- "You're the first cholo that I actually can say, Hey, that guy's nice." She tells me, "Hey, can you clean up my garden?" I clean it up, put water on it, and she's happy, and she'll say "How come you never charge us for what you do for us?"

Ruben: Yeah, actually, we're in Mexico, I'm seeing a way to do a life that I want to do. Maybe I cannot go to school and graduate from some type of career, but I can work and be free. I can walk anywhere I want. I don't have to watch my back and say, "What neighborhood am I in?". The only thing in Mexico is at night, yeah, it's a little dangerous. Depends on the area you're in, but you don't have to worry about other gang members trying to shoot you or looking for you. I had an experience where we were buying groceries and four people walked in the store, the store was called Chia. They walked up to me, put the gun to my head and said, "Is that your mom right there behind you?" And I said "Yes, she is." "Well, you better thank her, because she just gave you life again."

Okay. My neighborhood had to respect it, and then their neighbor would have to respect it. We will never do a meeting in either one of our neighborhoods. We will always go to, I don't know if you guys ever heard, in winter, there's a park called, well there's Whittier Narrows, but there's another one where there's a Lake Santa Fe down. That's a big park where you can actually have a picnic, play volleyball.Anita: Santa Fe down? Like down?Ruben: Like down. And that was our thing to do every year. Every 4th of July we all get together, bring firecrackers, and do the little things that we like to do. We tried to keep it like that as long as we could, we never let a neighborhood get in between it. Even though they did try it, we never let it get in between. Even them, they had brothers who were like, the younger was from this neighborhood, and the older was from another neighborhood, so they had to respect it. When the peace treaty came around, it was a tough time because we were going through a tough time. We had what's called the green light, where anybody could just come and shoot at your neighborhood. Anybody. It doesn't matter who it was, and we had that for 13 years. It came off in 2004, so it was rough. But the ones that we survived, there's only five of us out of 15.

Anita: So how did kids separate into rival gangs?Ruben: There was actually a group of 15 kids. We all grew up together. First through sixth grade we all went to Elementary. We all went to the same middle school, but by the time we hit middle school, we happened to come from different neighborhoods in the same area in the southeast of LA and in one side we were all enemies, but in the other side we try to keep that friendship of where we can have little reunions and no think about what was happening in the streets. And no think about how a part of my neighborhood went and killed one of them. That was off for that little meeting. It was just us, see how we were doing. Our kids, our wives. Have some type of good time and memories from when we were in first, second, third, whatever you can remember. We'll bring it up and laugh, have a little picnic, but leave all those problems to the side. We'll never bring them there.

Anita: Tell me about the tattoo on your arm.Ruben: It's a portrait of one of my elementary friends. We grew up together.Ruben: We were like brothers, inseparable. Wherever he went, I went. Wherever I went, he went. They arrested us for, supposedly, a strong armed robbery, which we never did. Since I had already been in juvenile hall, I ended up taking the blame so he can come out because his mom kept crying. "Oh, my son, I don't want him to go to jail." I took the blame for both of us, and he comes out a month after he actually gets killed in front of his house.Anita: By?Ruben: By a drive by, a rival gang. Everything changed for me right there. It actually went insane for a minute. I thought everybody was against me and I didn't really trust anybody until after. He was just a really cool friend

Ruben: Yeah, it actually would have, because I was the type of kid that I will go to the police station. I already had probation for something from school. I think it was from ditching school. I ditched like three times and they put me on probation. My mom didn't want me to go to the house, so they put me on probation for a year. My probation officer was actually the coolest guy. He would take me fishing. He would take me to little events. The greatest one was going to see the Lakers. he took me there. He was the first one that took me there, and I enjoyed it. When he retired, well I didn't have him, I didn't have the Boys & Girls Club, so what did I have? The streets. So, that's what you turn to.

Ruben: Well, I mean, look in LA in 83rd St. from Vermont in 59th all the way to 96th St., there was problems in between African American kids and Mexican kids. They didn't like us because we were not American. So all of that, it actually starts making us say, "Hey, I can fight. I can hit you, just seeing what you do." So, you start growing some type of anger towards the streets and reveal another person. Right away, you actually snap and start doing things you're not used to. You start losing fear. Some people, well actually, I had a friend, he stabbed another kid, and they were both 14. I didn't have the guts to do that. Well when I saw that, I said, "Man, it looks easy. That guy that bugs me might need that."Ruben: So, those are the ideas that you start getting. The other kids, or other little gang members, see that, so that's going to pull you towards them, "Hey, come here. This is where you belong. We are your family." I always said, "It's dumb to say I got in the neighborhood because my family, they didn't love me."Ruben: I mean, I'm going to tell you one thing. My mom used to hit me with the cable from, I don't know if you remember the old radios, with those cables because she didn't want me on the streets. When I grew up, I told her, "Every hit that you gave me, it actually made me a little bit stronger on the streets." So when somebody will hit me, it wouldn't even hurt. So, you start growing that anger, that anger, that anger, and you get an attitude. That's when, and you actually join a gang. When they see that you are already ready for that.

Anita: You were part of a gang. Why do you think kids like you end up in gangs?Ruben: There's three things that I have noticed why we get involved. Well the first one will be we're Latin, we're Mexican. So, cops don't pick people. Cops, they actually just go directly to you, and they start poking you and poking you saying, "What are you doing? What do you have in your pockets? Take everything out of your pockets, put your hands on your head." For somebody that is not involved in a gang, or at least with kids that are doing something bad, it's something that gives you anger. Not hate towards the cops, because they are actually doing their job, but why you picked me when you just saw the other guy going by and he looks more dangerous than I do?So, Mexican kids get poked on by the cops. So, you start growing some type of anger like, "Why me? Okay, you want to see me like that?"

Anita: Things got difficult for you guys after that, right?Ruben: Yes, it actually did. I mean, as it was we were low income and with that situation it actually got difficult for my dad to keep going to work.Anita: Isn't it after that that they started deporting people.Ruben: Yeah, actually, they started deporting people at the time. My parents got lucky because they had been over there for a minute and they basically had records and they applied and they actually got their permit to be there. I remember my little sister was like three years old. She was really scared. She was scared and at the same time, she will say, "Go get me a game, go get me a game." Something to keep her busy.Anita: So did the police get tougher on you guys after that?Ruben: Well, it actually got tough on everybody, on the whole community around there because it was more African American people. But with us it will be only with certain people.Anita: Yeah.Ruben: They will stop people to see if they got a driver's license. I remember there was no transportation for a couple of days. So my dad had to work, I mean had to walk from two in the morning till five to get to work, and at night he will get home at 12 at night. Because he had two jobs. But we lived through it. We became a little stronger and stronger minded but took us like around nine months.

Ruben: And three years later we moved to Whittier, which was an area where there were no poor people. It was medium class and high class and there were rich people and medium class people. And we lived there for a while. But at that time I had already learned a few words in English. I could speak to somebody, but in the beginning it was frustrating because I couldn't say, "Hey, can I borrow your pencil?" I will do it with signs, like if I had a pencil in my hand. And in between that we lived in Englewood for about nine months and it was actually not that bad because the African American people there, they didn't discriminate against us, they would try to teach you. How to speak, you know. Ask them stuff or like, they would come and tell me if I wanted to play, and I would be like, "huh?" And they would be like, "You know on your bike? You know your helmet? Let’s go."

Anita: Do you remember your first day in LA?Ruben: Yeah, they took me to a... they had these little swap meets close. Swap meets. I remember they took me there and they bought me clothes, pants, shoes. They knew that I liked playing on the little machines, so they gave me coins. They were there with me. Like my madrina, she's like another mother. While my mom and my dad would be working, she would take care of me and I actually called her mom as well. My mom didn't like it, but she's the one that actually paid for us to stay. And then once we got on our feet, we moved to another part of LA near Bell Gardens. I started going to school there and we used to live in a garage and I didn't like living in the garage cause I was like, "isn't this for a car?" My mom would be like, "yeah, but we're only going to be here for a few months."

Anita: How'd you cross the border?Ruben: We took a bus all the way to TJ (Tijuana), and we were there for like two days and then they crossed us through Tijuana. Like a little mountain. There was like a little mountain where you hike, go down and then you come down to where they have a bunch of horses or whatever. What is that thing called? Like a stable? where they have horses?Anita: A corral?Ruben: Yeah. Like they have like a bunch of them lined up. And I didn't know there were horses. We were running, I was making noise and all of a sudden they all started making noise at the same time, like telling the owner, you know, there's somebody in here. We were hiking through a little ranch.Ruben: We hiked for at least five hours. My dad was carrying my sister and I was grabbing onto my mom's hand. Once we landed after these horses, we had to cross a freeway. This is at five in the morning or there's a lot of traffic and I didn't want to cross it. I was scared. I said, no man, they are going to run us over. But we finally crossed, came to a place near the border. That's where they had us for like a day. After that they actually transported us to Anaheim. In Anaheim, the people that had us there were really nice but they still had two people with guns, in case you wanted to run. We're there, they'll feed us and then that's when they start making calls. We contacted my madrina (godmother) and she was like, "I live in LA. Tell him to bring you guys here." And they took us there. I remember they were charging $750 a person. It was like $400 for kids at that time.

Ruben: Yes and no. Well, I mean, you know, yes because they would actually, showed us some good ways to become a good person. You know, I've seen right here in Mexico that if you're in a bus and an old lady comes up in a bus, they won't give her the seat and you know, they'll act like they're asleep. They showed us to, to respect our elders. They showed us a lot of good stuff, and they never mistreated us like hit us or spank us or pulled our hair. None of that. But I liked it. My sister didn't like it. She wanted to be with my mom. But when my mom came and we were leaving, my grandpa didn't want us to leave. You know, we had become like his kids. That's where my mom actually came to pick us up. She even gave us the choice. Do you want to stay? You can stay. She was like, you want to go with me? We're going to go back to the United States. So I had like two days to think about it and it was hard because my grandpa, he loved me a lot. He would take me to, he had like a little ranch and he would have fun with me because he would tell me to grab... By 12 he said you should have two chickens. It was two o'clock in the afternoon. I still didn't have one, but you know, he taught me how to cut the corn.Ruben: Well he had such a big ranch. He had everything there. He didn't have to buy any vegetables. He had peas, he had cows, he had chickens, he had everything. And he would always make sure school was a priority. He would always tell us that no matter what your school is your priority, you got to finish, you got to graduate. And he was into that political stuff so he wanted me to be like that. And he would take me to his reunions. We would make about 600 sandwiches and give them to the people that will come and you know, hear him speak.Anita: But he was a politician?Ruben: Yeah, I don't remember what it was, but I remember he used to take me to the reunions and I would be passing out the sandwiches while he'll be up in the stand speaking to the people and all of that I liked, you know, waking up at 4:30 in the morning I did not like.

Anita: Who were you living with when they were away?Ruben: My grandparents.Anita: In Mexico city?Ruben: Mm-hmm (affirmative) They were taking care of us. Me and my sister. Yeah.Anita: Was it hard to leave them?Ruben: Yeah. They were really strict. They were the types of people that you couldn't put... if you were eating at the table, you couldn't put your elbows on the table. You couldn't speak at the table. They'd wake you up at 4:30 in the morning so you can shower.Ruben: But I mean they treat us good.

Anita: I want to hear, first of all, why you migrated? Why did you go to the states? How old were you?Ruben: 5 or 4. We migrated because of the money situation that we had. We had what I remember as a pretty low income. My dad couldn't keep a stable job. He would actually work in the mornings and in the afternoons he would be fixing neighbors cars, their toilet, their shower head, their sinks, paint houses, but it wasn't enough. So we didn't actually come together. They came to the United States, were there for nine months, saved up some money, and then they came back and got me and my sister. They went over there, worked, saved money, and then they came back for us and that's when we landed on 59th and Vermont.

Anne: In terms of you said you know you had dreams when you were in the US. What about dreams now? What are your dreams now?Miguel: I would love to go back. That's my main dream. Like going back, I can focus on working, saving money. I know people out there and not necessarily in big music industries or anything like that, but I know people out there that could possibly help me better that part of music. I like music, I like working on cars and everything that has to do with a car, like the motor, paint, interior, stereo, anything. I like things like that. So I feel like I have a greater opportunity in regards to education out there for me to be able to accomplish that.Miguel: I feel like I would have the tools that I would need, the resources that I would need out there to become a better person and become a successful person than out here. Out here is like you're limited. And if you are better than someone, they try to pull you down from there. So it's like “oh this guy's too good, let's not have him here.” It's like jealousy and things like that. Favoritism, a lot of favoritism goeson in places like this. I try to get along with everybody, and there’s a lot of people out here like “man he's a homosexual.” Like so?

Anne: When you think about your own identity, do you think of yourself as a Mexican? As an American?Miguel: Oh no as Mexican, as Hispanic. But I think I'm more Americanized. That's the thing, that I got more used to the culture out there, their customs and things like that. But I think like yeah I’m Hispanic, I'm Mexican, but I'm a little bit more Americanized and I have, you know I'm more used to the things from over there. Like, I think I could get along better with people out there than over here. Really it's for a lot of reasons but yeah, I would consider myself more from over there than from over here. But like they say you're not even from there, you're not even from here, you're like in the between. But yeah.

Miguel: Yeah, it is difficult though. It really is. You're in that mind. Like I'm 31 and I don't feel old, and I don't feel young. I feel like I'm at a point where I need to hurry up and do something though. And it's really hard to hurry up and do something out here when there's very little for us to do. And you don't have very many opportunities. I would love to have my own house out here and pay a mortgage and have a car payment and have my son come home and be like, "Dad, I love our car” or “dad, our house looks nice” or “dad you got a good job," or things like that. And it's impossible to really see that, to really visualize what I had over there. Even where I live, people are like, "Oh, you live in a nice area." I'm like, "I do live in a nice area, but my house is not nice." It's like it might look nice and everything but where I live is not really, and they're like “oh” you know. But it is hard. It really is. It's really difficult, it's frustrating, it's very stressful.Miguel: I want to do more than just work. And I would like to, not own a big business but own a little store or something. But it's hard. And especially now, I think about it like I'm 31 will be 32 by the time I'm 40, I try to focus more in the future and it's hard because then you're like, "Okay, but I got the path following me, I got to catch up and I got to focus now and so," but I try. I really do try and that helps me a lot talking to people and especially people that come from the States, like we have a lot in common, just like the language itself helps us a lot.

It was like I can maybe grow to be something or somebody out here. All those dreams, all those ideas, all those great thoughts, all those great ideas and great plans that you had get taken away from you like literally, like in days. You don't have those hopes anymore. You're out here, you lose all hope. I did. I mean I’m alone out here pretty much.Miguel: I mean I have my dad's sister and my dad's brother, but they're not very, I can’t count on them for things. I've struggled a lot. And right now I'm without a phone, because I had to pawn my cell phone because I had to pay my rent. I work and I get paid, it's just that it's really hard. I used to live in a different state here. And I was paying 60 pesos every day just for bus fare, getting to work and back and forth. And that was if I was lucky to get a bus that would take me halfway to my house. But then again, you have to pay like 30 pesos more for it. That's what was getting to me. And right now I'm struggling a little bit with my rent. I just started working here in April. In Tele Tech, and it's, I'm barely getting there. And like I said, my family, I'd rather be struggling on my own than with them because they live in an area where there's a lot of drug sale, a lot of bad things. On my dad's side, and my cousins they've stolen from me.Miguel: Yeah. And I don't even feel safe with my own family. So that's why I tend to stay on my own. Like be on my own, if I eat, good, If I don't, that's okay as well. At least I know it's because of me and not because someone else caused it. But I'm trying my best right now to get back on my feet because I lost a lot of things last year, in November. I got stabbed. They took all my stuff. I had a laptop. I lost that. That's pretty much what I had to go through to be able to be on my own to be free again, you know just be like, "Alright, you guys can rob me and do what you can, you know, but at least I'll be okay." And, yeah, that happened last year. And since then I still haven't really been able to recover.

iguel: The reason why I wasn't able to stay was because we went out to one of my friends' birthday party. And it wasn't a big birthday party. It was just like a dinner with his family at his house, zero alcohol. And after that, we went outside and we did start drinking after a while. It got a little bit late. And then we ended up having to leave, and during that time my brother was with me and my brother, we went to 7-Eleven. And he ran into some guys. And these guys start talking, asking my brother some questions. And I wasn't sure what. So I got out the car and I was like, "What's going on?" And the other guy is like, "Where are you from? The gang banging thing.” And I looked at him like, "Bro, what you want?"Miguel: I wasn't involved in gangs like that. But I wasn't scared of them. And I was more of like a type of person that would like to have money. So I was like, "You don't you don't scare me with this," so one of them hits my brother. And he hits my brother, I hit the other guy. And there was three of them and two girls. So I started getting in a fight with one and the third one comes out and hits me and knocks me down. That's when my friend and my girlfriend, and at that time she was pregnant, she gets out. The girl, the other girl gets out, my friend gets out and he starts fighting with one of them. So I get up and I go to the car and I used to play pool. So I had my pool stick with me. So I open up the case and I pull up the stick. And when I see the guy going towards my brother again, I hit him with the pool stick. So when I hit him, I knock him down.Miguel: That's when pretty much everything started happening because obviously blood started coming out of his head and people started getting freaked out. So everybody starts yelling. I didn't leave because I was like, "Alright, well we're going to see what happens. Obviously, there's cameras and they're going to see how everything happened, unfortunately, in the cameras the only thing that you can see is me hitting the guy. So in Oregon, they have this law called Measure 11, where it's a mandatory 16 months for any assault charge. And I was getting three assault charges for each individual. And I had no self-defense rights or anything like that. We explained… I had witnesses, letting them know what happened and they had witnesses saying the other part. But the witnesses that were with them, were pretty much saying that they confronted us when we got to the parking lot in the car, they confronted us getting out of the car. And that's exactly what happened.Miguel: I think the judge noticed as well, that after so many court hearings, these people didn't appear. They no longer went, but to one court hearing. And if you see these people and you see me, you're going to be like alright, "What are they so scared of?" These guys were covered in tattoos. They were way older than me at that time. I mean I think one of them was 35 and I was like 19. The judge is looking at him, he looked at me, and I think that's what also made him change his mind because I was going for at like least six years for an assault charge.Miguel: And when he took all this into consideration, he saw them, and he really pretty much said, "Okay, well it doesn't seem like they're just people out there not causing trouble, right?. They're looking for it." So I think that's why he decided a year and a day. But then again, it was also to send me to a state Prison, which that stays on your record, which did affect me in my immigration status. If it would have been a misdemeanor, I still could have been able to bail out in immigration, but with the felony, I didn't have an opportunity, not even for voluntary departure, nothing like that. That kinda made me more, it did stress me out a lot.

Miguel: Maybe yeah Thanksgiving and things we would celebrate. But I've never celebrated Thanksgiving with an American family. Just with my family and maybe we do things differently than they do. And being able to go with their family, he even bought an RV and we drove down to his son's house and his family and his mother-in-law and their family. And I mean you can imagine they had a big house, a great house and I was like the only colored person there. And nobody treated me differently. Everybody was like, "Hey man, go ahead and eat, and you want a beer?” And you have the crazy uncle here like, "hey, come over here, do you know any pretty girls?" I was just like, "Oh, I might.Miguel: Getting to communicate with them, how do you say it… getting to hang out with them and do more with their family was like actually helped me a lot as well learn the culture a little bit more than how it is but it was great. Fourth of July days were like let's go buy fireworks let's go to Vancouver and buy tons of fireworks and go back to Portland and light them up, illegal fireworks and barbecues. Like my family, literally my mom my dad my uncles my brothers. My family was starting to get involved more too with her family. They were starting to meet each other.

Miguel: A lot of construction jobs, I was 14, and it was an under the table job remodeling houses. And the guy I worked for, he was like, "You're really young." That was during the summer. So I was like, "It's just a summer job." He was like, "Alright, I might hire you." And he was paying me $10 an hour. And he was buying me food. And he was like taking me places, he was really nice, really nice people. And they were actually very very concerned about my legal status as well in the States. They were those type of people that if they could help me they would. And unfortunately, I lost contact with them because they left to Virginia. And I was in Oregon. And I know if I would have been able to contact one of them, they would have been able to help me with maybe a bond or something to pay the bail. But, they were really good people and I wasn't doing much because of the fact that I spoke English and Spanish.

Miguel: Never really… I like fast cars but never really into illegal street racing or anything like that. But out there in Portland, they had a racetrack so I was able to go out there and see people race their cars and things like that. I like technology. It seems like I want to study, I want a career. I want to work in something that involves technology because Mexico doesn't really have much technology and they don't really make much of anything. And it would be somethin’ great, to be able to be in a country and do somethin’ with their water system as well. I hear a lot of people are left without water, it's very frustrating when you want to get up, take a shower and there's no water, there's no electricity or there's no gas. And that's the kinda things I don't like going through out here. And out there, I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with hot water with, you know, electricity. You pay your light bill, you're going to have electricity, you pay everything.Miguel: But out here, it's just like everybody is. I don't know, they don't pay their electricity bills out here. So they just like hang off of other people's light. And sometimes they find out, the next thing you know, you're without electricity. Like, right now, we suffer from that. Our lights get cut off a lot. Our water goes away a lot, too. And it's very frustrating, because it's something that I'm not used to. I'm not saying that I had the best life. But I lived comfortable. I wasn't rich, and I wasn't wealthy, either. I was just being responsible and working and getting my moneys, getting what I was working for. And that was a thing. And out here's like, I think the more you work out here as well, the less you make.

Miguel: Oh, yeah, definitely. I still have contact with friends that I was in elementary school with. I have this particular friend; her name is Cassandra. And she's always been my friend since I was in sixth grade. She knows I'm out here. And she always sends me messages. They offered to help with money and things like that, because they understand the situation out here. And they understand the things I'm used to. Honestly, I was used to a lot of good things out there and I was working and going to school. I was able to buy myself things that I liked. And I can say it was affordable. And out here it's hard, for example, to buy a pair of tennis shoes for 3000 Pesos and over there buying ‘em for $60 or $50. It was hard. Being here was very difficult because I was so used to having a car. I had a permit to drive. I was able to drive, I paid my insurance and I was always making sure that I was safe, you know, if anything happened to us.

actually like sports. I was in wrestling, and soccer, always soccer but I was more into wrestling. And so I did wrestling. I have a picture of my trophy here in Mexico. And I have my picture here.Anne: It’s hard.Miguel: I have a lot of things here. I enjoy working on cars. My very first car was a Chrysler. And I remember installing a stereo. I remember washing my car. Things like that, that I wish I had here.

I don't know if I started going off a little bit off track during middle schoolMiguel: I think the people I started meeting there, they had older brothers and older siblings that they knew more about, maybe drugs, gangs, weapons, and things like that. So my curiosity brought me to try to see what that was about. I didn't get involved in gangs too much, but being Hispanic, I think that was kind of part of our culture, you can say. Not to be in the gang, but to have a family member or know somebody that's in one and things like that. Drugs wasn't really a big issue for me, I didn't have a drug addiction to the point where I needed help or anything like that.

And we lived in Oregon, the rest of the time in Portland, Oregon and there, I went to school, I went to elementary school in grade elementary school, I loved it. It’s called the Ventura Park Elementary School. It was great. A lot of great teachers. I remember one teacher in particular, Miss Gilmore, she was always like, even when I went to middle school, she was always there. I would run into her even in the streets, and it was really rare to run into one of your teachers. But when I did, and she would see me, and she would get really happy. And she would always tell me, "You're a great leader, you're very smart, use that for something good, you know?" And I always had that in mind. And that was pretty much always my intention, I don't know if I started going off a little bit off track during middle school

Anne: So when you said they took us to Disneyland, us meaning you and your siblings?Miguel: Right. It was actually my whole family that migrated from Mexico to the United States, which was my two uncles, which are my dad's brothers and my two aunts, which are my uncles' wives, two boy cousins and a girl cousin. We all went together to Disneyland, my mom and myself and my dad. And it was great. It was a lot of fun. We went to Universal Studios. Then I remember during that time, there was still the King Kong train where they took us, the ET thing where we were on the bikes. I had a lot of great memories from when I was younger there.Anne: That seems really, how old were you when you went to Disneyland?Miguel: I think we were about eight years old. And I remember that during that time I remember we were like big fans of the Pogs, the little things that you play with like the Slammers. Yeah I know that. A big fan of Batman, I've always been a big fan of Batman and I loved being there when I was younger, I had a good childhood when I was in California.

Miguel: I remember going to school, actually school wasn't that bad when we lived in California, because we had the opportunity that our teachers spoke English and Spanish. So they kinda knew that kids that were coming in that didn't speak English. And they would try to help us out a little bit more with that. And it was great. It was really great living there at the beginning.

Miguel: What I remember is you know living in a two -bedroom apartment with my family, which was at that time, my dad, my stepmom, my aunt and uncle, my cousin, my other aunt and uncle and my two boy cousins. So it was quite a few of us in a two bedroom apartment. We used to, our room was the living room. I remember living in the apartment and my dad used to put both the couches together and make it bigger. And my stepmom and myself would sleep on the couches, and my dad would sleep on the side of us.

Anne: Tell us why the university of Chicago only gave you a full scholarship for one semester.Laura: What I was telling you before is that, to get any scholarship or to get into university, if you don't have any social security number, you cannot get into college. So what I did high school, I didn't tell anyone about my status because I was really afraid to get deported. So basically I put a fake social security number in my... How do you say that? My forms?Anne: Application.Laura: My applications, yeah. I put a play social security number in my applications. That's the reason that they accept me. But when they find out that I was undocumented, well, they only provide me with a one semester scholarship. That's the reason that I only studied for one semester in university of Chicago.

Anne: Yes. I don't think I have any more questions, but is there something you would like to share to the people who might listen to this interview that you might not have said thus far that tells us more about you, your experiences as a returning migrant, anything at all?Laura: Well, when I returned to Mexico, it was really complicated. When I returned in Mexico they didn't have those programs. I already told to the other girl, and I tell her like, this is the first program in about seven years that I found that actually got interest in immigrants like us. If I would find a program that actually support you for being an immigrant or something like that, I will take it. But I didn't know if you were bilingual you get paid more.Laura: I actually learned that when I was 25, 24-years-old, and that was like when I was five years later in Mexico. If they had more programs that supported immigrants, that would be great. If they give them like the support because it's really complicated. It's a cultural shock. You are in the U.S. and they have a perspective of everything and when you get into Mexico, it is complicated.Laura: They do not accept you because you were living in the US. They were like, "Oh you chose to get into the US? Go back." Some of those comments, so it's really a shock. They should put more programs that support immigrants in Mexico.Anne: What kind of programs do you think?Laura: Like this one, like they help you to look for a job. They provide you more information because I didn't know that you had to certify your certificates from high school and all your transcripts before you can be here. So, it was complicated because I have to send the transcript from my school to my mom, so she can get them certified in the U.S., and then go back to Mexico. Those kind of programs that inform you about those issues or re-integrate you in the culture on the population in Mexico, or something. I don't know. Those kind of programs.

Anne: What do you miss about the US?Laura: My family. I really like the winter in Chicago, the snow, you know? It's really cold. I really like to be in Chicago, but the circumstances. It was complicated.

Anne: When you were in the US, what were your dreams?Laura: I really wanted to be a doctor, but in Mexico… Oh my god, I really tried to be a doctor here, but it was complicated because most of the what is required in here to be a doctor is complicated. You need a lot of money to be a doctor. So, well, money again. [Chuckles]Anne: So, your dreams have changed?Laura: Yeah. Right now, yeah I have a lot of different goals. More tangible, more realistic goals, yeah.

Anne: And then what? What will you do then?Laura: Well, right now, what I want to do is work in the government. Well my goal in life is to do the kind of like—you know when the President is speaking, someone writes those announcements and all of that? I want to do that. I want to write for the President, so he can deliver them. I don't know how you say that in English.Anne: A speech writer.Laura: A speech writer, yeah for the President, or for the government, yeah.

Anne: I mean, the whole idea was you're going to come back and you're going to try and continue your studies? So how did that go?Laura: At first, it didn't go pretty well because my Spanish was horrible. Right now, my English is horrible but later, back in the time, my Spanish was horrible, so I had to learn. I save a lot of money to pay a school to get regularization—it was for learning how to write and how to speak properly. So, I took that course. I tried to do my test for getting to the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico), but I couldn't. My Spanish was still horrible. My reading was horrible. So, I had to adapt once again to learn Spanish.Anne: How long did that take?Laura: That took about six months probably? Or one year because I have to work, too. Here in Mexico, they do the test every six months, so I have to wait until I have learned very well. So, when I learn, once again, I did the test to get into the UNAM or to the Politécnico. I started on both school but I went to the Politécnico to study nuclear physics.Anne: To study—Laura: Nuclear physics.Anne: And are you still doing that?Laura: I have to finish my tests but I'm almost finished.Anne: So, when did you start?Laura: I started back in 2011, 2012? Don't remember pretty well. My mother tried to help me with money, but sometimes it was not enough for me because I have to pay my bills, and she didn't know about Mexico. She believes that it's cheaper than in the US. It is kind of cheaper—well it's not that much cheaper. I have to pay my rent, my bills, and all of that. So, basically, I started to work, and I study in the school as well.Anne: So, you were doing part time?Laura: Well, in that timeframe, I was doing part time. Right now, I work in a full job.Anne: So, you're trying to finish your undergraduate degree? Is that what you're trying to finish right now?Laura: Yeah, my undergraduate degree.Anne: In nuclear physics.Laura: In nuclear physics and I started that second career, economics.Anne: A second—Laura: Yeah, a second career on economics.Anne: And so, when you graduate, you'll have a major in both?

Anne: Were you transported by ICE to the border?Laura: No, I pay my own transportation because the lawyer just tell me that I have to do it. I didn't question the lawyer. I know that, well if you are a lawyer, you have to know about laws. It was provided by one of the Mexicans. It was a program in the US that... well it was only for immigrant women.Laura: So, when my mom went to the program, and they tell her that they have this good lawyer and all of that. Well, the lawyer recommend me to go back to Mexico and do not get anything from ICE because if I do have to do it, it will be worse. So, I went here by bus. So we only took the bus and that's it. [Chuckle].Anne: And you landed, or you came right to Mexico City?Laura: Well from the bus, it was from Chicago to Nuevo Laredo. The bus got into Nuevo Laredo. I have to look for the bus central to get into Mexico City.

Anne: With the voluntary departure did they tell you, you could go back to the US after a certain amount of time?Laura: Yeah, they told me that actually. But when I got in here, I wait about three, four years, then I apply for a scholarship for Rochester University and they give me the scholarship for one semester and they gave me a visa for that, so.Anne: So, are you going?Laura: I already went. [Chuckles]. I was studying nuclear physics, so they give me a scholarship for math school there is on Rochester University. So, I took it. It was my opportunity to get a visa, so I took the visa and I went to Rochester for one semester, and, of course, I went to Chicago as well. [Chuckle]. I went to see my family.Anne: So, are you going to go back?Laura: To the US?Anne: To finish up your—Laura: No, the scholarship was from my school. I went to the Politécnico [Instituto Politécnico Nacional]. So, it was like—Anne: Like a study abroad?Laura: Yeah, study abroad. So, they gave me that opportunity, so I took it. I didn't think twice. I had the opportunity to go to that school or to go to Japan, so I took it to the US.

o, my mom tell me that if I want to get my education, I will have to do it by myself here in Mexico. So when I got in here, it was complicated. It was complicated, but I kind of feel good.Laura: But it was really, Oh my god, the separation, all of that. I felt it like, “Come on. Why?” Sometimes I felt like life was really unfair. When I got in the Mexico, what I have in my mind was to study, not to let my studies go for a deportation or something like that.

Anne: So, you said you had voluntary departure. So, what happened?Laura: I got caught driving without any license. Well, I was told that if I voluntary departure from the US, I wouldn't be in any trouble. So, I did what it was best for me because we went to a lawyer and that's what the lawyer suggest. So, that was six months, the timeframe that the judge gave me to leave the US.Anne: So, you got caught driving without a license? Was there an infraction or did you just get pulled over for…?Laura: I got pulled over. Well, they didn't tell me. They tell me that I haven't made the five second stop or something like that, but I did, but they say that I didn't. So, when the police find out that I didn't have any driver's license, he asked me about my status. I told him that it was illegal to ask about the status, but they tell me that if I was illegal they will have to call ICE on me. I was like, "Come on, please don't do that." And, of course, I was begging for not to call ICE. So, they find out that I was illegal. So, basically—Anne: They called ICE?Laura: They called ICE.Anne: And you said a lawyer told you to listen to...?Laura: Yeah, we talked to a lawyer. Well, I was having my judge appointment, like my court, but the lawyer tell me that if I voluntary departure, I didn't have to go through all of that because if they deport me, will be worse for me. So, I went to voluntary departure.Anne: And how long did that take?Laura: They took about six months, approximately.Anne: And were you in detention or were you at home?Laura: I was in home but I have the little thingy, the, I don't know.Anne: You had an ankle bracelet.Laura: Yeah, ankle. I was like, "Come on." [Chuckle]. Why?

Laura: He did. He did graduate from high school. He got DACA, but he didn't use the DACA. Like he only work at factories because the social security number was the legal one, however, he didn't want to study.Anne: So, when you were at the University of Chicago, did you learn about DACA?Laura: When I was in the University, I was approximately 17 years old, kind of. Like 17 or 18. I didn't learn about DACA until I was voluntary deported. So when I get into Mexico, one day later, they approve DACA.Anne: And when was that? What year?Laura: 2011, 2010? I don't remember quite well.Anne: Yeah, 2011 maybe.Laura: 2011 or something.Anne: It started in 2012.Laura: Yeah, and I was really upset because it was one day later. Like, come on. [Chuckles]. I was waiting like my whole life to be legal. When they basically give all the people that went into the US as children the DACA, I was pretty upset. Like, what? I was in depression. Totally depression, yeah.

Anne: Where do you work?Laura: I work as a waitress. We use fake social security numbers to get into job. I used to work at Chili's, I used to work at Discovery. I never work at McDonald's, but my brother did. Most of the time I worked as a waitress to get money to start paying my school once again, but I realize that it was too complicated.

I earned a scholarship to get into the University of Chicago, but it was only for one semester and I couldn't pay the whole career.Anne: So, you got a scholarship to the University of Chicago?Laura: Yeah.Anne: That's great. For one semester?Laura: For one semester?Anne: And did you go?Laura: I try, but since I have to work and I have to go to school, I couldn't manage that. It was too much for me. I couldn't. It was too much.Anne: So, you didn't even try, I mean you did not go—Laura: I did one semester, but the rest of that I couldn't because I didn't have any money. My family needed the money, so I try to help my mom, but ... well it was not enough. The school in America's really expensive. [Chuckles]Anne: Did you enjoy college?Laura: The only one semester I went, yeah, I did. [Chuckles].Anne: And what were you hoping to do with college?Laura: I was trying to get into the medical school. I was in liberal arts of science, but I changed my mind and I wanted to get into the medical school, but I couldn't. It was a lot of money. We didn't have any money. We did have money to get into the basics, but we didn't have enough to pay my school of course.

Anne: So, you did well in school?Laura: I did. I actually went into the honors roll. When I graduated from high school, I graduate as top 10 and I graduate as number three in my generation. I earned a scholarship to get into the University of Chicago, but it was only for one semester and I couldn't pay the whole career.

Anne: So how did school compare to the schooling that you'd had in Mexico?Laura: It was actually better, the education. I afraid to tell this, but the education is better in America than in Mexico. We have a lot of sports, we have the art classes, and in Mexico we didn't have any of those. We only have Spanish and math, and that's it. [Chuckles].

Anne: Did she work a lot?Laura: Yeah, she did.Anne: In the restaurant?Laura: She did work a lot in a restaurant. Right now, she's manager of a restaurant. She's the manager but she did a lot of work. She was never around the house because she has to work a lot. She was always saying that, "If I came to America it's to get you in school, and to always have money so we don't end back in Mexico." That was her idea.Anne: So, then you became the mother of your brother?Laura: Yeah, kind of. I was always taking care of him. I teach him how to cook, or how to make the stuff. Basically, I learn from my mom, but my brother learn from me.

Most of my friends were Americans so they didn't know I was undocumented and I didn't tell anyone.Anne: Did you know all along that you were undocumented?Laura: Yeah, I did. But, my brother, he took a lot of more time to realize that we were not Americans because when he went to the US, he was really a kid, so he didn't realize that it was illegal. [chuckles]Anne: Did your mother learn English, too?Laura: She tried, but it was a little more complicated for her because there are no programs that support those kinds of like, to learn English undocumented. She's afraid that if she got into one of those programs, the ICE is going to get her caught, so that's why.Anne: So, she was afraid?Laura: Yeah, she was afraid.

Anne: How long did it take to feel comfortable in English?Laura: Oh my god, I still don't feel confident because we have a lot of bully when we start to talk in English. The kids were like making fun of us because we didn't have any good English of course. They were like Americans so they were basically always bullying us because we were not American. So that was one of the, how do you say, the—Anne: The barriers?Laura: The barriers, yeah. The barriers, took us more time to learn English. Yeah it was actually pretty complicated. [Chuckles].Anne: How was school?Laura: At first it was awkward. I didn't want to go to school because the kids were all making bully. They were all bullies. I actually got into a fight about two times because the kids were always making fun of us, that we were like Mexicans. But after that, in high school, it got better.

Anne: That's great. That's great. Did the US seem strange to you?Laura: It was strange at first. Well, it was too big for us, you know? Iguala is really small, our city was really small. Chicago is such a huge city. The buildings are really amazing, so I remember that we were really impressed. We couldn't believe that we were in the U.S.Laura: So we went in the Chicago in October, so it was really beautiful because the trees has those leaves color red, and some of the trees doesn't have any leaves, so it was really cool. [Chuckle].

Anne: Did you leave behind relatives and friends? Was it hard to leave?Laura: It was really hard. It was complicated because my grandmother was really sick. So when we left her, she was really sick and she died one month later. So it was really sad. My friends, we left them behind. We never talk once. Once we been to the US we have never talk since, so.Anne: That's sad. So did your mom eventually meet you?Laura: Yeah.

Laura: Okay. When I went to the U.S., I was 12 years old approximately. I'm right now 26 years old. I used to live on Iguala Guerrero, and if you know, Guerrero is one of the poorest states in Mexico.Laura: So we were really struggling with a lot of payments. Sometimes we didn't have anything to eat. We ate tacos, and that was all we ate in a whole day. So the education was pretty bad. Sometimes we went to school or sometimes we didn't because, well, we didn't have money to go to the school.Laura: My mom was getting paid well, a really low wage. She was getting paid about 700 pesos per week. That's about ... I'm not sure. Is that $35 per week]? We were struggling a lot. When we went to the US, we're trying to look for better living, having to eat something. I don't know. Like, a lifestyle, a proper lifestyle.

Anne: Are there things that you miss from the US?Laura: Well, not really.Anne: The things that you’re glad you don't have to deal with anymore in the US?Laura: People that make fun of you. [Chuckle].Anne: So, you never sort of got over that. I mean you felt that a lot?Laura: When I was in school, my English is not too better. It's not 100%, and there's people that make fun of you. So, I mean I try to do my best but…

Anne: So, the call center is tough, but is it enough to make a living for you and your children?Laura: Well, it's not enough because sometimes I don't have money to take my kids to school because we have to pay like rent, we have to pay the lights that we have to pay, and we have to buy the things that we're going to eat. There's so many things that we have to do.

Anne: And so, you went alone? You got deported alone?Laura: I was pretty scared cause I didn't know. Once I get there, I got to Tijuana, and from there, I took a bus to here.Anne: Was there anyone here to greet you or welcome you?Laura: My family, my mom's family.Anne: Your mom's family? Any government people?Laura: No, nothing like that.Anne: So, you knew that you had family here that you could come to?Laura: I do have family here that I can come to. But, you know, sometimes your family doesn't help too much.Anne: How did that go?Laura: It was fine, but I did have many problems with my family. Because I didn't have my parents here, and as I mentioned to you, they didn't have money to send me and sometimes they asked me for money to even eat.

Laura: I had to work.Anne: And what did you get? What kind of work could you get? You were eighteen right?Laura: Well, I was working at a little place to make juice. We were making juice. I was working there, and then I heard about call centers. I started work there.Anne: Have you been working there ever since? How do you like that?

Laura: Well I was almost finished; it was like two mouths to finish. But I didn't finish it because I'd see the problems with my dad and my mom, and I start to go out with my friends, and I was involved in a car accident. I wasn't driving, but I wasn't all up there, and I got deported.Anne: Obviously you didn't have papers, but had you been drinking? Was there something that?Laura: We were drinking. I wasn't driving, but I was in the car, so they found alcohol.Laura: Alcohol on the vehicle and it's like at the border.Anne: Hardly anything to be deported for, right?Laura: I know. I tried to stay there, but it was better for me to get deported than stay. I didn't want to be in jail. They tried to put me in jail for two months.

Anne: So, did you finish high school?Laura: No, I didn't finish it.Anne: So, tell me what happened.Laura: Well I was almost finished; it was like two mouths to finish. But I didn't finish it because I'd see the problems with my dad and my mom, and I start to go out with my friends, and I was involved in a car accident. I wasn't driving, but I wasn't all up there, and I got deported.

Anne: What did you and your sister do on Saturday and Sunday?Laura: Well, just staying home, watching TV because we were pretty afraid to go out because they were telling us that the police were going to take us if we didn't go to school, and there was many people that told us not to open the window and see what was outside because the police was going to come and take us. So we were just pretty afraid of it, and we just watching TV in our room and just waiting for my parents to come back.

Anne: And were your parents working?Laura: They were working.Anne: And what were they doing?Laura: My mom was working at McDonald's and my dad was a dishwasher.Anne: So, you're at school, and were they working hard? Did you see them? I mean was it kind of the thing where they weren't home a lot or did you get to see them a good bit?Laura: Well the only days that I got to see them was the days that they don't work, days off. Which was one day and it was a Monday I think.

Many: Well, after I see my kids, I'm going to try to get me a place where I can take my kids every time when they want to come and visit. I know that I have opportunities because I'm Mexican. Mexico, they give me an opportunity to give me a house after, I think one year or two years, working with a social security number. They gave me a chance to get a house. I have to pay for the rest of my life, but I mean, it's good. If I can get a house, I think it's a pretty good option for me to see my kids again.

Anita: What about sports? Were you a sports fan?Billy: Since I was nine years old, I was involved with sports. I was playing basketball and stuff. They put me in soccer, but I couldn't do it because people were kicking me in my shins [Anita laughs]. But horrible, man. My dad put me in this little Mexican team. It wasn't like the American soccer mom team. It was like a Mexican team and my fellow players they would kick me in the shin man [Makes kicking noises]. After two weeks I was like, "Dad, I can't do this no more, please. Can't do it.” [Anita laughs].Anita: So you started doing what? What did you do instead?Billy: After that I started skateboarding. I got a skateboard and I did that for 12 years of my life. Every day for 12 years of my life. And I actually took that somewhere so that was pretty cool.Anita: Were you a fan of sports teams?Billy: The Red Sox. I always like the Red Sox. Not because of—Anita: The Red Sox?Billy: Yeah. And you know what? It has to do with the historicity of it. They were the first baseball team in the U.S. They have so much history. When you look at the old pictures, they have the big mustaches and the baseball bats. It just looks crazy and so I really like the history of it. And even just back in the '20s when they first started filming baseball and stuff. So, I just like the history of the Red Sox, but I don't watch it every Saturday.

Billy: I miss speaking English with people. Because when I'm speaking Spanish a lot of times, I'm trying to express a certain idea, but I don't know how to use certain words. So let's say that I'm telling this guy, "Oh dude, that was a great experience." I don't know how to say 'experience' in Spanish. It's like, “Oh esa fue una experiencia muy buena” It's just things like that. And so yeah, just being able to speak very quickly in English and express myself better. That's what I miss. Here I have to tell them in Spanish “oh está aquí por la carretera y me fue algo muy excelente” and I have to think when I'm speaking. And so, there's pauses and stuff. That never happened to me before.

Anita: So, I'm going to ask you both these questions. In what way do you feel American?Billy: The fact that I understand the culture. The fact that I grew up in African American neighborhoods and lived the whole American experience. Not just that but I had friends from all over. Friends from Cuba, living in Miami. From Columbia. Then I had Asian friends, white friends, black friends. I got into the skateboarding culture which really introduced me to a big part of American life. Going out and filming with your friends. Learning jazz music showed me the history of the U.S. and why African American history is so important—it really, in a way, shaped what the U.S. is.Billy: And so, in those ways I consider myself American. Just those experiences. But blood-wise, I'm Mexicano [Anita laughs]. Culturally and in terms of my roots I'm Mexican. I've been exposed to the tacos al pastor. I would give my friends Agua de Jamaica in the U.S. and they were like, "Man, what is this, bro? Man, what is this juice?" I'm like, "Bro, this is not juice it's a plant." It's like, "Man, this is good, bro. I got to buy this." And stuff like that. I've been exposed to the Mexican culture, yeah. And, of course, living in LA, Mexican culture's everywhere there. Think of it.

And he's going to come back?Billy: And he's going to come back and supposedly, they're going to be together when he comes back. They're going to reunite. My dad told me, and he told me this in secret, he was like, "Look man, the reason why I'm doing this is because right now this woman is helping me out." She bought him a car. I swear to god. This is so weird, bro. She literally went to the car dealership, not even in payments, bro, just bought a car. $30,000 and just gave it to my dad.Anita: She was that wealthy.Billy: She was a millionaire.Anita: Really?Billy: Yeah, her husband, his name was Jack. Died of alcoholism but he was very wealthy. He died and left her, bro, left her so much property, so much money, so many things. And she ended up falling in love with my dad because of the music. And when my dad got in a car crash—I forgot to tell you this—that's the reason she bought the car was so he could go to work. And so, she's a nice lady, bro. She's not mean at all, dude. She saw, "Okay this guy has a family to support. Can't get to work. I'm going to buy him a car. Okay, this guy right now doesn't have anywhere to go, he can stay at my place." So super nice lady and I don't have anything against her. It was just... it was my dad. He was inconsiderate. But he's not a bad guy. How is he a bad guy when he's been supporting two families for 18 years? He's the nicest guy ever.

Billy: Yeah. There's another reason as to why I came. I'm just going to go ahead and tell it. This is very personal, but I don't care. So, my dad, he started getting involved with another woman. This white girl. She had a farm. She was more like a country girl. She was all about the country life. So, my dad got involved with her and we ended up moving to a farm with her and I was on the farm with them. It was awesome, to be honest, I had my own little go-cart and I was working with horses. Had my own room.Billy: But then I would see them kissing and I would see them hugging and that was just too much for me bro. It was too much knowing that my mom was here in Mexico, busting her ass, and my dad is doing that. I'm like, "Bro, you're tripping, dude, doing this in front of me, man." I just felt disrespected. I'm like, "You know I love you, dad, but you're not very considerate."Billy: So, I just got the money, I'm like, "I'm just going to leave. It's better that I don't see this because I'm going to end up getting stressed out and pissed off.” So, I'm like, "I'm just going to go to Mexico. I'm going to be happy with my family, eating good food and save myself some stress."

Billy: Dude, a guy that's been in the U.S. his whole life just goes back to Mexico like that. It actually made me cry when I saw his first photo that he posted on Facebook. Him in Mexico. You could see that he's already been burnt by the sun and he's wearing these Mexican clothes. I'm like, "Damn, my brother's in Mexico." That was tough for me, honestly.Anita: Did he use to wear that stuff in the U.S. too?Billy: No, I'm saying seeing him with these cheaper clothes. You've seen him with these, because here in Mexico they wear... It's not like over there. Over there it's easier to get quality. Over here it's a luxury. You know what I mean? So, I'm like, "Damn, this dude is already... he looks Mexican, dude." It was crazy for me. And so, I'm like, "Man, I can't leave my brother there. I'm going to go back." So, I saved them 200 bucks and I just took a plane here.

Billy: So, he goes into this restaurant and he drinks a little bit. Then in come these soldiers, U.S. soldiers, come into the restaurant.Billy: Yeah, so they come in, they sit down and then they get into a political discussion. That's already the first error. My brother, he starts talking about the corruption dude and just about the government bro and he's saying this to these U.S. soldiers.Anita: About the corruption?Billy: Yes, in the U.S. of course. So, the soldiers, I don't know what happened, I think it got heated, the argument, and they called the police, not to arrest anybody just to get the information out of them. Just to get the story. Okay? Yes, so they come, and they start talking, "Oh yeah, it was just a political discussion that got a little heated." They get the soldiers' names, they leave, they look for my brother and they can't find him. They were like, "Sir, we can't find you in the system." [Claps] Deported.

Billy: He lives here in ___ He got deported. That's the reason that I'm here because me and my brother are one. We cannot be separated. It was either he goes back to the U.S., which was not going to happen, or I go to Mexico. That's the decision I made.Anita: So, you came back with him?Billy: No, I came back for him. He basically got deported.

Billy: I am a Mexican right? And so, it's like, "Dude, you're American but you're not? This was crazy!” and so right there I was like, "Dude, what am I?" At one point I was like, "Dude, what am I? Am I...?" Not in terms of who I am, in personality, but my nationality. I was like, "Am I American or am I Mexican?" Eventually I just said I was Mexican. That's my nationality, that's where I was born but I had an experience in the U.S. you hear me?Billy: Yeah, it's just like, because people are like, "Bro, are you white?" I don't like saying I'm white because I'm not white. It's like, "I'm not white, Bro, I'm Mexican." They're like, "How are you Mexican, man? How do you speak English like that?" It's like, "Yeah, man. I'm Mexican. It's cool, bro, it's cool."Anita: So, you said you were Mexican. Why did you say you were Mexican?Billy: Just because I couldn't say I was white. What am I going to say? I'm white? No, I'm Mexican. But at first, I thought I was white. I was like, "Dude, you're just a skater kid. You're American." Then after I started... My dad told me, "Dude, if you get arrested, that's going to be an issue." That's when I realized, "Bro, you're Mexican, dude, and this is part of you. This is part of your roots. Just be proud of it. Grab it and be proud of it."Billy: So now I'm proud to be Mexican and it's awesome because when a white guy thinks I'm white and I start speaking Spanish he's like, "Whoa man, I didn't know Mexicans could do all that." And it's like, "Yeah, bro. Yeah, man. I'm here to show that. I'm an example." So now I'm even more proud of being Mexican.

Billy: Oh yeah, exactly. Being undocumented, it really affects your whole life because you can't go into college, you can't get good jobs. It's hard to get a driver's license. You know what I'm saying? So, it really affected the quality of my life, I would say. And so that would be a yes, being undocumented does affect you.Anita: Yeah. What I'm trying to figure out is, is there a certain stage of your life where all of a sudden you realized that it was different for you?Billy: Oh yeah, for sure. For sure. When my dad started telling me, "Bro, if you get arrested, you're going to get deported," and when he started telling me, "If you don't finish school, you're not going to do anything. You're going to be the illegal migrant working construction." And so, when I started, I was like, "Oh man, this means that I'm like them."

Anita: So, you said, though, that it was also difficult being undocumented and that that contributed to—Billy: That pretty much affected my whole life in the U.S. Being somebody that spoke perfect English, and I had a lot of good characteristics, but just wasn't accepted because of the legal information. Funny story, though, one day I was skateboarding on private property. Police came and they arrested me. Because me and my friends, we hopped this fence. It was basically a school and it had a perfect hill. It looked like a skate park almost. So, me and my friends were like, "Dude, we have to skate this."Billy: Anyway, we started filming. Police comes and they arrest us and so they take my friends' information and whatever and they look for me in the system and they can't find me. They were like, "Mr. S__, we can't find you in the system. Where were you born? This doesn't make any sense." So, I'm like, "Bro, this is it, this is it. I'm going to Mexico." They were like, "Are you native American, sir?" I'm like, "Yeah, sure. I'm native American." “Okay, well, that's fine. You're free to go, sir, don't worry about it.” So, that saved my butt. The English and the way I looked saved my butt a lot.Anita: And your name.Billy: And the name, too, probably had something to do with it, yeah.

Anita: No, no, no. This is super cool. So, you said you fell into a depression at a certain point. Tell me a little bit about that and then we'll move back.Billy: Yeah, so basically, I struggle with OCD, right? I'm sure you know what that is. It's a double-edged sword, it's helped me out of a lot of things to be more consistent. For example, if I'm doing a skateboarding trick, if I land like this, I have to keep doing it over—Anita: Are you a skateboarder too?Billy: Yeah, I have a lot of videos on YouTube. Dude, I was sponsored by a skateboarding company called VIP.Anita: Really?Billy: Bro, I think about my life sometimes it's like dude I almost forget that I had a skateboarding career. That's crazy to me. But yeah, if I would not land correctly, I would have to do it over until I landed in the middle of the board. And so, I would do that 10 times and then I would feel good. So that helped me to be more consistent but, at the same time, it does cause anxiety and stuff like that. It's a double-edged sword.Billy: Anyways, I was struggling with OCD, I was like, "Man, you're just a freaking kid with OCD, dude. You're not going to do anything in life." And I started playing these Robert Johnson songs and my dad sees it. He's like, "You know what, man? I'm going to try and motivate this guy so he can get more into it." So, he would talk to me, he offered me money. And so, I started getting into these songs and I started feeling more spirit. More enthusiasm. I'm like, "Wow, dude, you don't just have to be this weird kid, you can be a jazz musician. You could be something if you want to."Billy: And so, I just started playing and playing it and then that dude just took my depression away, honestly. And now I have OCD, but I don't even care. I know how to cope with it, and I know how to work around it. So, it really gave me an identity, which was really important. I think I was going through an identity crisis.

Anita: Are you a skateboarder too?Billy: Yeah, I have a lot of videos on YouTube. Dude, I was sponsored by a skateboarding company called VIP.Anita: Really?Billy: Bro, I think about my life sometimes it's like dude I almost forget that I had a skateboarding career. That's crazy to me.

Billy: I was 21 when I started playing music. Prior to that I didn't know how to play one note on the guitar.Anita: Seriously?Billy: Seriously, dude. And I would love to show you, not right now but when you have time, a video of me playing and it's just... I'm not trying to sound cocky but I'm very proud of that progress. Yeah. And you know it's funny because my dad will be like, "Dude, if you learn one whole song, if you learn one whole Blues song, I'll give you $100." So, me being young and money hungry I would stay up all night learning these songs and then in the morning he would give me the money. So that also was a motivation like, "Dude, I'm just going to get this money." I would learn the songs and stayed up all night like, "Dad, I can play now." And he's like, "Man, all right. Here's the money." So, that was pretty cool.Anita: So, your dad was a musician. As a musician he must've been pretty proud of you wanting to do that?Billy: Yeah, he was really happy that I got into it but, for me, I would go a little harder, he would offer me money, which was not necessary, but in a way it was like, "Dude, I want to just show my dad that I can play music well. I can be like him in a way." So, yes, he motivated me a little bit. And then he said I was better than him. After a year of playing he was like, "Dude, you're better than me now."Anita: Did you ever play with him?Billy: Yes, I would play sometimes. A rhythm like “[Singing 00:06:32] Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo” and he would just do the “[Singing] dein neih neihn.”We would play sometimes but yeah, when he saw that I got into it he supported that, for sure.

Anita: Do you think that you identified at all, as an undocumented Mexican living in the U.S., with what the African Americans went through?Billy: I think that I identified with it because when you're feeling at your lowest point, and that's how these people were feeling, going through all the racism and being judged by your color and through all this crap, they were able to create gold, like a piece of gold. So, I was like, "Man, you are at your lowest point, but you could still do something if you want. You can become somebody if you want. Just like these guys created this amazing genre, you can be somebody if you really want."Billy: And so, it just gave me faith. I had low self-esteem. That uplifted me and then I started playing guitar and got more girls in—just kidding, just kidding [Anita laughs]. But, yes—

sabel: Yeah. No, I think that's really fair. A couple of closing questions, you said both the US and the Mexico has contributed to your identity and your mentalities. Do you feel Mexican or American?Dan: On most times, American.Isabel: Most times American. Why is that?Dan: In the US, that's where I create my lifestyle. The point of view is based of your lifestyle, who you hang out with, why you hang out with them, what you're capable of doing for some people or some others, not. Over in the States, I would have a weekend where I would go out, party with my wife and the next day I will go to a very expensive restaurant and buy her a bracelet or a necklace, earrings and spend my money with who I love—my family, my mom, my sisters. I would be very happy being in that restaurant and everybody around the table and just take care of the tab and not worry about it. I think that way. In here, in Mexico, even though that is a little bit harder, I actually do the same thing. I hang out, I go out to dance, I go to the karaokes. Back then, in the US, I would go to the lake, do a barbecue. And here, I go to Acapulco. It's a lot better. I don't see the negative things—I mean, I don't always focus onto the negative things because negative things will ruin your life. Focus in what you have, who you are, what you're capable of doing, and what you're capable of helping others about, with this, with that. If people see you as a valuable person for the experience you have at this point, they're more than welcome to get help from myself. But not a lot of people think the same way.

Dan: On the news on the US. There were tents and then they were made to wear pink underwear and that's how they were treated there in Maricopa in Arizona. Well, here, it was tents as well. I know I was a load to my family's shoulders. I know they had to come over and visit me. They had to send me money. When my wife was selling all my tools and all my property, I just told her, "Send me $150." I bought a lot of ... It's called commissary, which it's a lot of food, quick soups, beans, Cokes, all that. I bought tons. And it is common that people that has money, they put a little store. You sell a Coke and when pay day comes, they give you a Coke and they give you a soup. For everything that you sell, it is a soup as interest. So I start building up my store inside and I didn't have to bother my mom or my sisters, my wife. I was supporting myself over there. That happened throughout the two years and half. By the time it was three months before I got out, I start eating all my food with all my friends, the inmates that I kind of got to know as friends. There were other people that had stores and they were about to leave about the same time. So we were eating everything and so we were sharing with all the inmates there.Isabel: You created your own mini business again inside to support yourself so your family wouldn't have to. Can you tell me about ... Were your friends in similar situations, they were undocumented and sent here?Dan: Yeah. The people that were there, they were undocumented as well. And they have a little bit more years to serve than me. There were some of them that they just that were very few months depending on what they did. There were people that were just pulled over because they didn't have a taillight. And it was very, very unbelievable stories that you would hear. Everybody was there for different reasons.

Dan: Well, the attorney that I got, he knew that I didn't have documents at that moment, so he's just like, "Okay. Well, I'm going to try to make a deal." He made a deal of—there's a title that you call this, work release—that you turn yourself in on the weekends and then you go back to work throughout the week. And then you turn back on the weekend and turn yourself in. And that's what is supposed to happen, but I don't know how in the world they knew I was there and I don't know what time they put the hold on me. And then when I got there ... Well, when I tried to get out, they told me I couldn't. They said, "But don't worry. If they don't come to pick you up, INS, by 8:00 in the morning, we'll let you go." And I had my truck, everything on the parking lot. By, I guess it was 8:01, immigration came and then the lady at the reception say, "Hey, you want me to call the other guys?” He's like, "No, I just came for that guy." And yeah, it was a little bit rude. I treat them the way he was treating me. He was asking me all these sorts of questions. I told him to talk to my attorney. And then we got to Dallas, Texas at immigration offices, and I got left there all night, basically, until I started yelling and screaming, and they said, "Oh! We forgot about you." They took me to a local jail to stay there overnight. And then the next morning, that's when they just told me I was going to be able to see an immigration judge. I think I waited for a couple of months, three months. I turned myself in May ... it was May the 14th. My father passed away May the 21st, and I was not there. Just a bunch of things ran through my mind. But when I went to see the judge, they told me, "Hey, you were told that they were going to give you five years straight if you would come back." And I served two years and a half. I was two years and a half in jail at the border. It was Raymondville by Harlingen. I was there working out, building myself up. I had to see the bright side. You cannot focus on the negative things or else you get destroyed. I always try to joke about sad situations because if I focus into the negative things, nothing good comes out of it.

Dan: Yes. It was this lady where I went over and gave her an estimate. And she offered to give me her credit card to go ahead and buy the material. When I bought the material, it was more money that we quoted, but I told her that it could vary. I gave her all the material. I gave her all the receipts, and she was not happy about it. She went over and accused me of credit card abuse. I got an attorney and it was like, "Hey, don't worry about it. I already got you a deal. It's only going to be 10 days in jail. And it's going to be only weekends." And like, "Okay." Immigration doesn't work on weekends, so I will turn myself in on a Friday night and then I will come out on Monday 12:01 in the morning so it will count four days. I turned myself in and when I was about to get ready to get out, I called the guards and say, "Hey, I need to take a shower because I'm about to go to work." So they let me out. Took my shower, went back to my cell. And then about twelve midnight, they called me up and say, "Hey, Cabrero, come down." So I went down. They're like, "Man, I cannot let you out because you have an INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service] hold." I'm like, "What?" They were like, "Yeah, you have an immigration hold." "No, not really." That's when I lost my house, I lost my trucks, my trailers, my tools, my home, everything.Isabel: You were living with your family?Dan: I was already with my wife and my kids at my own property. I was at my own house. She had to let everything go. Yeah.

Dan: Yes. I'm very organized. Obviously, that came from my parents. I'm very perfectionist. Yes, definitely. In here, if you go around the buildings anywhere, pick a street, whenever they paint a building, you can see a bunch of dripping on the floor on the sidewalks. That's where I make the difference in my job. If I do something, I do it better, and people like it. And even treat with a person. You say "Hi," you say, "Good afternoon," "Good morning," and you get yourself to know by other people as an educated, respected person. Not everybody's like this, and I learn it from the States. You treat people the way you want to be treated. And that's basically where I got my reputation from. You treat everybody the way you want to be treated no matter where they're at, no matter who you are, no matter who they are. That's my motto.

Dan: Sure. Obviously, back then I didn't have no documents. I start working with this guy as a helper. He was a contractor for Home Depot putting the countertops, taking off the Formica, the wood countertops and putting marble or granite. I was doing that with him for about a year, but we were looking how other people in that same house were putting hardwood floors, painting, and doing this and that. I was gathering their info. It was like, "Hey, this is your own business?" "Yeah." "Okay. How much do you charge the square footage of our engineering wood floors?" "Okay. I'll let you have it for $1.50." So I start getting all that information. And at one point, the guy that I was working with, he moved. He bought his own house, but it was way too far. So he invited me over and he said, "Hey, I'll pay you rent on an apartment nearby, but I need your help." And I was like, "No." And at that moment, I printed my own business cards and I knew how to paint, so I was painting houses. I was painting inside interiors, outside exteriors. And I started selling out other people's jobs. For instance, I would say, "Hey, I'm looking you're remodeling your house. I can do the engineering hardwood floors for $2.50." And I said, "Okay, do you have a catalog?" So I will run to ... By then, I knew where the hardware stores were, the outlets, and they will give me a good rate. If the square footage was $1.00, I would resell it for $1.50 or $1.15. And that how I was making out my money. I would give somebody else the job, making money out of them, and just making money out of the material. That's how I was making money. All of a sudden, when I least expected, I was doing electricity, I was doing plumbing, I was doing the sprinkler system. I was just doing pretty much everything around the house, concrete, shingles, roofing. I was subscribed with an insurance company. I believe it was Allstate Farm where all the damages would give it to me and they will pay me straight up. I was there.

Dan: Well, when I crossed the border the last time, that was back in 2009. I was married already and I had my child. My wife was pregnant with my daughter. The violence and the economic situation here was to a point that it was not standable no more. My dad came over. He was an American citizen by then, and he drove us to the border. And I crossed the border in an automobile with my sister and my nephews. And just the officer were like, "You American citizen?" "Yes, I am." "Where were you born?" "Dallas, Texas." And he says, "What hospital?" "Parkland." And said, "Okay. Go, go, go." They didn't check anything, and that was after 9/11, which the security shouldn't be a little tighter? And then my wife came across the border with my father and they didn't have any issues. We didn't have the necessity of walking down the mountain or going through ... risk our lives like other people.

Dan: Well, at one point everybody—when I said everybody, I'm talking about my mom, my dad, and my sisters. We were able to qualify to be American citizens after so long being a permanent resident. And in my mind, it was like, "Why am I going to be showing a visa going to my own country?" That was the only reason that I didn't want to go for it. Now I regret it, but I just didn't want to do it because, I guess, lack of information, not enough information that I was or I wasn't going to need that. And time went by and I regret it now.

Dan: Well, it's like any kid that wants your mom to be in a very stable situation. I always wanted to buy a house for my mom and just give her peace of mind. But at one point, I tried to do it, but she always lived with my sisters. But I tried. I didn't accomplish it. I was not able to make it, but it was part of my plans.

Dan: Well, I remember when I was at my former job as a customer service agent, I feel so proud due to the fact that I was sitting next to college students that studied so many years in college and I was earning more than them because of a language difference and a shift differential. I was like, I didn't have to study that much and I'm earning more. I guess it was one of the satisfactions, but obviously, you have to work for it.

Isabel: Okay. And during that time, did you like school or what did you like to do in your free time?Dan: Back then, it was very famous going roller skating.Isabel: Oh, really?Dan: We would go roller skating, my sister and myself and my cousin. Then, I will play soccer as well and just going out to movies. It was not much to do back then because you needed transportation. It was far sometimes, so they will have to come and pick us up, but we managed.

Dan: Well, at the beginning I remember there was a lot of ... Well, now it's called bullying. Back then, it was just making fun of. ... because I didn't know how to speak English well. I didn't know how to communicate. I didn't know how to make myself understood. It was just a lot of language barrier, I would say.Isabel: Was the school helpful with language, or did you have to learn it on your own?Dan: Well, high school that's when I got ESL, which was English as a Second Language. And I remember teachers tried to help. That's when I got the help. But before then, it was just hardly.Isabel: So they didn't have any ESL for elementary or middle school?Dan: No.Isabel: Wow. How did you pick up English, then?Dan: Well, just hanging out with my classmates. And my sister was with me and my cousin, so we would make our own little group and we would hang out with all the Hispanic guys and then we'd encourage each other to just start talking English. We had to start somehow.Isabel: And when you said there was bullying because of the language barrier, was that why you formed those groups with people who also spoke Spanish?Dan: Well, yeah. You feel more comfortable with Hispanic people. They try not to make fun of you because they know how it feels. They've being in that situation before. We try to help each other and just stick together.

Isabel: Then on your second trip to the US, do you remember migrating to the US a little better?Dan: Yes. It was on a working visa. It was with my family, my mom’s visa. And I studied middle school with the fifth grade. And I still have all my, how do you call it, school reports. Yeah. I still have all those.

Isabel: Three years old. And what caused your family to migrate?Dan: It was work, basically.

Rocio: They say I need to follow the report. And even the immigration guy, he stopped in the middle of the road and he told me, “Who did this to you?” I mean I told him my kids, my apartment, my car—because the police were arriving and I was in a towel because I was in the shower and they don't let me dress, so he took me to the police car and we wait for an hour. I was in my towel and then immigration guy arrived and he told me, “What are you doing almost naked here?” And I said, “Well he don't even let me get pants or something.” So he let me get in my house, get dressed and he told me, get your papers, your birth certificate for your kids and everything you think you're going to need.

Rodolfo: I think a lot of the deportees, when they come back, yes. But I think more about their family—the inability to help your family member, the person who you love is one of the most horrible... it's a horrible feeling, not being able to help, let alone help one of your family members.Rodolfo: I remember my mom crying over the phone and telling me, “Man, I just want to help you. I wish I could just go and get you.“ Or, “Man, I'm going to ask around and see if I can find a lawyer and everything.” Oh my god, don't let me get started on the lawyers over there. They're not quite good people, right? Because they take advantage of that as well. But that's another conversation.Sergio: So, on that piece about helping families. What do you think the US government can do to help Mexican deportees and the families that they leave behind? You left your family.Rodolfo: If it'd be up to me, everybody would be together and there would be no borders and no laws. But what the US government can do to help families in that position is if one of your family members is in a detention center, you automatically— there should be a law, there should be a rule, whatever man—can go and visit. You can go visit and get visited by anybody who they want and they can't touch them. It doesn't matter if it's a federal, state law or whatever.Rodolfo: You can't deprive somebody of their family like that, man. I understand you're not from here, and okay, they're in deportation proceedings and everything, but that's why there's so many fights in there, you know? That's where there's so much aggression, so much tension, because you don't know what's going to happen.

Rodolfo: I feel like, obviously because of the corruption or anything they don't want to help us because they much rather keep that money for themselves then to give it out. So, I feel like more awareness as well. If there is that help, then let us know. Let us know we have that help. Let us know you are there and we can help. Not just that we've come here from a different country and now go ahead, do whatever you can. No, I mean, just help us out too.Sergio: I'm just wrapping up. Why do you think so many people from Mexico have a negative perception of returning migrants?Rodolfo: Because of what their family members tell them. And the reason why returning deportees have a bad perception or a bad idea or a bad image of why they shouldn't come back is because well, in the first place, their family... Every individual has their own story, right? Obviously, that individual's family has told them the story of why they moved to America. And if they themselves, if their own family didn't want to live here, that in its own instills fear in them.Rodolfo: I mean, we're humans, right? We fear the unknown. We fear what we don't know, especially we fear change. We're creatures of habit. If you take me out of my element, if you took me out of Chicago, I'm like, “Shit, I don't know what's going on man.” I didn't know I couldn't walk after I paid my tacos. I didn't know I had to give back [inaudible 00:25:14], the glass bottle. I didn't know that. I didn't know I had to pay five pesos if I want to use the bathroom around here.Rodolfo: My family painted me a picture of here that it was going to be horrible. Because that's what they lived, that's what they know. That's the reason why they moved. Like, “Hey man, living over there is going to be horrible. Don't go over there, fight the case, stay here. You're not going to be able to do anything over there, it's so hard. Minimum wage—the pay is horrible, the jobs are horrible.” And they're feeding you what they know and what they lived because they don't know any better, they don't know anything else.Rodolfo: And for a person who doesn't know a country, then they're going to take heed to that. If I watch a movie and I tell my friend, “Hey man, don't watch that movie, that movie is horrible.” Yeah, I watched it, you didn't and now you're going to take my opinion and apply it to your own beliefs. Okay, well, I mean, he's my friend he wouldn't lie to me, why would he lie to me? You're my mom, you're my brother, my sister, whatever. If you say it's bad, it's bad.

Rodolfo: The Mexican government, they provided some help. They provided 50 pesos when I first got here. And they just give me a whole bunch of pamphlets of school and housing, right? But I feel as though independent organizations were the ones who ultimately would have helped me a lot more. When I first got off the plane, they told me about all the resources, all the help, all the things that their company or their organization did for other people, deportees. So, I feel like independent organizations would have helped me more than the Mexican government.Rodolfo: What can the Mexican government do to help deportees?Rodolfo: Well, I mean, look, when I first got here, apart from them giving me 50 pesos... In my opinion, the Mexican government can be more supportive in having—I don't know,—what I was thinking is probably a fund, you know? Or maybe a fund or some type of little packet. Not saying that we all are entitled to it, but it'd be good to get here and have a little bit of money or a place for yourself, or right away giving out jobs or something like that. I'm not saying that the Mexico City doesn't have jobs for a bilingual speaker or bilingual people but it's through third party organizations, outsourcing and stuff like that.Rodolfo: But if the Mexican government really do want to help then that would be my suggestion. More jobs, more jobs for people like us. And not just for people us more so, but that would help out everybody else. Or simply, when I got here maybe there'd be a little fund that everybody gets, a certain amount of money to start their own business. Because I did hear about something like that. That there are help for people that want to start their business, especially if you're deportees.

Rodolfo: And I feel like somebody's first experience or first impression or how they've gone about being in Mexico has to do greatly with their support system in Mexico. And unfortunately, I had the shorter end of the stick. I felt like I needed to pass by the things I needed to pass in order for me to get to the point where I am right now in this very point in time, in this chair, wearing these clothes.Rodolfo: It wasn't the most prettiest thing. I was homeless for a while. I didn't have a house. My house was a 2016 Nissan Versa and that's only because I took a job as an Uber driver and it wasn't even my car, it was somebody else's. But I couldn't tell that guy it wasn't my car because he probably wouldn't even have let me keep driving. So, my first, my initial experience in Mexico was bad, it was bad.Rodolfo: I was lied to, I was deceived, I was stolen from. It's like every little turn it was always a smack in the head or something. But little by little I started getting acclimated to everything that was going on. How I should go about moving in certain areas or how I should talk, how I should move. Better yet, how to adapt to certain situations.

Rodolfo: I don't want to say I feel like American. Spiritually, me myself, as an individual, I feel like now that I've been in Mexico and been living the real life of a real life Mexican—because man, it's hard out here, you know?—I feel like if I say I'm American, I feel like I'm betraying who I am. Because I have American… Yes, I'm from... Because even then I can't even say I'm American cause I'm not from there, that's why I'm here, right? But the way I feel, yeah, I guess I am what they call me here, el gabacho, the American, the white boy. Do I feel it? I feel it only because I miss my home and that's what I want to be in order to be okay over there. I mean, if that's what I have to be in order to be okay over there and then, okay, yeah, I'm American.Rodolfo: But when I'm amongst individuals, Mexicans here and everything, my own people, I'm a Mexican. It still takes me a little while for me to be able to really integrate myself because to this point, to this day, I still have trouble expressing myself 100% in Spanish. I always try to better my Spanish, but it gets to the point where sometimes I can't fully express the way I feel at times.Rodolfo: So, I speak in English but then you can't understand me in English because you speak all Spanish. So, those are the times when I really truly do feel American more than I feel Mexican. Because if I can't voice and express my true feelings in my native tongue then that's—my native tongue is English.Rodolfo: So, you know what? Now that you do mention it, yeah, I feel more American now than I do Mexican and it's kind of mixed feelings. Because I'm trying to forget everything that I was over, that was going on over there, that I lived over there. But it's hard because I want to go back, I want to be able to punch in at Cheesecake Factory, and I want to be able to come home and just be with my family. But yeah, I do feel more American than I do Mexican and I'm not ashamed to say that's who I am. Short of being born over there, I'm from over there.

I remember when I first got picked up, they took me to Wisconsin—I'm sorry, they took me to Rock Island, Illinois—for processing. That was the processing center.Rodolfo: They took my fingerprint and my name, first and last name and everything. Right? So I wasn't… I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought. They took my name and everything, right? But then they had a form in front of me and they told me here, sign here and you know you'll be all set. And I asked them, “Well here, give me a second, let me read it.” And there was another person, right? Because it was a desk like this one. It was four seats this way with the divider being the computer, the fingerprint scanner and a camera, like a little Nikon camera, simple camera. And I told everybody— I was the only one who spoke English or perfect English at that—"Hey man, don't sign anything at all until you know what you're signing because you don't know what you're signing. For all you know you're signing your liver away. So, just don't sign anything.” And the guy told me, “Hey man, shut your mouth. We're talking to you; we're not talking to them. I'm talking to you. Don't be a hero or don't be a jailhouse lawyer.” I'm like, “A jailhouse lawyer? I'm not in jail.”Rodolfo: And they told me, “Just sign here.” I'm like, “No, I'm not going to sign it.” And I started reading through it, and it basically everything that it said was, “I waive my right to an appeal. I waive my right to any formal hearing. Basically, deport me as soon as possible.” And I'm like, “So you're telling me that without explaining to me what's going on or what this form entails, you're just going to have me sign it?”Rodolfo: Because they told me, “We're not going to let you speak to your family and you're not going to see your family for a long time if you don't sign this because you're breaking some law or whatever.” Because they even showed me little papers saying, if you state that you're a US citizen it's a federal crime punishable by between—I think it was like—three to seven years in federal prison.Rodolfo: Now, I'm not sure if that was another one of their little tactics or whatever, but nonetheless didn't let it scare me, I didn't let it affect me. I'm like, “Okay cool, that's great man, I'm not going to sign this. I need to go in front of a proper hearing and a judge. I want to bond set. Because I know, well, I may not know my rights a hundred percent, but I know that I'm, I'm entitled to a bond or at least a hearing for a bond.”Rodolfo: And they told me, “Wait right here.” And then they went to go get a supervisor, and the supervisor spoke to me in private and he gave me another form and he was like, “Okay, you want a proper hearing? Sign here.” And I read it and, okay here, then like, man, this is what it is? It took me getting loud with you. I was a bit belligerent, I'm not going to lie to you tell you I was the best, as they called me, “detainee.” But I'm going to fight for my home. I understand I was born in Mexico, but Chicago's my home, it's my land, that's where I'm from. And whatever I can do to stay there, I'd be okay.Rodolfo: And so, yeah, that's what it was. But it took me probably a good, five months before I could see a judge.Sergio: You were in detention that whole time?Rodolfo: I was in detention. I was in a detention center for five months.Sergio: Before seeing the judge?Rodolfo: Before seeing the judge. And it wasn't even a formal hearing I did. It was over the internet and the monitors, surprisingly that day, did not work. So, all I heard was voices and I told them “No, I want a proper hearing. I can't see the judge. For all I know there's a guy in the next room talking to me and there's no judge.” “Okay, well you're going to have to wait on a whole another six months.” And I'm not going to lie to you, those detention centers aren't all that pretty, you know what I mean?Rodolfo: I just didn't want to be locked up anymore. That, honestly, that scared me. I didn't want to do another whole six months. By that point, I would've done a year just to go see one judge for a bond. Finally, I said, “Yeah, you know what? Yeah, I want one. I'll take the six months, give me the six months. Just so I can see a judge.” Surprisingly, there was another court hearing, I think, a month from then. So, I finally got to see the judge, but they set the bond at $50,000. And I don't have a $50,000, my family doesn't have $50,000. So, I sat there. I sat the two and a half years because I wanted to fight it. Every possible angle that I could probably touch, I tried it.

Rodolfo: After I was detained, I've got to say my experience going through the immigration, it was something I had never experienced in my life. I mean, I was never deprived of my freedom. And it wasn't because I committed an actual crime. I didn't go and take somebody's laptop, or I didn't go into a store with a loaded gun and ask for money. No, it was one of the most horrible experiences I've ever been through. It was more their idea of housing me because I'm not from there or it was...

Rodolfo: No, Chicago's a sanctuary city, yeah. That's why I don't understand why I was picked up. The day I got picked up, I was driving to work. I parked my car and out of nowhere a Ford truck, it was unmarked truck, they didn't even have the DHS seal on it. I didn't understand it, because I even told them all, "Isn't this a sanctuary city? Can you guys do this, is this against my Constitutional rights? I'm not that sure, not that well-educated in that aspect of it, but here, give me a book, I'll read it and I'll tell you what it is. I'm not stupid bro." That's why they separated me from the other people I was with, because it wasn't only Mexicans that I was with. I was with somebody from... I was with two Somalians.Rodolfo: They were brothers actually, two Somalians. I told everybody, "Man, don't sign anything, don't talk, don't say anything. Just tell them you want a lawyer and that's it.” I remember they told me, "Shut up," and they put me in a different cell, because I kept on telling everybody not to sign anything. Yeah, that's what I didn't understand—I didn't understand how they were able to go get me, but as I understood then and now, obviously federal laws are always gonna trump state laws.

Rodolfo: That's what happened, that's really why they got me. I remember when I was in Court they said, "He has accumulated since he was 15. Since he was 15 he accumulated a lot of driving tickets. He is dangerous to the road." I'm like, "What? [Incredulous]. All my tickets are because you guys pull me over. It was late at night, I was the only car on the road. I mean, obviously, if a police officer tails you for more than two miles, you're gonna do something wrong in their eyes, right?” That's just what happened. I kept on driving, why? Because I went to school and I went to work, and it's just easier, it's just more convenient to drive your car that you paid for, than to go through the hassle of the CTA—the CTA is the Chicago Transit Authority.Rodolfo: Yeah, that's the way it was, but I always saw it as, “Man, don't let that affect you.” But, hey man, it affected me all right? If I didn't drive, I would probably still be over there.Anita: What did they give you tickets for?Rodolfo: Driving with no valid drivers license. Then after two or three time it turns into an aggravated... No, sorry, it turns into a felony. It's just the same kind, but now it's a felony instead of a misdemeanor.Anita: They just pulled you over because they saw that... Why did they pull you over?Rodolfo: One of the first times was because I had a busted taillight. I didn't realize that the lightbulb had gone out. Then after that...Once again, I didn't live in the best place around town, so police would always be around. I guess they just saw me and they would always just get behind me. It wasn't just me, it was other friends. Even when I would be with other coworkers, it would happen the same way. In Rogers Park, by Evanston, and even in Wrigleyville, a whole bunch of places, if it's late at night and they just see one or two individuals, especially Hispanic or African-American, they're gonna see what's going on.Rodolfo: They're gonna want to see what's going on. That's what happened, because I literally would ask them, "Why did you pull me over?" "Improper lane usage." All my tickets improper lane usage, failed to use turn signal. It was really aggravating because it was like, “Man bro, you see me with my work uniform on, you see the food right next to me. Literally, here is my work ID, this is where I work, and I'm coming from work. Please just let me go home." "Please step out of the car." Impound the car, or, I'm not gonna lie, some of the times that I did get pulled over sometimes they just let me leave the car, or they had me call somebody with a license, but that was very, very rare that would happen.

Rodolfo: Yeah, it was a big difference for my friends and I, because they all got their license, they all were able to get their ID and everything. And I wasn't able to do it. Then when I was asked, "Hey man, why don't you get your license?" Only some of my very, very close friends—probably like two friends—knew that I wasn't documented. Then, when we spoke about it amongst other friends, they knew that it was like another secret you had to keep. Yeah, it was different with other kid. Sometimes I'll be even jealous, because I'm like, "Damn, if only I had been born a couple of miles North of the border, or West of the border, or whatever, I could be in your position.”Rodolfo: I'm like, "Why, why do I have to feel that way man? I'm a good person. I've made mistakes and things like that but hey man...” Nah, don't think that way you know? Just because you don't have a visa that says you're from America, doesn’t mean you can't do the same things. What, at 15 I bought my first car by myself. At 16, I got my first ticket, my first pull over. But why? Because I was coming home from work. That's when I was already working at Chili's—I was working in Schofield, Illinois at Chili's. You know restaurant jobs, you got to work late. At that time in the suburbs, there's not much transportation short of a cab ride. But I'm not gonna be wasting money every day, so that's why I bought my car.

Rodolfo: Yeah, I guess it's one of those things where you think it's never really gonna affect you, until you're in the back of the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, van. You're next to a whole bunch of people you never met, and they're also in the same position. Some don't even speak English. You don't really understand how immediately it can affect you until it affects you. I never thought it would affect me. Okay, well I mean, I'm working, I'm going to school—I'm in high school—I'm doing this, this and that. Some of my friends who are students already dropped out. Did everything, they’ve already gone to prison and back and everything, and they haven't even hit their 21st birthday.Rodolfo: And I'm still good, I'm still good. I may not be a straight A student or anything, but hey man, I'm still here! Why can't I have the same privilege as you all do? Why can't I get my license? You know how happy I was when I got my license here, damn. I love to drive, that's one of my passions. Always, always, always I love to drive. I couldn't get my license over there. I remember even in high school in drivers ed, I knew what the answer was, but I asked my mom, “Hey mom, can I apply for drivers ed, so I can get my license? “She was like, "You know you can't get your license." Again, one of the primary things, I’m like damn, I'm just not gonna be able to drive all my life? Or if I do drive and I get pulled over—as a matter of fact, that's the reason why I got deported, driving without a valid drivers license.

Rodolfo: I wanted to be a lawyer, man, that's what I wanted to be. That's what I wanted to be, a lawyer. It's funny, because when I was younger I wanted to be a lawyer. Then after that I'm like, "I want to be an immigration lawyer, that's what I want to be now. I want to be an immigration lawyer.” I was already on the right track to being a lawyer, but then when that happened, it really opened my eyes more to, "Okay, let's help my people."

Rodolfo: Well, it was just mixed emotions. I felt sad because I contributed to the team a lot. I wasn't just there, and it made me sad because I wasn't going to be able be with my friends, my teammates. It also made me mad because all my life, all my short period, my whole time here in Chicago or whatever, I don't think I've done anything bad. Why shouldn't I have the privilege to go if I put in the same work as they did? Only because I don't have a social security number or a document that lets me buy a plane ticket and go over there? I think about it in a different—at the same time, I was a little kid too—I just cried a lot. That night I just cried a lot because I knew I wasn't gonna go. My mom spoke to the, I'm not sure what my mom told her, but see, I don't think she told her that we're undocumented, and I can't fly.Rodolfo: Yeah, I just remember that night feeling very sad, very sad, but then it turned into anger. It was like, "Man, why can't I?" It was always just that, "Why can't I? I put in the same work, and just because I wasn't born here, I can't fly?" I even looked into bus routes and everything to DC and stuff like that, but my mom was like, "No, you're crazy, you can't go alone." She worked and everything, I just felt sad, mostly sad.

Nothing happened. Yeah, it changed a lot. It changed the way I viewed everything around me. Like, spring break all my friends would go certain places out of the country, and I used to get invited and, "No, I can't go man, my family doesn't think..." It would always have to be lie after lie after lie. I didn't want to... for one, I always had that idea of like my mom and my family always told me, "Don't ever tell anybody you're an immigrant. If somebody has that knowledge they can do you harm. They can take you away from here, they can take us away from each other."Rodolfo: I'm seeing it now, with the families going across the border, and them being separated. I didn't understand it at the time, and man, now I do understand it. I didn't know how it really was until I finally got put in handcuffs and got shipped to an immigration facility.

Rodolfo: I didn't put as much effort as I did anymore. I knew, at the end of the day, I'm not eligible for scholarships. I don't get any aid, I don't get anything. In my mind I thought, “Man, what's the point of really working hard in school if at the end of the day, I'm not gonna get any help?” My mom is having to work to put me through college. No, I don't want this, so I just thought, you know what, I'm just gonna give her what she wants, my diploma, my high school diploma. From then on, if I want to do something, it'll be by my own hand, out of my own pocket. I didn't want her to... Not that I was a burden or anything, my objective was for her not to work that much. That's it.Rodolfo: After she told me that, I'm like, "Well, okay, what's the point of really working hard and putting your best effort into school if, in my position, I won't be able to surpass US citizens." Then the aspect of financial aid, or any aid at all, I'm not gonna have any of that.

Rodolfo: Yeah, I worked all the time, I never stopped. One of the first jobs I had…My uncle worked at a restaurant called, Baker's Square in Chicago. It was on the corner of Tui and Pratt. I really, really, really wanted—I think I was in fifth or sixth grade—a phone. I wanted a phone, it’s called the Psychic Slide. Phones used to flip, but this one slides. I wasn't gonna ask my mom for it, so I asked my uncle. "Hey man, I know you work at Baker's Square and I know around the holiday season it gets really busy. Can I help you? Can I go?" He's like, "Well, yeah, if you want." I used to wake up like 3:00 in the morning, and I used to go and help him out. After that, I really liked making money and I really liked dressing nice, I liked having my nice haircut or whatever. My very, very first job was in Wilmette, Illinois. I was a caddie. Yeah, and then—Sergio: On the golf course?Rodolfo: On the golf course, yeah. Wilmette Golf Course actually. I remember I was always the first one there. They used to choose us, when everybody got there, "Okay, you come with me, you come with me." I used to always go there and there was a gentleman by the name of... Man, I forgot his name. Like the President, Gerald Ford, that was his name Gerald Ford! The only reason I remembered was because of the President. He used to always get there around the same time I got there. He finally asked me, "Do you want to be my personal caddie? I don't want you working anymore with all these other kids, because nobody wants to work. Do you want to be my personal caddie?" I'm like, "Yeah, absolutely." It was going really, really well and everything.Rodolfo: I got to high school, I had a number of jobs. I worked at Subway, I worked at Chili's, I worked at... What was it? Outback Steak House, but then I finally just got to the Cheesecake Factory, and that's where I stayed the remainder of my time. The remainder of my time I stayed there, and I started from the busboy and I finally ended up being a bartender. One of the head bartenders, one of the head servers, they used to pay-out people and everything. Obviously, I didn't have my social or anything, but I was a little bit older than what I really was. When I first got there, when I first, first started working I think I was like 14. Obviously you can't work that young, I think actually, I was 18, at 14.Rodolfo: I didn't see it as anything bad. I knew that if I got caught with my fake ID and my fake social security card I'd get in trouble, but that's why we're there, that's why we worked. I didn't get a fake ID to go party or go get into clubs or bars or anything. The main purpose of it was for me to be able to get a job, and so my mom wouldn't have to work all those hours that she used to work. She used to work at a Burger King, overnight. I used to barely see her, and I didn't want that anymore. I told her, "You don't have to work that much if I start working. We can help each other out, we can, we're a team.”

Wilmette Golf Course

Baker's Square in Chicago

When I finally really, really understood what an immigrant was or why I was an immigrant, it was the day that—I was in a debate team in my middle school. We won, in the whole district we won. We won the top prize. We went... Not national, I think it was... Yeah, nationwide, we were supposed to go to DC.Rodolfo: We were supposed to go to DC. I remember this then and it broke my heart, so I want to even cry now [Emotional]. Damn. I asked my mom, "Can I go?" She's like, "No you can't." I'm like, "Why?" "Because you can't fly." I'm like, "Why can't I fly?" She said, "Because you don't have a state ID, you're not from here." I'm like, "Damn." Then, I think she told the school... She made something up, but that's when I finally knew it. Like, "Damn, this shit is real, this is real." Then after that I just, "Okay, whatever, I'm just gonna see where this takes us." Yeah, that's around the time I found out.

Rodolfo: Have I always known that I was undocumented? When I was younger, when my mother and I arrived to Chicago, I remember my aunts telling her, "Don't go out that much. Stay indoors, because if they see you, they can take you." I'm at a very young age, at that point, I think I was six or seven. Adults are talking in the room and you hear them tell your mom, "Don't go out that much. If they see you out there, they're gonna grab you." I thought like, “Whoa, who's gonna grab us, who's gonna grab mom?” I didn't understand the concept of the legal side of migration. Why we're not supposed to be here. I'd never quite fully understood why I wasn't supposed to be there.Rodolfo: Until finally, one time my stepdad, he told me, "You need to go to school and do everything that you need to do, because we're not supposed to be here." I asked him, "Why not, why can't we be here?" He told me, "We're immigrants, we come from a different country. You weren't born here, I wasn't born here, and this isn't our country. People don't want us here because they say we take their jobs. Or they have a preconceived image of what an immigrant is." I still didn't understand it yet, I didn't know why. You go to work, you pay your taxes, you do everything as my American parent's friends do.

Rodolfo: Yeah, absolutely. Ms. Mule, Ms. Mule was my second or third grade teacher, I'm not sure which one it was. She was awesome, she always help me out with the English, always. Even in parent teacher conferences, she would literally always talk to my mom as if she'd be really interested. She would show genuine interest in what was going on with, not just me, but with the Hispanic kids. Kids who had trouble with English or weren't doing the best academically. She always would tell me, "Don't worry, you're gonna get it. You're gonna learn it." She had such a big heart.Rodolfo: Still even, my mother and I still talk about the teacher to this point in time. She tells me, "I remember Ms. Mule and she used to use hand gestures. She would always be like, 'Yeah, for this or for that.'" Even though I knew I wasn't the smartest or the most best behaved kid, she would always have that initiative to get us there. Get us to that point. Yeah, that was one of my favorite teachers. Man, I value that so much actually now. I miss that teacher. Another teacher was in fifth grade, his name was Mr. Stoom. He was Argentinian, he was from Argentina. He was another great teacher. He always told us, "Don't ever forget where you came from. Your roots are who you are, even though you all are coming from different parts of the world, don't ever forget who you are and where you come from."

The program was called the TWI (Two Way Immersion). It was a bilingual program and that's where I learned my English, that school. Friends and everything. I feel as though like, that's why I learned my English so well, because I really, really wanted to learn it. I always heard kids at the park or at the store, at Target, at Jewels, or whatever and everybody spoke English, right? I just felt fascinated, I was intrigued by it.Rodolfo: It was a whole different language that I didn't know, and I wanted to master it. I wanted to be able to talk as they spoke, or talk as they talked. School was a very cool experience. I always had a lot of friends, and I was always the life of the classroom. I wasn't probably the best behaved kid, but I was always integrated in to what was going on with the school.

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.

I remember everything that happened from start to finish. From the beginning where we got picked up, to being in the desert. I still remember eating cereal with water. It was... I don't know, it was very, very... I feel like it was... it obviously had an impact psychologically, because I still just have a lot of anxiety when I'm in certain places that I'm really accustomed to. A two, three year old in the middle of the desert, it definitely had to have an impact on me.

Sergio: Why did your family migrate to the US?Rodolfo: The reason why my family moved to the US was because both my grandfather and my biological fathers struggled with addiction, with alcoholism and drug abuse. They were just not very... Mostly my biological father, he really wasn't always there, and he was always very violent towards my mother. My mother had me when she was 14 years old. When she got pregnant everybody decided well, okay, she messed up. She is this, that, like very, very taboo. She wasn't really accepted in the family anymore. It wasn't so much my family and I moving to the US, it was just my mother and I when she was 16 and I was two and a half years old. They weren't really interested in what was going on with me or my mother. She just wanted a better quality of life for her and for myself.Rodolfo: In Mexico at 16 years old, with no type of education past probably middle school, she knew she wasn't gonna get very far. I guess she made that decision in order to have a better quality of life for her and myself, she went on. She was 16, and I don't know how she did it. I don't know the details and all that, but she met the right people, or she got in contact with the right people, and she went over there. She went to the United States.

Sergio: So, I'm trying to think. There was another question but I kind of... Do you still, I know you mentioned like maybe addiction…do you still struggle with addiction now?Roberto: Less, yeah, less. I still smoke, I'm still a pothead. But like I think the problems are less. Because when I was in the States, man it's hard, and when you know that a 13-year-old kid doing drugs and all that, think it was pretty hard for my mom.

Sergio: You play video games?Roberto: Yeah, I like video games.Sergio: It sounds like you play Halo.Roberto: Halo, yeah I used to play Halo.Sergio: So you-Roberto: I am more PlayStation.Sergio: Oh okay, I have an Xbox so I play Halo a lot, I like Halo, and Battlefield.Roberto: Oh well when they came out, yeah.Sergio: Was the new ones... I think the new one's going to be announced at E3.Roberto: Oh yeah?Sergio: Oh yes, do you know the E3 Conference?Roberto: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just-Sergio: It's happening next week or something. Sorry, what were you saying?Roberto: Oh yeah yeah. Yeah I used to play just one of the first two of Halo.Sergio: That one was my favorite.Roberto: Yeah, yeah-Sergio: That was my favorite.Roberto: ... and you can add two guns. That was pretty dope.

Roberto: And well you know I'll give it another try. I would like to go to the States, things have changed. I would like to visit, I would love to study. It will be nice studying over there. But I always say that Mexico is always going to be a country where you have things in legendary mode. If you were playing like a video game, and you put it in hard mode or in legendary mode. You'll get stuff, but you have to work for it, like really, really, really hard. And in this case in the United States, well, I think you have it more easier, a little bit more easy. So if you're successful here in Mexico, I think in the States you can be a badass. Yeah, that's what I always think.

Roberto: Well, yeah sure. Like when you get to a country that you don't know, like trust me it does get hard, it's hard. But you'll get used to it. Of course, if you have that support, thank God that I had the support of my family, part of my mom, that helped us out, and move further. But I think if we never had that support, it'll be very difficult, from be to one country, well, the economy is better to a different country where it's hard to get the food in the table.

Roberto: Outside? Well I don't know, it was kind of different because when we came back, we came back to Xochimilco. So…we were like in this town, pueblito, so I went to school over there, in what, high school? No wait…secundaria, middle school, I'd say. So I don't know it was weird because like, muchos morenitos y asi, soy y el unico guero... Like the only white kid, I was, and it was weird.Sergio: You were the only white kid with green eyes, and did people bully you for that, or like what?Roberto: Well yeah, sometimes I got bullied you know. Yeah, ya sabes dos nicknames, funny ass nicknames I got, [inaudible], and tampoco me dejaba, I wouldn't let them call me that anymore. I used to get in trouble for that as well. But like, me too, yo tambien me pasaba delante [I did the same]. I used to call them also by their nicknames and all that stuff.

Roberto: For a while, not for a little bit, but I thought I was only going to be for a while. But when I came here to Mexico, well, I realized that most of my family, a part of my mom and dad, are here. So it's like, well if my whole family is here, well, I'm Mexican. But I could have family over there, but it's like a minor. I mean, it's not like the whole family that I have here, and the family that I have in the US. The family that I have in US is only my grandma and like some of my uncles. And I have my whole family here in Mexico.

Sergio: You mentioned you didn't know you were undocumented.Roberto: Mm-hmm (affirmative).Sergio: When did you find out? Was it-Roberto: Like at what age, or?Sergio: What age.Roberto: Well like several years, like when I began living with my dad, like when I was in finishing high school, like we were just talking about that and he let me know, like that you were not legal there. We were supposed to go like to Disneyland, and well we stayed there. We didn't return to Mexico, just stayed there. We had a place to stay.Sergio: So before that, did you always think you were a US citizen? Or what did you think?Roberto: Well yeah. Well, how can I say? Because like when you're kind of you know, young, yeah you don't really think of that stuff. But well yeah, I remember that when I used to go to school, like you got to stand for the flag, and sing the... It's called-Sergio: Pledge of Allegiance.Roberto: Yeah, to the flag of the United States of America. [Laughs]Sergio: Do you remember how it goes?Roberto: No, I just remember that part, "Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America." And that's that. When I was in elementary, yeah, lo sabía todo. I used to know it all.Sergio: And did you feel like it belonged to you? I mean you never thought you were different, right?Roberto: Yeah, I guess because I'm white. Because like I mentioned, you know, I didn't know that I was illegal there. And since I have family that was born in the States, so I was like I probably born in the States too.Sergio: So then when you found out, what did that feel like? What was going through your mind?Roberto: Oh like, "Damn. For real?" I was like, I don't know, yeah, I couldn't pictured it, but it makes sense, you know? I think it has like a long process to be a citizen. And well, I wasn't born in the States, I was born in Mexico. But as well I knew that when I was more a little bit, when I came here to Mexico, yeah.

Roberto: I don't know, I think problems in my house. It's pretty difficult, grew up with no... How you say? With father. It's pretty difficult.Sergio: Yeah, that makes me think a lot about how I grew up, because I also grew up without a dad, and-Roberto: And it was pretty [inaudible] because... How do you say you like, figura paterna?Sergio: I don't know [crosstalk 00:07:51].Roberto: Well, I didn't grow up with that. And I started like to look for that you know… figure with my brother's dad. Yeah.Sergio: This is your stepdad?Roberto: My brother's... Yeah, my stepdad.Sergio: You think he provided that support, or what happened?Roberto: I don't know, it was like really bad, like trying see that your little brother has a father and everything, you know. Like he shows him love and everything, and me on the inside, I was like, "Fuck man, I wish I can had a dad like that."Sergio: And this is while you were in the US. Where was your dad?Roberto: Mexico, working.Sergio: Did you have contact with him?Roberto: Yeah.Sergio: How often would you like talk to him, or?Roberto: And right now, we talk super great. But when I was in States, he like what, once a year he used to come.Sergio: Do you feel like that was enough?Roberto: No, of course not, that's not enough.

Sergio: You were 13. What was that like for you when you were leaving? Why did you leave?Roberto: Well I had issues, you know. In school I was flunking subjects. I wasn't doing pretty much well in school, I had issues with my mom I used to argue a lot with her, and addiction problems.Sergio: Addiction to what?Roberto: Marijuana, Cannabis, yeah.

Sergio: When you were there, did you always know you were undocumented, or was there a day that you realized-Roberto: No. I never knew that I was... never knew, since like when I came here to Mexico, my dad told me. I thought like we did have you know documents to be there, but then he told me, "No" like, "You were there illegal."

Sergio: When your family left, you said your mom separated from your dad?Roberto: Mm-hmm (affirmative).Sergio: Who else did your family leave behind?Roberto: In Mexico, right? Well, my mom left behind like most of my family. Most of my family is in here. Like my mom's grandma, a lot of my uncles, that it will be uncles or aunts of my mom. How do you say? Well yeah, like I mentioned most of the family she left here.Sergio: Was it hard for her?Roberto: Yeah, of course because my mom had the support of my family. And well, when she came here in Mexico, yeah well, it's difficult. Like I mentioned, I think it's difficult when you're in a different country where you don't know nothing, not even the language, and it's difficult, and trying to raise three kids.

Sergio: Three years old. And what's one of your first memories in the US?Roberto: My first memories hmm…well, I don't know the place, every time that I try to picture United States, I picture like the streets, the places, the cars, everything, like most the streets, clean, I don't know, clean. That's how I picture the States.Sergio: Do you have like a memory that really sticks out, that you feel like this is America? Or this is the United States?Roberto: Oh well, the houses, the school, the product you know. Like when I say product, I mean the candies, the Hot Cheetos, and all that. The burgers, McDonald's, and all that.

Sergio: So my name is Sergio. I'm here with Roberto ten, Robert ten, on recorder number five, starting the interview. Okay Roberto, so the first question I want to ask you is why did your family leave Mexico in the first place?Roberto: Okay, well my family leave Mexico…well like I mentioned, we had some economic issues over there. Plus my mom also, he got separated, my dad, so she needed to start from zero.

Pablo: You don't necessarily need to go somewhere else. In the future, you never know if there would be an opportunity. I'm not going to stop him from... I don't know. There's a chance that in the future he decides that he wants to go over somewhere else or he wants... It just depends on him. I'm just going to support him through whatever he wants to do. As long as it's something good, I'm always going to just be there and support him.