Anne: So a couple of things to reflect on. When we talked to young men similar to you who went as children and parents were working in the US while they're growing up, a lot of them turned to gangs and criminal behavior. You did not.Juan: No.Anne: What do you think the difference was?Juan: I don't know. I guess some people… I would say my dad, he provided me with the role model. Because I told you, my dad is a hardworking man. Since we were little, we were nine or ten, he would make us go to work with him, even on the weekends, even if we would just go and pick up trash or even just to be there, he would make us go. In the way he taught us, that if you want something you have to go out and do it. No one is going to get it for you.Juan: In my situation, my dad was a role model and he made it so gang affiliation or violence never came to my head. I had cousins. One of my cousins was gang affiliated and he is older than me for two years or three years, so I saw that he was in a gang and he had a lot of friends and, in a way, it did push me to want to be like him because I saw him, he had power, but I always knew that gang affiliation wasn't my thing.Juan: Because, again, through sports, school, my dad, going to work, that helped me not get into that. I guess people who do get in gangs, I don't know if they feel alone or they feel by being in a gang you have a new family who has your back. That could also have them go towards a gang affiliation. You don't know their background as a house, if their parents are not well, or if they had a dad who was abusive or a mom who was abusive.Juan: A lot of things come from home when it comes to gang affiliation, or the people that you hang out with, the people that you surround yourself with. Fortunately, I was surrounding myself with good people who came from good families and showed me different things in life that didn't have to do with gang affiliation. When I was in high school, there was a lot of people who were in gangs. I was friends with them, but to the point where I wanted to be in their gang or affiliated with them that just didn't come to my mind.

Claudia: My first question for you is why did you or your family decide to leave Mexico, and how did you cross the border?Yosell: Let’s see. I think I was about three or four months old when I crossed the border the first time. It was just, you're going to cross the border, and so I crossed the border through, it was TJ [Tijuana] at the time. And I was living in San Francisco for maybe like two years. After that, from what my dad tells me, and to what I remember, we were just moving around the U.S., and quite a couple of places.Yosell: From what I do remember, I used to live in Vegas with an aunt there. I was doing my elementary school and then after that I moved out to Utah and started doing a little bit of my middle school and after that I was kind of moving around a lot of places, I guess just working—my dad got me a job working for construction. And I was doing my high school online, a kind of homeschool thing. That was pretty interesting. I would come back to Mexico quite often. I would kind of just jump the border and come see my mom, and then I jumped it again.Claudia: And you would go back?Yosell: Yeah.Claudia: How many times did you say that you did that?Yosell: Six or eight times just jumping it.Claudia: You were over there without your parents or anybody?Yosell: With my dad. I was already with my dad.Claudia: How did it feel to be separated from your mom?Yosell: I don't know if it would be a big thing since I was always kind of with my dad, and I would see my mom almost every... I would come back every Mother's Day or Christmas kind of thing. Come back to see her, and then I would just basically just jump it again. Since dad knew people that would cross the border quite often, that's where they would do it.

Isabel: And you said you became a chef—you started at Applebee's—can you tell me what the restaurant experience was like becoming a chef and moving around from there?Angelo: Well, when we first got to the U.S , my dad got into construction and so after a few years he got tired of that physically—it was very physically demanding—so he got into the restaurant. By the time I was 16, he had already had his status. He was a very good cook, so he brought me along. I was under his training from then on. I got that spark again, to want to do something, because I saw everybody, how they treated my dad, and literally just because I had his last name, it was, "Okay, you got the job." And my dad was at a very prestigious level to where many people would call him offering jobs or—Isabel: Your dad was undocumented as well?Angelo: Yes. When I saw that, I was like, "Okay, I might not be able to go to college, but maybe I could become a manager, maybe I could have my own kitchen, maybe I could have my own store, my own restaurant." And so being under my dad's training gave me that spark. I overpassed my dad, there were points after three years in a restaurant where I wasn't my dad's son anymore, I was my own person. I could go up to people and they would be like, "Yeah, I know who you are." At first it was all like, "Okay, who are you?" “Well, I'm ____ son.” “Oh wow. Okay, well here you go.” But then after a while it was, "Okay, well we need you because we've heard of you and we need you to pick our store back up." And so after that, that was my goal to have a restaurant, my own restaurant.Isabel: What was your favorite restaurant to work at?Angelo: That's very difficult, but I would probably say Applebee's just because that's where I started, and it just brings so much memories of me learning, me getting that experience, me burning myself a lot. And so yeah, that was probably the best time of my life, working at Applebee's.Isabel: Even though you went on to surpass your father?Angelo: [Affirmative noise].Isabel: It's really cool. So, you have kind of like this going…Start pursuing cooking and kind of earning that prestige or going after your father. But then you also mentioned that you're doing this because you had to support a family. Were you living with your baby's mother at the time? Were you together?Angelo: Well it was very difficult because at the age of 16, my father had legal problems. He ended up going away for, I would say, half a year-a little bit more than half a year. Throughout that time, there was a point where I had to basically become the man of the house. My mom doesn't drive, so I would take her to her job and I would bring her back. There was many times where I had to drive at three or four in the morning. So at the age of 16, I wanted to become that. I wanted to become that man of the house. And really that's the main reason why I had my baby, because I said, “I could do this, I want this, I want to be a father, and I'm going to be a father.”Angelo: And so, at the age of the age of 16, I moved out of my parents' house. After three months of working, I moved out of my parents' house, got my own apartment. And I ended up working two jobs at a time to be able to support my family and be on my own. After a while it was very difficult. So, there were plenty of times where we'd be on our own, and then something bad would happen financially, and so we'd go back to our parents' house. It was just basically on and off being on our own and not being able to make it.Isabel: So you said you were 16, so did you say you were older when you were renting a house or an apartment or anything that you'd pretend?Angelo: Yes, when I was 16, I had to get fake IDs, fake social security cards, and so that's how I got my apartment. Even 16, I looked older than what I was, so it was really no problem for me to apply for an apartment, or anything like that.Isabel: Did the restaurants that you would work with or the people there know that you were undocumented or that are younger?Angelo: No.Isabel: How old were you when you were becoming the chef?Angelo: 16.Isabel: That's incredible. I'm learning how to like... the other day I Googled how to cook chicken [Both laugh].Angelo: It was very difficult, but I wanted to do that. I saw my father, and I wanted to be him. I wanted to be him.Isabel: So, I'm just still trying to wrap my head around this. So, I know you started at Applebee's, but when you started at the last restaurant you work for, it was this like English, British kind of style. It's more on the other ends of the Applebee's spectrum?Angelo: Oh very.Isabel: Very much like more high end?Angelo: [Affirmative noise].Isabel: How old were you when you were a chef for that restaurant?Angelo: I was 20, 21 years old.Isabel: So that's kind of like where your career span…still so incredibly young. So how old did they think you were when you were working for them?Angelo: Then I could say I was 21.Isabel: Okay, so then that's fine.Angelo: Yeah.Isabel: That's enough credit.Angelo: Yeah, by then they knew who I was. There was points where I would get called in from other stores and they would tell me, “Leave where you're at and we'll give you $3 more.” Literally, I've never made minimum wage. And so that's basically how about how I got to $15.50 at the end. The reason I went to the British restaurant was because I was at Applebee's, and me and my dad would bump heads. He was the top chef, and I would also be considered the top chef. So whenever we would work shifts, it was all like, "Okay, so who's in charge?"Isabel: Literally too many cooks in the kitchen.Angelo: So that's when I said, "Okay, well I got to be on my own. I got to do my own thing.: And thank God I was able to do it. I put my mind to it and I got my name out there.

O Father, what intends thy hand, she cry'd, Against thy only Son?

lose my body