Anne: So, you said you had some ideas about programs to help returning migrants either to adjust here or to get back to the States. What were your ideas?Hugo: Well I don't know. Like at work sometimes, they apply for visas and stuff like that, but I don't know if its related to any programs of trying to go back or anything. But regardless of that, all I know if there was something like that, you would have to show that you've been doing something good for a while.Anne: And that's what you're doing.Hugo: Yes. I'm taking care of mine. I'm doing what I'm supposed to.

I think it's because they had the picture of us all twisted, you know? We've made bad decisions, but we ain't bad people. We're not trash. We're nothing like that. I have values. I know how it is to live. I know what's the right way. How you are supposed to do it. And family is the main thing. At least to me.Anne: And that's your dream?Hugo: Yes. I still think of all that. I mean, right now, my parents probably be helped out with... My little brother's growing up, but we can help out too. Because my dad, he has diabetes. My mom does too. And my mom's one of them holy ladies that, “Jesus Christ, I have nothing, Jesus Christ will heal me.” I'm like, "Yes, Jesus Christ will heal you, but take your medicine, take care of yourself." She was just in the hospital a month ago, in and out, and I kept telling her, "Man, I believe your religion, Mother, pray to your Jesus, but take care of yourself too."

Anne: What were your dreams when you were in the US? And what are your dreams now? Have they changed?Hugo: I wanted to be an architect and help my mom and my dad. Because my dad works a lot. And he's always up to something. But, bad decisions, you know? Like it feels good when you send them money from here, like from here we send them money. Other people they would say all your kids, your family, is the one that hits you hardest sometimes. My uncles and aunties they had their kids doing good and everything, "Oh look at your kids, they're pieces of shit. They go to jail and they smoke, and this and that." And now that we're helping them out from here, it's like, nobody says nothing.

So, what do you miss about the US?Hugo: My family and the lifestyle. If I ever went back to the States, I wouldn't want to go back to Los Angeles. I wouldn't want to go there because of all the movement, people that I know. It's not like I'm going to go and make bad decisions. But, it's too hard. I want to be somewhere where's there not a lot of people. Maybe out of the city, you know? I wouldn't mind country living or anything like that because it's peaceful. Like when I go to visit my grandparents, it's a small town, you can take a deep breath of fresh air. Not like here. When we go over there to visit or like I took my baby, so she could meet her grandad and all the aunties and everything, and me and my girl didn't want to come back. We were just like, you know…But we have to come back and work. And over there, there's no call centers or anything like that.

But yeah, that's what happened. 11 months, almost a year, I tried to go back, went to county. Well they give you state time, they give you state prison time, but since the prisons are packed, you do it in county, which is a little bit worse.Anne: Oh, it's worse?Hugo: Nobody wants to be in the county. Because you're sleeping next to a guy that doesn't know how much time he's going to do. So, it's not like you're scared, but there's kids that are crying because they are doing 2, 3 years when the guy above you is facing 80 years to life. You better shut your mouth. You're going to get something.

Anne: And then how long where you in Mexico before you tried to go back?Hugo: About a year. 11 months, almost a year. And then my father was going to help me, he was going to pay for the coyote—$4,000-$5,000. But it’s okay, if you don't cross, you don't pay, so it's okay. They didn't spend the money or anything.Anne: So, you got caught at the border?

Hugo: I mean I know when I was younger, I did receive stolen property, I did make bad decisions, but that's all involved with drug abuse and use. It's not like, I woke up and I said, “I'm going to go steal a car.” No, I was making bad decisions, you know, dumb stuff. It's not like any other Americans never did it. You know?Hugo: Any Americans, regardless of their race, you know? And that's what happened. So, I'm working for a juvenile record and marijuana ticket as an adult.

They stopped me, I had some marijuana, they gave me a ticket. A ticket that I could go do community service or that I could go pay $100, $200 fine whatever—it's not illegal in the States, in California. And one day before going to work, I was in the stroller with my kid, and my ex-baby mama, my ex-lady. We crossed the light walking, a red light, right? But this street is empty. And there happened to be a cop passing by. So, he pulls us over when we're pushing my baby in the stroller, when there's dead traffic, no traffic at all. He was Hispanic, he was Latino, his last name was Ramirez. And I'm like, I did get a little, you know, "What? What are you stopping me for?" "Because you seen that I seen you crossing and you smiled at me. You laughed at me." “Ah, so you're stopping me because of your feelings?” You can't tell a cop that because oh my God, that's it, it's over.Hugo: So, he's like, "Look I'm going to run your name and if you have anything, I'm going to take you, this and that." I'm like, "Man why didn't you go to get somebody that's actually doing something? You see me with my baby and my baby mama, what do you think I'm doing? You think I'm up to no good or what? I'm about to go to work in a few hours. Why you messing with me? Go get somebody that's actually doing something." So, I shouldn't have run my mouth, but he could have not taken me. And he ran my name and he's like, "Oh, you have a warrant for your arrest"—$5,000 or something. Which is nothing. If the warrants are from $40,000 and under, they can decide to let you go, to pay a fine, to do community service. They can decide to not take you in. Because it's not even something big. It could have been fixed with me paying or community service.Hugo: So, I didn't get more mad, I realized there was a warrant, and then I went off on him. He was going to take me, so I softened up, and I was like, "You know what? I'm about to go to work, I'm the man of the house, my wife doesn't work, I have to pay the bills. I got to go. Don't take me in. You know I can fix that in court." "No, no, no. For being a loudmouth, I'm going to take you in." And I'm like, "You know I've got an ICE hold because it shows there. If you take me in for that, they're going to deport me." And I was like, "Who's going to take care of my family?" He was like, "Well you should have thought of that when you ran your mouth." And I was like, "Well you have the decision of letting me go and I can fix this with a payment or anything, but you're going to mess up my family. I'm going to get deported."Hugo: And I told him, "Man, you're Mexican, you're Hispanic, you might be the first, second, third, generation, but I bet your people before that weren't. Think about that shit man." He still took me. I went in. And like 36 hours later, no 24, almost a day and a half, only the time that it takes to process in and process out, that's how I paid my sentence. 15 days, which is, you do 10% of 15 days, how much time is it? Nothing. In and out. But on the way out, you're getting dressed and everything and ICE is already there "You've been in jail a few times and you've never seen ICE?" And I was like, "Well no."Hugo: Yeah, they're like, "Where were you born?" This and that. And that's it, they took me. And that's where I went to the immigration library and I started looking at the different things that you can apply for.

nd my little kid has gone through all that, you know? And he's a teacher's pet, he's super smart, he's reading at a 5th grade level and he's in 3rd grade. They had a little reading contest, he beat the 5th grader.Hugo: He got the best of me.Anne: And do your parents help him out?Hugo: Yes. Whenever they can, they go and take him, and they buy him food. Last time, I sent them five pairs of shoes, a gang of pants, nice shirts, nice sweaters. So, he knows I'm there.Anne: That's good. Do you get to talk to him much?Hugo: Yeah, I do. I talk to him almost every day. I have him on WhatsApp.Anne: Do you have a picture?Hugo: Yes. I just sent him a boat on Amazon, because he wanted a boat. Look this is the video.Anne: He's so cute. Is it remote control?Hugo: Yes.Anne: That is so cool.Hugo: It was around $200 but he really wanted it, so whatever I can do for my boy for him to feel I'm there, I will do it.

ell me about the final thing that got you deported for your first deportation.Hugo: The weed ticket?Anne: So, it was possession of weed.

juvey

Anne: So, you have an ex-partner?Hugo: Yes. But she tell him… She's really bad, I hope she gets better. She has schizophrenia because she used to smoke crystal meth. I used to smoke crystal meth. But one day, as a crazy person, just me in the alley, I spoke to somebody upstairs and I told them, “You know what, I'm tired of this. I said I'm hurting my parents, I'm hurting my life, so—"Anne: How old were you when you were doing all this?Hugo: Like 18, 19. Oh, I started at like 14, I stopped at 19, 20. But it was really hard. One of my brother's is kind of crazy from that. My baby mama too. She's schizophrenic, she gets paid a monthly—Anne: Oh, some sort of social security for disability.Hugo: Yeah, because she cannot work

Hugo: But life here is different. Over there, you don't have to worry about a gas tank going out on you. You pay your gas bill and you have your gas all the time. You pay your water bill you can shower anytime, there's water all the time. You pay your electricity bill, you have light all month. Over here, if your gas tank run out or this and that, there's... It's a different way of living. Over there, it's more comfortable, you live better, and the money lasts a little longer. Like I've seen families, when I was over there, families that would come from here and they would all get to work. And in six months, they would have a car, they would have their apartments, they would already be moving up.

Hugo: I've had ideas that there's some type of programs or something that might help all people trying to go back and that would be awesome because it would all be legal. And what I'm working on is, if in case an opportunity comes up like that, I can show my past ten years: I've been a productive member of society or the community or what not, and no illegal activity, no bad, no ill will toward anyone, just working, having my family, doing my thing. What I have to do, you know? I have my license. I have my car. I pay my rent.

Hugo: Oh yes. My parents don't like none of that. They've always taught us, they say, “We go into somebody's home and you see a penny, you don't touch that penny. You don't do that.” My dad, the first time he seen my smoking weed, he smacked me. I heard the ding. Like I said, I'd never seen my dad drunk, I'd never seen my dad do any drugs, but I kind of liked it, so. I mean they showed us well. It was just… I don't know why. I don't know why we didn't take advantage of being over there. Now that I think about it, I wasted a lot of opportunity, but I mean all you can do is work at it now, you know?

uvey

Anne: So, when did you first go to juvey? How old were you?Hugo: I was 14. The thing is when you grow up and you feel like you were born there—my dad used to tell us, "I don't know you guys are in the street all day. I mean you guys have your home here, you can eat whenever you want, you can shower whenever you want, listen to music whenever you want." But that was boring to us. So, we would go into the street. There was three of us. Three brothers. And we'd go into the street, kick it in the alleys, you know like people do over there.Hugo: We started hanging with certain people, you know? And things happened, they come around with G-rides, stolen cars, things like that. And it seems easy for you to take a joy ride, “Oh we'll take it over there to certain people's houses.” You get caught up. That's the first time I got caught. I didn't steal the car. Somebody came by, I took it, but it was a stolen car. I knew what I was doing, so they locked me up for grand theft auto or receiving stolen property or what not.

So that's what I tell them, “The parties, the women, all the things that you guys think about, when you're a doctor, when you're an engineer, when you've already done your thing, it's still going to be there. And when you guys go to the university, you guys are going to have fun.” I tell them that I wish I would have gone to the university because that was one of my biggest things that I wanted to do, but I messed up. So, I tell them, “Take advantage, go through life for real, enjoy the real life. You guys are born there, you guys have all the odds in your favor.”

Hugo: But again, my decisions, you know?Anne: Do you think, was it because of your home life that you decided to do these—Hugo: The thing is my parents never... I don't think my parents did wrong; they were just unaware of the way of life over there. My dad worked all day. I never seen my dad drunk, smoke weed, do any drug, hit my mother, abuse her verbally, nothing. If my mom had a dream of him kissing a girl 30 years ago, she would wake up mad with him and my dad would be, "Babe, I don't want to argue." He'd grab his newspaper and go into the bathroom. And I've never seen him do anything that they would be like, “Oh that's why I do this.” No. But he always had work. And my mom didn't know a lot, they didn't know, and my mom didn't really understand people, so it was hard for them to guide us

Anne: So, when did you first get in trouble?Hugo: Middle school.Anne: Middle school. And when did you—Hugo: Ditching. It's because I would always hang out with the older people since I always looked older. I was in middle school going to high school, ditching, parties, and you know messing around with high school girls and all of that stuff. And that's when you run into the police. They would take me to truancy center when I would ditch sometimes, and they would catch us. Things like that.

Hugo: Like I remember when we were growing up in elementary, you have your black friends, you have your Asian friends, you have your white friends and everything's cool. But once you start getting to middle school, or the end of middle school, or high school, you start noticing things and they start letting you know about stuff. And once you hit jail or juvey it's over. It's racism full blast, you know? I mean people that I grew up with, they were not like my enemies, but we couldn't, you know.

diligent gifted and talented.

Hugo: Yeah. So that's why we moved but when we moved to Long Beach, it's like there's still gang activity but just between more races. There's Asians, there's some more Caucasians, it's everything. Long Beach is a very multiracial community. There's a lot of Cambodians. There's everything. So, there's more races, there's more gangs, you know? And there's a lot of races.

So, then my dad took us, but the way he took us was in the airplane. Back in the day, since we're kids, you would just go as somebody else's kids.Anne: I see.Hugo: So, they just convinced us to say Daddy to some—Anne: Random person?Hugo: Yeah. And they flew us over for a low low price. Back in the day it was cheaper and safe because we were going in the airplane, you know?Anne: Sure. You went just to L.A.? Went through customs, and there you were.Hugo: Yeah, straight to L.A.

Hugo: My dad started working in the U.S., right? Because back in the day you can cross easier and well in the towns, even in that day, like I mentioned, you make less money. Even if you work hard, you make less money. You have to own a business or do something to come up. And he went to the States, we were living okay, but my mother didn't like that he was over here all the time and then sometimes he would just come. So, her little light bulb went off and she said, "Either you take all of us, or I don't know, you know? I know you send me money and I know you come from time to time, but that's not it. I want to be with you."Anne: And there were three of you?Hugo: Three of us.

Ilse: I think we have such amazing people, and a lot of workforce. We just need to be given that little support so we can do amazing things, and I just think that people should be able to be free, mainly. Be free wherever they are, and that's something that a lot of people who are undocumented in the States can't do. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Thank you so much for your time.

Claudia: And kind of along that same line, it's, what can the United States government do to help Mexican deportees and the family that they leave behind? What do you think?Ilse: Well, for one thing, a lot of people that are deported don't even have a criminal record. They don't have no background or anything that says, "Oh, you're a bad person, and you can't be here." Maybe just really giving them a chance to—especially when you deport the dad, or the mom, and they leave their family behind. Like, why would you separate families? I mean, that's not even humanly fair. It's so unfair. It's so, so unfair.Ilse: I understand their ground, I understand that “Why would they be invaded by Mexicans?” But they also have to understand the situations here. Maybe work along, like I said, fix a problem from the root. I don't know. Both governments have to sit down and talk about this. Like right now, the importing tariff that was imposed of five percent on all the Mexican products being exported to the U.S. unless we stop the people crossing over. But if we had more opportunities and the governments both worked together to make the economy grow here and have more chances for them not to even think about leaving, it would change a lot. So, we have to analyze why people are leaving, and try to fix that problem. And they should work together. It sounds so easy, right? But it's so complicated. [Laughs]

Ilse: I think we have to work on that. We have to work on having work opportunities not only in call centers. There's a lot of people who are too good to be in a call center, but that's all they can find because maybe they don't have a college degree, but they have experience. And I can tell you, and it still happens to me, when people... When I'm working, I do have to speak English sometimes, but when I'm in meetings with clients and things like that, it's just Spanish. And when they hear that I speak English or they talk about the States or something and I say that was there and things like that, and they ask me why I'm here, and just telling them, "Oh, well, I came back because I wanted to." And then, them looking at me weird, like, "Why would you come back if you were over there?" Or when they ask, "Did you have to come back because you were illegal?" Dude, well, yeah, I came back because I couldn't stay over there, but you don't have to treat me differently.Ilse: And the type of people that I meet are people who have visas, who go back and forth, and they don't understand; "Well, why don't you get a visa? Why did you leave without a visa?" “No...” And I think changing that mindset, too, from the people that are here— the people that were born here and everything—there must be a way to make them understand that we're still Mexican. It wasn't our decision most of the time, why we had to leave. You know?

Ilse: First of all, from the experience of being at the border…Because they deport people, you know? I think a few years back, they had flights to Mexico City, but they canceled that with the Trump administration. So now, they pretty much dump them on the border, and they have to see how they can find help. So, I think one of the things we have to strengthen is our part of the border. Help people in the border.Ilse: When I left, I remember how the Mexican government, the Mexican officials, they gave us a talk. Like, "Oh, you're about to do something that's not right, but if it's your decision, we can't force you or stop you from doing it." Why not change that speech? Why not say, "Don't leave. How can we help you so you won't leave?" I mean, we could fix a problem from the root, why they're leaving. And then, when they do come back, analyze the people, make a profile—there's a lot of people that are being deported that have so much knowledge.

joder a las personas.

Claudia: Obviously, now that you're back, you've already done so many amazing things, but what are your dreams? What else would you like to do while you're here?Ilse: Okay, well, right now, one of the things, meeting New Comienzos and everything that they do, I want to help people. I know how tough it is to come back, I know everything that you have to go through. I want to be someone who helps them out. I don't know how, but that's one of the things right now.Ilse: I'm working on establishing my own company. I'm really excited about that. I want to have something of my own, and I'm talking about short-term. I want to start it already because I know so many people, I have all this knowledge, I have everything. I just need to do it, you know? [Chuckle]. And that's one of my objectives…dreams. It's always been a dream to have my own company, but now, I have to make it a reality, and I have to work up to that.Ilse: I want to get married someday. [Laughs]. I've been single ever since I came back. On a personal note, that would be amazing. And right now, I'm just working so hard, I want to try and see if I can get my visa and be able to visit my parents.Claudia: Tell me about this company! What would your company be?Ilse: [Laughs]. It's going to be, we call it a trading company because I know a lot of brands nationally that need to be expanded. And I also do a lot of business with China, and we import 80% of the things that we have in Mexico. There's a lot of people who have the money, they have the people who they're going to sell to, but they don't know, they don't have the knowledge on how to do it, how to import, process everything. So, I want to be able to help them out. So, not even just for me, but help brands grow, help other people develop their business, as well. Yeah.

Ilse: And just bumping into people like that is just amazing, and I'm just so grateful. I always say that I'm so overly blessed, honestly. I really am. And I'm happy here. I'm happy in my country, I'm happy being free; not being scared that at any given time someone's going to come and take me. I'm just free.

Ilse: I was angry when I had to go to the US because I had everything here, you know? And then, I was so angry because they took me over there, and I tried so hard, and I wanted to stay over there, and I had to come back. I've had to change. I'm not trying to be like, "Oh, poor me," and people feel pity for me or anything at all, but it's just like, why can't a person just live, and be where they want to be? That just gets to me. It’s not like I'm mad at the US, or I'm mad at my parents because they took me, I'm just mad that people have to go through that, you know? Just to run away from things, as kids. Because I know there's millions and thousands, thousands, of kids that have to do what their parents tell them. But I'm happy in Mexico, I can tell you that. It was probably the best decision that I could have made. I don't know what would have happened if I had stayed over there. Who knows?Ilse: But I think it was a good decision, and mainly because I was so dedicated, and I always knew what I wanted, and I worked so hard for it. I didn't give up. I think that's the difference. And bumping into so many amazing people who have been there for me, who have helped me. Like my boss right now, sometimes he's kind of like my dad, you know? He knows my story, and he helps me so much, and he tells me, "You're going to see your parents again, and I'm going to make sure, and I'm going to help you, and I don't know what we're going to have to do, but you're going to see them again."

Claudia: So, do you consider yourself Mexican or American?Ilse: If you had asked me a few years ago, I would be confused, but I can tell you now that I'm Mexican.

is your family still in the States?Ilse: Yes, they are.Claudia: Have you seen them?Ilse: I have not seen them in eight years.Claudia: So, tell me about that, if you feel comfortable.Ilse: It's tough, it's so tough. I've always been so close to my mom and my brother, you have no idea. The first few years, I guess, because I was always so overprotected—my dad was overprotective of me in the States, and I wasn't able to go out or anything—honestly, the first year, two years, I was free, you know? [Laughs]. I could do whatever I wanted, I lived on my own, you know?Ilse: But then it just got to me. The third year was so bad. So bad because there was a point in time that I had economic issues, and had to reach out to my parents, and I was like, "Help me out a little bit?"Ilse: But it was more than not having enough money or whatever, it was just not having my mom by my side, telling me everything was going to be okay. And I mean, so far, I never tell them my problems because they can't do anything about it, you know? I can't call my mom and tell her that I'm sad or that I'm... I don't know, because she can't do anything. She's so far. [Emotional]. I'm so sorry.Claudia: Don't worry. Take your time.Ilse: And my brother got married a year ago. I wasn't able to be there. You know? [Crying]. I'm so sorry.Claudia: Don't worry.Ilse: He's always been my everything, and it was so hard not to be there for him. And, well, he's going to be a dad. And I'm not going to be able to see my little niece. Oh, sorry, it's just like...But I know we'll be together someday, and I'm working so hard because I know I'm not a bad person. I think that I should be able to get a visa to be able to go back. I'm not going to stay, you know? I just want to see my family. I'm so sorry. [Crying].Claudia: Don't worry. It's totally okay.Ilse: Yeah. But, yeah, it's hard.

Ilse: But the other company's director, he saw how pushy I was, how dedicated I was—I mean, I'm talking about, the normal hours to come into work were at nine, and I signed my contract to go from nine to four, but I would always get there at eight. I would organize my calls, and at nine, I was calling, prospecting, and everything. And he saw my dedication, and three months after my hiring, he offered me a position at the inspections company. And that was just life-changing because after that, he obviously raised my salary.Ilse: He is an amazing boss. He's still my boss until today. After a year and a half, been with both, the fusion of the company, he decides to separate. So, we went from being the company department to being a company. So, I've been able to help him out with the whole... from logo, from everything. Everything regarding the company. And I'm just so grateful, I'm so happy there, you have no idea. I've been able to travel to China twice already. I travel in Mexico City so much. I've met so many people, the China chamber, the Mexico City chamber, so many important organizations, so many important people, so many important... Forever 21, for instance. We're trying to do services for them.Ilse: And it was just so amazing. Everything happens for a reason. I know that maybe I wasn't supposed to stay over there. Maybe it was just a little help, to try and be to where I am today. But still, I know there's opportunities in Mexico. I barely learned about New Comienzos a month ago. And I just want to tell people and help them understand that we don't have to be over there. We can do so many things here. And we can prove that they're missing out! [Laughs]. Because I could have done all this for a company that is based over there, but obviously, well, that was impossible, so I'm here.

Ilse: And, I'm so persistent, and my tenacity is always up here, you know? And I was like, "Nope, I'm done with this. I need to do something that involves my career." So, when I was in sixth semester, I tried to look for a job regarding my major, and I was able to find a job. But it was more like an intern job, so I was so blessed because I had savings, you know, so I was able to take it. But they paid so little! [Laughs]. It was awful!Ilse: But I'm so grateful for that opportunity, because that company that hired me, it was a fusion. They were two companies, a company that was based in China, in Shanghai, for inspection services, and an international logistics company that took care of [inaudible 00:26:06] and the customs clearance and everything. When I first got there, I went to the logistics one, which involved me selling international transportation. I had no idea; I had no training. I tried so hard but honestly, I did a really bad job. [Laughs].Ilse: But the other company's director, he saw how pushy I was, how dedicated I was—I mean, I'm talking about, the normal hours to come into work were at nine, and I signed my contract to go from nine to four, but I would always get there at eight. I would organize my calls, and at nine, I was calling, prospecting, and everything. And he saw my dedication, and three months after my hiring, he offered me a position at the inspections company. And that was just life-changing because after that, he obviously raised my salary

[inaudible 00:26:06]

Ilse: When I was in Telvista, I started as a CSR, just answering calls, and became mentor, and then I was a supervisor at 19, which was really hard experience—it was so tough—but at the same time, it helped me so much and it gave me the basics to work and be able to do what I do now. Then I worked for the Western Union Corporate, the one that they have here in Mexico. I was in Telvista for two years and a half, then Western Union for a year and a half, and then I was sick and tired of call centers, I didn't want to do that anymore.

Ilse: When you come back from the States and you went to high school, and you want to validate that you actually finished high school, you have to do certain process in Mexico. I knew that before I came back; I tried to get all my documents ready and everything, but the system here is so slow, and I still had to lose a year of college, and I couldn't go because my paperwork wasn't turned in.Ilse: I was able to apply to a public college, Instituto Politécnico Nacional. I made it, but the classes and everything didn't give me time to work, and at the time, I had agreed with my dad that I wasn't ever going to ask for any help, like monetary help. So, I decided to decline that, and look for a private college. And I did. I found a really good college who allowed me, they allowed me to work full-time and go to college full-time. So, I majored in international business and commerce, my dream career, and I went to college for four years while working.

I came back July second and I had a job in August. Pretty much everyone, the only opportunities that we have here as returnees and everything, is call centers. So, I started working at a call center. I had a really hard time. No, not this one, Tevista. Telvista was the first call center I went to.Ilse: It was just a relief being able to find a job so fast, but it's not something that I loved. It was really tough, but it was a relief at the same time because I was going to be able to meet people and everything.

Ilse: And so, going to high school, I tried really hard, I had really good grades, I graduated third in my class. I was so into volunteering, I was in the student council, I did sports, I did everything. I wanted to be perfect so I could get scholarships. But it got to a point that I finally understood that it was never going to happen because it's so expensive. I couldn't go to a community college, I couldn't go—which was never my idea. I couldn't go to a four-year college because it was so expensive, and the scholarships are limited for people like me who were undocumented. When I finally got that, it just broke my heart because I was like, "I've tried so hard. I've given it everything, and I'm still not going to be able to stay here." So, one day, I talked to my dad and I said, "Dad, I really, really want to go to college."Ilse: And he's like, "But I can't do it. I can't pay for it. It's too expensive." And he's like, "You either stay here and work, and try to go whenever you save up, or you go back to Mexico."Ilse: And I thought about it. I was like, "Well, Mexico's my country, my dad's telling me to pretty much leave and he's not going to support me, so might as well just leave." So, right after college [means, high school] I graduated June 11th in 2011, and I was back to Mexico July second in 2011. And I just decided to leave, to start over.

I tried so hard, but my biggest dream growing up and going to school is I'm going to school and I'm going to do so good because I want to go to college. I want to have a degree, and I want to be able to help people. I want to represent Mexico because just—I love the States because of everything that it gave me, but the way that it happened, it was so hard on me, and I always wanted to prove that Mexicans can do good, and good things, you know?

Claudia: So, you pretty much just came by yourself? You made that decision?Ilse: I did. I was 18, and I said to myself, "If you have this one dream, you're not going to be limited as to where you are. If you want to be someone, you're going to be someone anywhere in the world." So, I just said, "Okay, I'm going to leave." And I left my parents and my brother, and I've been here in Mexico for almost eight years now.

Claudia: And so, how did you learn English? Did you go to school?Ilse: I was very lucky too on that perspective because, like I said, when we got there, it was a really small community, and my school only had a few Latin people. But the school actually had teachers, English teachers. They were so nice to me, and I was able to get one-on-one classes, and it was so personalized, and they were so committed. Even my regular teacher, she was Ms. ___, and I'll never forget her. She was so nice to me, and she would help me so much. I've always been a really good student, and I always wanted my grades, and do good in everything. And I was really good in math, obviously because it was numbers, and I was always top in that area, in that subject. But then when it came to reading and everything, it was kind of complicated, so she helped me so much. She paid so much attention to me, and thank God, I was able to learn the language in a few months thanks to them.Ilse: And thanks to my dad pushing me, too, because there were things that we had to do, and he didn't have a translator. So, I had to do it for him. That helped out a lot. So, I would say I learned in nine months tops.

Ilse: So, then we found out my brother was over there already. He was in Texas, I think; I don't even know. And my mom was like, "We have to do it again. We have to try because your brother's over there, because your dad's already waiting for us." So, we didn't have any money, we didn't have anything, but the woman that we were with, she still had some money. So, we went over to a motel—and this is where I'm always grateful, and God is like... or I have this huge angel or something.Ilse: The owners of the motel kind of heard the story when my mom was talking to my dad on the phone, and they said that they knew these people that faked the visas, or passports, and we could do it with them. And so, my mom talked to my dad and everything, and so, we were in training for two days, learning somebody else's identity. Name, everything, you have to know everything about the person, or at least the basics. It had to be in English, and I didn't know any English, or my mom didn't know any English—she's so bad at that. [Chuckles]. So we kept practicing and practicing, and I finally got it, right? So, I was good to go. And then my mom, she had a really, really hard time. Really hard time.Ilse: The day came when we had to actually do it. A slight happy moment that I had was when they brought me clothes, because you have to look good, you have to look like you were normal, I guess. So, I got new clothes, and I was so happy because it had been three horrible weeks before that, and then just getting that was really nice. And the people were so nice to me, so nice.Ilse: So, we get to the border on a van, and they're like, "Okay, so, everyone's going to separate, everyone is going to go their own way, and we'll see you guys when we cross." So, we were on our own. And I remember asking my mom, "Mom, just tell me a little bit, what's your story?" And she just blacked out. She didn't know anything. Like, she just went blank, her mind went blank. I was like, "Oh, my God, no. This is going to be so bad."Ilse: So, this is again where God is amazing, or whatever, because when it was going to be our turn where you give the papers and they ask you these questions, the guy in front of us was caught. So, a bunch of officers went over to him, and started asking him all these questions, so I just grabbed my mom's hand and I'm like, "Mom, let's just go."Ilse: We walked, and they didn't ask any questions, nothing. We just walked, and we were in the US. And that was a relief because I didn't want to go through the other thing all over again. [Chuckle]. To this day, I swear I don't know how that happened. And I'm just so grateful because, I mean, we were able to do it that easy, you know?Ilse: My mom's always telling me this. When you do good things in life, and you're a good person, good things happen to you. And ever since then, I've been so grateful for that opportunity that I just try to be good to people and I just try to do good things, you know? So, I guess that can come back to me? And yeah, but that's how we got to the US, and then we got on a van...Ilse: Well, then we met up with my brother. That was the best moment, when I saw my brother, because he's always been everything to me, always, and just being able to see him and hug him and everything, that was the best moment. And then, we got on the van, and it took us around three days, two days, I honestly don't remember, to get to North Carolina. And, yeah. Then united with my dad, and that's it. That's the story of how we got there.

So, they caught us, and they said that we're violating US laws. They were so rude, so rude, I swear. And then they were like—I mean, I know I was a little girl, but I could understand what they were telling my mom, you know?—and they were just like, angry at her, too, because, "How could you ever even think that your daughter... and she's so young..." Apparently, I looked really sick. [Chuckles].Ilse: And so, they just got us on the vans, and we went to the border prison. I was in prison for some time. Well, a day. [Chuckles]. And then, they took us back to the border and we had to start all over again. And it was just so sad and depressing, because the way we tried and everything we went through. That's why I was so angry when I got over there, because no human being should have to go through so much just so they could change their economic status, or just so they could run away from problems that you can't control.

Ilse: And so, I was left behind with my mom, and the woman with her son, and we tried to cross the border through the desert. But it was awful. Even being at the border, waiting for the instructions to go ahead and start the journey, you know? And seeing so many people, and kids, and women... It was just so bad, you know? And those images are so vivid in my head still. Then after that, we were lost in the desert for three days. We ran out of water, we ran out of food, we ran out of everything; the coyote got lost. And there was a point... when it rains in the desert, it's so bad. Like, the thunderstorms are so, so bad. I'll never forget how this woman that was traveling with us, she was like hallucinating, I guess. It was so bad that it was raining and that there was a thunderstorm, and she thought that this one cactus was a person.Ilse: So, she almost fell, so she thought she was going to grab onto someone, and she grabbed onto the cactus, and all her body was left with the little pikes. It was so bad, and then being lost…Ilse: We knew that they were going to be looking for us, obviously, or someone out there, so we just decided to wait. We waited it out. But before that, when it was raining, too... This was like a breaking point. There was a little, small creek, or little river, I guess you could say. When there's a thunderstorm and it's so dark, the thunder and then you're blacked out, you're blinded because of the light. And then, we lost track of the people. So, my mom and I got lost, right?Ilse: So, we had to cross the little creek thing, and then my mom just slipped, and she was about to just keep going with the flow, and I was so... God is amazing, because I just can't believe He gave me the strength, you know, to save my mom. And this man came back for us. It's just so crazy, because who does that, you know? Who actually comes back to check on people when you have to take care of yourself? He helped us, we crossed it, but we were still lost. So, once again, we got to a point where, like, "Okay, we're going to wait it out."Ilse: But it rained so hard, and it was so hot, and we didn't have anything to eat or no water, and then I was just like blacked out. My mom says that I was gone for hours, and I was hallucinating, and literally, she thought I was going to die because it was so bad. So, the men that were with us, they went out looking for water or something, and they came across this—they said it was kind of like a pond kind of thing, but it was more like animal pee and, I don't know. So, they brought that back. My mom still had some limes, and my mom put lime in it, and she kept trying to get me water, and that's how like, I came back apparently. That's what she said. I don't remember anything about that.Ilse: So, the coyote comes back, and he's like, "Okay, I found out a way. We're good to go. We just got to keep walking." And that was the third day. And so, we kept walking, and I don't know where we hear the helicopter, and we hear the vans, and dogs, and they caught us, you know? We were so close. So close. And yet so far, literally.

Claudia: And so, how did you cross the border with your mom and your siblings, with a coyote or did you just go by yourselves?Ilse: My dad had a friend in the States, and he had family in Guerrero. So, they're like, "So you guys won’t come alone, meet up with that family, so you can all come over." And so, we met this family. It was a mom with a son—he's older than me for about two years, I think, and a girl. She was, at that time, she was like five, I think. She was so small.Ilse: My brother, he was seven at the time; so he's younger than me. And so, we met up in the city and we traveled to the border. The plan was to cross the border through the desert, all of us, with a coyote. But my brother and the little girl were too young. I was too young, too, but I didn't want to leave my mom. So, they separated us.Ilse: My brother went with this other family, who took care of him, and he crossed the border asleep in a car, which was... it was, I want to say easy, but after hearing his story, and how he had to suffer because these people hit him, and you know, abused him, because he couldn't do anything. People were just mean to him, and he was trying to protect the little girl, that then I understood that it wasn't easy for him, either.

. And the people, they look at you like if you were some kind of alien, because they've never seen many Latins, you know? Because we arrived to a really small community in North Carolina, and it was kind of, like, hillbillies, and they're pretty racist. [Laughs].

Claudia: Right. And do you remember your first day in the United States?Ilse: Definitely! [Laughs]. You see, I was very angry from the time my mom told me that we had to leave Mexico. I was happy in Mexico. I have a lot of friends. I mean, I was only nine, but when you're nine, especially I think prior to this generation, you're very aware; at least, my mom always made me like that. She'd educated me to always be independent, and to always work hard at everything that I did. Obviously, at that time, I only went to school, right? But I also sold candy outside of my house so I could help my mom out a little bit, and I did so well in school, you know? I was so happy. I actually got a scholarship being in Mexico so I could keep going to school. I had straight A's. You know?Ilse: And just out of nowhere, my mom coming up to me and saying, "You're going to have to leave everything behind because we're going to go see your dad," that was just so shocking for me. And then, the whole journey to get to the US, which I'll never forget, and it's... I really pray that no nine-year-old ever has to go through that type of stuff. And then, getting to the US and not knowing anyone, and feeling totally out of place, and that first day was just so awful for me.

Ilse: My dad left Mexico because of economic reasons. I've always been very mature, I've always been very aware of situations and what's going on, and I could tell that they were having a really hard time. So, my dad leaves, I stay with my mom and my brother, and yeah, it was hard because my mom alone, and things like that. But when my dad saw that it would be better for us to be over there, then I had no other option but to go with them.

Why did your family leave Mexico?Ilse: I was nine years old when I left Mexico to go to the United States and basically left to reunite with my dad, who had left first. He saw an opportunity and thought that it would be better for us. So, we packed our things and then my mom, brother, and I, we went over to meet my dad.

Cris: They seen how I dress, they seen my tattoos, and they don't want no part to do with me. They don't want me talking to their children or anything like that. They don't want me to give them a bad influence, I guess—make them think "Hey look, his tattoos look cool, I want to get a tattoo.” I think that's really what it's about.Lizzy: They see you as a bad influence?Cris: Yeah, yeah.Lizzy: Just based on how you look?Cris: Yeah. And that's normal. Well, back in the States it's not like that. No, not at all. Because back in the States everybody has tattoos. I know nurses and lawyers that have tattoos. It's nothing.Lizzy: The tattoos. You think people judge them more here, than in the States?Cris: Oh yeah. Especially mine, because they see mine and they're like "Oh, he has numbers on him. He's from a gang.” No, that's the area code to Oklahoma, look it up man. [Laughs].Lizzy: Which one, the 405?Cris: Yeah, 1405. I added the one because—Lizzy: One for the US?Cris: Yeah. There you go, you know. [Laughs]. Yeah, and then this is the Oklahoma flag.

So his side of the family, they do not like us at all. They say that we're not even part—we're not even ___. They say we're not. They don't even claim that name. But I just pray for them.Lizzy: So, you don't talk to them?Cris: No they don't even let me go to their... I've only went to my grandma's house three times. First time was with my dad. The last time I went, I went by myself and I rung the doorbell and they were like "Who is it?" I was like "I'm Cristian, I'm come here to see my grandma. My abuelita Marta." I was like "Who's this, is it my tia?" And they're like "Okay, just wait there, she's coming out.” And she has a walker. They made her go outside to talk to me. Yeah, that's how bad it is with them. They don't like us, I don't know why—it's because of the skin color thing, I don't know.Lizzy: You think it's because they have lighter skin, so they don't accept you?Cris: Because their roots, really. Because they have money, they have factories where they make fabrics and stuff. So they're loaded. When I first got here, I was buying stuff left and right for my cousins and stuff, so I guess they seen it as me trying to challenge them or something. I don't know. But me, I was just sharing the happiness with my family.

Lizzy: Do you have indigenous roots?Cris: Not Native American, but from here, yes.Lizzy: From here, yes.Cris: Yeah, I do. Yeah and I love it. I never knew it until I met my family. They're from this little town called La Palma, over in Puebla. And there's deer there and everything, and there's a volcano. And I started meeting everybody, and they do the whole dance, the dance [inaudible 00:04:32], all that stuff. They dress up and they go to the big towns to make money and dance. They danced because they want to, because it's their tradition. But obviously they ran into foreigners that "Hey, can I take a picture with you?" and then the foreigners will give them a tip.Cris: After I found out I still have family here in Mexico that I didn't know, but they still actually lived like the indigenous, that was really exciting for me because I've always had this really, really deep passion for history. I just love learning history. That's my favorite topic, is history.Lizzy: That probably was really cool, connecting with that part of your family.

Lizzy: How is the racism in Mexico, how does that compare to racism in the US?Cris: Sometimes it's worse. Like me, I'm dark-complected. People that are Mexican and they're light-complected, they're racist against you. The one thing that I do hate about that part of society here in Mexico is the fact that they're very racist against the indigenous. And me, I love my roots. I mean I was raised around Native Americans, so I have that love for the indigenous people.

The only thing I don't like about Oklahoma, is the outskirt towns where they're not too accepting of outsiders—racism. It's like everywhere, racism even exists here in Mexico. I've learned that so far. But that's the only thing I don't like about it. But I mean I'm really patient with people, so even when people would act rude with me, I would always talk to them nicely. Tell them, “Sorry to bother you, I'll go ahead and go back where I came from.”Lizzy: What kind of rude things would people say to you, or racist things?Cris: I've always had tattoos, so they would think twice about offending me. They would just give me these looks. Say I'd go pump gas, "Oh, we don't got no gas right now.” I just seen a guy pumping gas. "I said we don't have gas right now.” “All right, sorry to bother you man. I'm heading out.”Cris: So, I'll just leave, stuff like that, and you can tell it's because race. Which it's okay, I pray for people like that, because they're not okay inside. That's the only thing I've dealt with there, a little bit of racism. But at the end, as I got older—because see I've been working since I was 14 so I've been in the construction field all my life—I've met a lot of people that are downright racist, but when they meet me, they're like "You know what, for a bean eating"— they start saying that—they're like, "You're all right man.” I was like, “You know what, you're all right too.” So I have a lot of friends that were racist before they got to meet actually somebody from a different race, and they're like "You're all right.”

Cris: I think we stopped by Houston and Galveston first, and then we hunkered down in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. That's where I lived all my life. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

What are your current dreams?Carolina: My dreams? Well, I want to finish school and I want to become a surgeon.

Wow, so you've enjoyed coming back to Mexico?Carolina: I have. I felt more at home.Anne: Yeah. It seems like there weren't a lot of positive things for you in the US?Carolina: No, there wasn't. It was really hard.

Anne: Yeah. And you're working, I guess?Carolina: I am.Anne: But what kind of work?Carolina: It's at TeleTech. It's a phone—Anne: Call center?Carolina: Oh yeah, a call center.Anne: How is that?Carolina: It's really good. I'm liking it.Anne: How long have you done it?Carolina: This is my second week.Anne: Oh.Carolina: Yeah, I just turned 18.Anne: Did you work before then or is this your first job?Carolina: I worked in a hog farm over there.Anne: In a hog farm?Carolina: Yeah.Anne: So the hog farm must've been outside of the city?Carolina: No, we lived close to it actually.Anne: Okay, so you're liking this better than the hog farm?Carolina: Yes and no. It was really nice working in a hog farm. I experienced a lot of things.

Anne: Why did you come back?Carolina: Mostly because we got tired of the same situation. We had family there, but they lived really far away. So we didn't really communicate. We were alone. It was just me, my mom, and my brother and sister. And that was it. And we felt lonely. We felt like we didn't have anybody there. So we decided to come back.Anne: So the whole family came back together?Carolina: Yes. But my siblings are constantly going back.Anne: Oh, because they're US citizens?Carolina: Yes.

When you were at school, did you do any extracurriculars?Carolina: I played basketball. I did track. Yeah, I was really active. They didn't really involve me in anything in basketball, but I tried.

then you moved to the second city, and you said it was primarily just white kids?Carolina: Yeah.Anne: No racial diversity at all, just you?Carolina: No. Yeah, it was just me.Anne: You were the face of diversity?Carolina: Yeah [Chuckle].Anne: It must have been very, very hard.Carolina: It was really, really hard. The people there weren't used to Mexicans. So, you went into a store and they'd look at you really weird or angry. It was hard.

Anne: How far did you get in school?Carolina: I was going into 10th whenever I came back.Anne: I see. When you were in school, did you do well in school?Carolina: I was, but then I got sick again and they never... Oh, the doctors didn't know what was wrong with me, so I missed... We're in school like nine months, right? I was in school for two months on all the school cycle.Anne: Which grade?Carolina: Eighth.Anne: And what was wrong with you then? Do you know?Carolina: The doctors couldn't find what was wrong with me. They'd be like, "Oh, no, well, you don't have anything." They ran tests, they did this, they did that, and they couldn't find what was wrong with me.Anne: And eventually you got better.Carolina: Yes and no. I still suffer from stomach pains. My head will constantly hurt, really strong migraines, but they're not migraines at the same time. And my bones will hurt at times. I can't move. So it's really weird. And they don't know what it is.

Carolina: I was in two different schools. In elementary, it was really good. It was really nice. And then you could say middle school, that was whenever I moved to a different city, it was hard. I was the only Mexican girl. They would usually send messages telling me to kill myself, that I wasn't worth it.Anne: They would send messages for you to kill yourself?Carolina: Yeah. Yeah, because, well, they told me that they were better off without me, well, with my race. I was the only Mexican girl, the only dark-skinned, and they would be like, "Oh, you're the fly to the milk, in the glass of milk." It was awful.Carolina: I didn't want to go to school. I was depressed. With all those messages, I got really depressed. And I just tried to move forward, but it was really, really hard.

Anne: And presumably you didn't know any English?Carolina: I didn't. I didn't know any English, but my mom had a friend who spoke really good English, so she was the one who taught me.Anne: Oh, she did?Carolina: Yeah.Anne: So even before you went to school?Carolina: Yeah, I knew a little English whenever I was in school.

Anne: What city did you end up?Carolina: I was living in Arkansas, in Wickes, Arkansas.

Anne: If you could just start by telling me about the circumstances that led to you coming to the US the first time, and how old you were, and what your first impressions were, what motivated the move?Carolina: Well, I was living in Mexico with my grandmother till I was five, and my mother was living in the US, so I went to reunite with her. And, well, I used someone else's papers, so it wasn't really hard getting to the US.Anne: So you just got in a car and drove there?Carolina: Yeah.Anne: How long had you been separated from your mom?Carolina: Five years, well, almost four.Anne: Must have been hard to leave your grandma.Carolina: Yeah.Anne: She's probably what you thought of as your mother.Carolina: She was.Anne: And did your mom come to the US just to make a better life?Carolina: Yeah, whenever I was little, I was really sick, so she didn't have enough money to pay for all the medicine and all the equipment I had to use. So that's why she left.

Because my Spanish was okay—my parents made sure we spoke it growing up. But it's so … I've seen people get here and they just can't adapt because it's so hard. I struggled with being, I'm never going to make friends here, I'm never going to be able to make myself be understood or be heard.

Brenda: As cheesy as this, all the call center jobs that are everywhere and people are like, "That's the only job you can get?" Well, yeah, but it's people that … It's a good pay for all you have above anyone else is English. There's a lot more educated people than me without jobs here in Mexico—that’s the only thing they don't have, English—and I might get paid twice as much. And that's all the friends that I've made through the call centers through English, bilingual jobs. I’ve been very fortunate because it's people that I can talk to in Spanglish with each other and that understand me culturally, which is another thing.

Anne: If you could change immigration law in the US, how would you change it?Brenda: I don't know. I think it's just tough because I don't think it can be—what is it they call it—like a blanket solution of “okay, let everyone go through” or “give everyone automatic resident status” or whatever. I remember there was a few things that I saw I think when John, I forgot his name, was really opposing Obama during his second re-election. But a lot of things that I saw were like, “Oh you have to go through schooling.”Anne: John McCain?Brenda: Not John McCain—maybe I'm thinking of George W. Bush the second time he went through. But I remember it was a lot of like, “Oh, the men going through a military training or going through school or making sure that you've gone all these years without any law-breaking and stuff.” I was like, “That's fair because most immigrants are trying to stay out of trouble.” I can attest to being scared of … “No, we have to be sure that we're good and making sure going to school or getting a job” and I think that's just normal basic things to ask for.Brenda: But I think those would have been great. It's harder now. I don't see the appeal right now in the US, sometimes it's a struggle because of how the political climate has been going since I left. I left when Obama had just gotten into the White House. So, it was really hard to see that transition completely the last few years. But I definitely think a system has to come up because I feel like it keeps getting pushed aside. We'll do it later, we'll do it later. Definitely for the people in the DACA program now that they've never known anything else.Brenda: I think I would've loved it if I had gotten that opportunity or hadn't left before it was installed into place.

Anne: What would you study? What are you thinking? Theater?Brenda: I think here it's harder, I took a course a couple of years ago. It was like a Shakespeare course and it was all in English and I remember being like, “Oh, this is the luckiest thing I've ever found.” I took it and I liked it a lot. But I know when I would try to speak to some of the other guys in Spanish, it was hard. My Spanish has gotten better, but it's still hard to communicate certain things. So probably not theater. I like cooking a lot. So maybe something like gastronomy or I looked a lot into sociology, insight, and psychology. I like those for all being interesting.

So, do you think being in the States for those fifteen years made you a different person than you would have been if you had grown up here?Brenda: Probably. Sometimes I have very optimistic ideas about certain things. I think that—not as a judgment towards anyone—I'm a good kid over there. Sometimes a lot of it was because of fear of if you get in trouble. You need to hang out with good kids, and you can't be like … I was always told not to hang out with other Hispanic kids because eventually too many of us would make people nervous or something. So, don't do that. Don't get into trouble. All of these things made me a very anxious person growing up. But I was always like, “No, because if something happens to me or the police were to find me for whatever I might be doing, apparently, it would involve everybody. We'd all be in trouble.” Here I think I would still do the same because up until a couple of years ago my grandpa was like, “You can't go out.” I'd be like, “Okay.” I'm still very obedient. All right, I don't want to get in trouble, and I don't want to get into arguments with anyone.Brenda: I just do as I'm told. I think it would've been similar, but maybe have … I don't know, I probably would have started working a lot younger helping my family out and such. Over there because I couldn't work, it was mainly to stay in at home babysitting my siblings. I think those kinds of things, I wasn't as exposed to a lot of the world as I was—or am now, here. I think that would have been different with my exposure.

Brenda: I started at a call center that's not too far from here. It's called Televista. I was there for six years, almost six years. I started out as an agent and I went through different levels.Anne: Are you still there now?Brenda: No. I left last year, the campaign I was working with—T-Mobile—left for another company and so all of us were without a job.

Anne: When you get back here and you're waiting around, did you go back to school? What did you do?Brenda: I wanted to. I remember being like, “Maybe I could try school and I could see if I like it here. Then worst case, I get my papers, I do school here and I go back over there—especially, economically it might've made more sense.” My mom was always like, “No, three more months, next month.” So, [Sigh] it went like that for a year and a half. When I came back, my brother, I would try to take him out as much as I could. He always chose American places like Chili’s or whatever places. I was like, "That's fine, but it costs a lot more money." So, money that my mom would send me that would last me months, in one outing with him, I would use it all because I wanted to make him happier, have him be calm. So, I was like, "This isn't going to last." So, I was like, "I need to get a job." That's when I started working.

Anne: So the adoption proceedings required that you go back to Mexico before?Brenda: It turns out they did not [Chuckles]. We just had a very badly researched attorney, I guess. He had gotten one of my uncle’s citizenship—and funnily enough, not the uncle that was with that aunt. He didn't end up being able to get residency or anything, and I don't know why we went with him specifically. But he just kept saying, "You have to leave." I remember telling everybody, “Okay, outside of having to leave at this time, I keep seeing that a lot of people that do this immigration process, in particular, don't leave the US. They never leave the US, they stay there.” Everybody goes, "I know, but you don't understand it's different." I was like, "It's really not, it's adoption-based immigration process.” So, I'm always like, "No one listened to me, so that's why [Chuckle] this happened."

Brenda: My parents got together when they were pretty young, not that young, but pretty young. My mom was like eighteen, nineteen. My dad was nineteen, twenty, and so my dad always instilled like a lot of fear like, “You better never get pregnant, you better not whatever.” There was never any discussion of like what I was supposed to do to avoid getting pregnant, but it was just in my head. It's always been like, “All right my parents said not to do that so I'm not going to do it.” But I think sometimes it's just that it's like, “what else are you going to do,” or “how else do you progress into being a woman” unfortunately like other than with a child or with a partner even though it's by mistake.

Anne: What about school? Is that where you learned English?Brenda: Yes, as soon as I got into school, I remember I took preschool twice because I started at three years old and the next year I still wasn't old enough. So, I did it again. I remember the first year and not understanding a lot when I first got there. Then I recall the second year when I first started preschool being like, “Oh my gosh, I understand everything. I know what they're saying, okay!” And just being really happy that I was understanding because I had promised my dad I was going to learn English when I got there.

I was about to start middle school, we moved to Oklahoma and I finished out the rest of my school there.

Axel: Yeah. I'm trying to work it out. My main priority is my kids. The girl, I like her too and I love her, I still do have a lot of feelings for her and I tell her. And I understand her situation. I know she wants to work. She wants to feel useful and I understand that. Even here, when I'm here and they give me vacations or anything like that, I take my vacations and after three, four days, I'm like, "All right, I'm bored, I want to go back to work." Even though I don't like work, but my main issue, my main priority is my kids, my family and that's my dream for me. I want to have a stable family, want to be able to have the house for my kids and see them grow up. That's it. That's the last thing I could ask for

Axel: All of a sudden, my baby went from being a baby to now she's a little young toddler, walking around, speaking little words and for me, it's always been my dream to have my family and be like my mom was. Maybe I'm not going to be able to have all the things my mom had and things my mom provided us, but I want to get as close as I can to something like that and be able to provide my kids all I can. I don't care if I'm missing something, but as long as my kids are happy and my family has what they need, like I said, like my mom said, I care more about other people than myself. Like I said, shoe brands, all that stuff don't matter to me. I want to have my family, I want to be happy and make my kids happy. See my family grow and see my kids grow. See what they become,

Anne: Well, I have a last question for you. That is what are your dreams?Axel: My dreams? I always had the same dream since I was younger. I always liked what I saw between my mom and my stepdad, and I always wanted a family. At this point, I got three babies with three different moms, and my mom tells me, "You need to stop." I'm like, "I'm just trying to have my family." She's like, "You have a family." I was like, "Yeah, but I want that family like you and my dad had."Axel: And that's always been my dream, to have my... I don't want fancy stuff, I don't want to be rich, I don't want to be famous, none of that. I just want to be able to have a family of my own. Be able to live with them, be with them, actually see my kids grow up, see them become the young man that they're going to be, the older man that they're going to be, instead of just having to talk to them over the phone.

I'm like, "Mom, everything happens for a reason. Everything happens for a reason. Every single thing is either whether you believe it or not, everything happens for a reason. There is already a plan for you type thing." I believe in that type of stuff and I went to church when I was younger. I did go to church when I was in junior high, and it was nice. It taught me a lot of stuff and I do believe in God. I'm not going to say I'm a follower, but I do believe in Him and I do believe in what they believe here, which is La Santa Muerte, [Saint Death] and I believe in death.Axel: If there's one thing that everybody believes in, it's death. Because everybody says, nothing is promised but death. That's one for sure thing that we all have is that. Believing in the death here, believing in La Santa Muerte [Saint Death] like the guys, it's a lot more credible. It's like yeah, we know death is there. God, everybody says God is here, there's the books and the testaments, there's no really actual evidence besides the books. Yeah, there's some stuff that do... I like that type of stuff and it gets my mind over, but I was never too much of a follower. My mom didn't like that. She was like, "You need to take it seriously." I was like, "I am, but it's already happened. It's already done and it's already happening, it's in process, what can I do about it? I can just hope for the best and prepare for the worst."

So my mom would go in or my dad, and they would take my daughters in and I would talk to them. Talk to them or just joke around with them, play with them there from across the glass. That was my whole relationship with my second daughter.Axel: My first daughter, I did have some encounters with her. I did have some years with her there. But the important years, when she was actually talking and already doing stuff, I was never there. My second daughter neither. I did talk to them on the phone still, I did FaceTime to them, and my daughter just cried. She wants to know when I'm going to go visit, and I don't even know how to explain to her the whole situation. I just keep telling them, "One day, just wait. One of these days, we're going to see each other. Either your mom comes over here or I go over there, but we'll see each other."Anne: So you're still friendly with the mom?Axel: Yeah. With both of them. And my family too. My family know that they're my babies, that they're my blood babies and my mom, "It's not their fault for whatever mistakes you made. It's not their fault for whatever they're going through. That's your blood, that means that's my blood, they're my grandkids so I don't want to see them struggling, I don't want to see them doing bad."

Axel: Finally, I gave up on that. I was like, I'll just take whatever plea they gave me. They gave me the two year plea. So I took it. I was like, okay. Two years again. I was like all right, here we go. But this time, it's actually jail. It's not county, it's not juvenile or anything like that. I thought it was going to be a lot worse than what it was, but like I said, it was the same. The only people that were different were really... The guys were bigger, but there was always mean guys in juvies too. The only difference that I really noticed were the guards. Since you were now older guys, you're adults, the guards were rough, they were mean, they were just abusive.Axel: Not abusive, really, because they never really hit you, because over there, they're more strict than here with that type of stuff, but they would talk really... They would talk down to you a lot and stuff like that. When I did my two years there, it was depressing for me. Every time, those two times that I did my time, I wasn't really depressed about me getting caught up, I wasn't depressed about my situation, I was more depressed about not being able to be with my family.

everything was good and I stayed out of trouble from 14 all the way till I was 19, which is when the recent charges and everything came, the evading arrest and I got my shit. I didn't have no reason to evade arrest, I didn't have anything on me or anything. I had had one or two beers. I wasn't drunk or anything, but I did know I had kind of smell, and I knew that they were going to play that on me, and I was still at...Anne: Did they pull you over? Were you speeding or something?Axel: No. I wasn't speeding. They just said that it was random checks. But really, I really think they just ran the plates, they saw that I had a couple tickets before for no license, stuff like that, so they do the check again. I was like, "Okay, they're going to smell my breath. One, they're going to smell my breath, they're going to say I'm drunk. Two, I don't have my license. Three, I'm underage, I'm not even 21 so I'm not even supposed to have alcohol at all." I'm like, that's just not looking good at all for me, so I panicked, I stepped on the gas and I left.

Axel: And I was like, "Can I do that outside with ankle monitors? At least you'll know exactly where I'm at and you'll know if I leave the house, anything like that." "No, no. Those options aren't available for you." He's like, "The option is just that. We can do that or you can try taking your court case to trial. Which is not really recommended." Even my lawyer told me it wasn't really recommended. So I took the plea. I did my two years in juvie, got out when I was almost 15, and everything for me was brand new again. The whole city, a lot has changed, some new bridges, new streets, new everything was a little bit different in two years.

They were like, "Okay, look, we got the deal with the judge, he just said all you have to do is wait till Monday when the probation office is open again, so that way you go from here, your probation officer's going to pick you up here at the holding cell, he's going to take you straight to the probation office, they're going to go ahead and take your documentation, your phone number, address, everything they need from you so that way you can already get registered and that way, we know for a fact that you're going to take your probation and you're already registered into it."Axel: I was like, "Okay, yeah. Sounds like a deal." I'm already signing the paperwork saying that I'm pretty much going to be free on Monday, I just got to wait till Monday because of the probation office. The whole weekend I was excited. I was like, I'm leaving Monday, finally I'm out of here. I know I got to go through probation, but this time, I'm going to take it seriously. It's only one more year. I'm just going to chill out for a year.Axel: Monday came, they took me out of my cell, they gave me my regular clothes, everything, gave my paperwork to leave, everything was cool. Probation officer started getting there and they picked up everybody except me. And they asked me, she's like, "Hey, what are you waiting for?" I'm like, "I'm waiting for a probation officer too." So I looked up my name and everything and they were like, "Oh, well, actually, it looks like immigration put a hold on you just last night at one or two in the morning. So actually, we're going to have to put you back in your cell." He's like, "But don't worry, we're going to put you back in the same one so that way you can go back in with the same people that you were in there with and you don't have to meet some new people and stuff."Axel: I'm like, I’m not worried about that. I want to go outside with the people I've been knowing for years, my family and stuff. I was really disappointed at that point. I was really depressed. I got upset, I called my parents and my friends were like, "Hey, are you out already? Where are you so we can go pick you up?" I'm like, "I'm inside my cell."

As far as it goes when I started getting into trouble, I did my lie detector test, I failed it. Since I failed it, I had to go back to court to get reevaluated. Once I went back to court, they told me, "Hey, well, you failed your lie detector test." I was like, "Yeah." He's like, "Well, look, out of the 10 questions, at least five of them, half of those, you lied on. You were doing this, you were doing this and this and this, and you weren't supposed to be doing it." He's like, "So you're going to have to go before the judge again so he can see what we're going to have to do, if he's going to extend your probation or see what his judgment is."Axel: The first option they gave me was five years of jail time, and then...Anne: How old were you?Axel: I was 12 at that point, man. I was already 12. And they were offering me five years, and I was like...Anne: Five years of jail or juvenile?Axel: Juvenile. It was juvenile.Anne: It's sort of in jail.Axel: Yeah. They're pretty much the same. Besides the fact... The guards are a little bit nicer since they know you're underage, but...

Axel: Oh, yeah. I started getting in trouble, really, when I was at a younger age. When I was 10. That was when I first got into trouble. I had anger issues, and when I was in school, one of my teachers always... you know how they ask questions, everybody raises their hand to answer, and for some reason, he always wanted to pick on me, even though I wasn't raising my hand. And I was having some bad times with the whole issues with my family, my mom always moving around, I wanted to go with my dad, but my dad was having some issues so I was kind of having issues moving around at the moment.Axel: So I was just having my own personal issues and this teacher was always picking on me, and I had already told the truth. "Look, the day that I have an answer, I'll raise my hand and I'll answer anything. I'll raise my hand. I do participate at some point. Right now, just I got some issues going on, let me just figure this out and no worries, I'm listening, I'm paying attention. Obviously, my qualifications are still good so I'm still AB type student." But I don't know.Axel: One day, he decided he wanted to pick on me again and I was like, that day, I was having one of the worst ones out of all them, and my anger just got the best of me and I physically assaulted my teacher. Since I was a minor at that time, they did take me to juvenile and they gave me probation for two years.

Axel: Over here, everybody looks the same, really. You can't really tell who's into the narcs, who's into some heavy drugs, who's into just being calm, who's maybe undercover police, something like that. Over here, it's like you can't really get mad at anybody on the streets, can't go off on them, can't really argue with them because that person could just be involved with somebody higher up or could be involved with the narcs, the little gangs that there is around the areas and all right, so now you mess with that person, so they already know where you work, they know you're around this area all the time. They'll come and get you the next day or they'll go away, come back with some friends and they'll mess with you, or like they said about the food stuff or they'll come and pick you up in a truck, they'll kidnap you for a while, torture you and just go and kidnap you just for fun. Just to leave you in the room and not eat for a couple days.Axel: It's never happened to me, but it's happened to my coworkers and stuff and they've missed work one or two days and they're about to get fired and they come back, and then they're like, "Man, I was kidnapped. I didn't have no form of communication or anything, I was kidnapped for the past two days." All they ask for at work, because they know that it happens and there is no way for them to prove it, really, there's no way for you to prove it either so all they ask for you to do is at least go make the report with the police.

Anne: How does it compare--the food here to US?Axel: I stopped eating all that fast food. In the US, it was nothing but Burger King, McDonald's, Taco Bell. Just nothing but fast food. I think the only healthy... If you consider it healthy food that I would eat over there would be Chinese food, Chinese restaurants. Over here, it's all mainly, not homemade, but it's handmade. Our restaurants too, fast foods, they have their little machines and everything but over here it's like, you go and you buy some tacos, they're cooking it right there in front of you. They cut it open and cook it in front of you, they do everything right there in front of you. And in the States, you go to fast food, it's like, "Okay, I'll order this." "Okay, don't worry, we'll call you in a minute and you'll have your order ready."

You could tell me it's all calm, but everybody says my area is a little area, it's kind of a dangerous area, but I've never been in any type of situations over there. No assaults. How do they call it? People that get on the public transport and they steal from the public transports, hijackings and whatever. Something like that. Never anything like that, and everybody said that that area is mainly known for that type of stuff. But at the same time, I guess it's the people. Once they see you where you live and they start getting to know you, and they don't really mess with you. They're like, "Oh yeah, that's the guy, he lives over there somewhere. I see him every day or I see him every two days, but I seen him a couple times."Axel: But when you go to the new area, it's like...Anne: Then you're a target.Axel: Yeah. Everybody looks at you, everybody wants to know who you are. Are you some type of police officer trying to do an undercover operation or something? They either come at you because they think you look suspicious or they come at you because you look like a easy target and you're easy to pick for, phone or something. Either way, it's just bad all around.

For me, I consider English my first language. It's really my strong point. My Spanish is... Even though I spoke it at home, once I got older, obviously I was always with my friends out playing video games, going to basketball games, football, just doing activities, so I was never home then. So my Spanish started going from pretty good to just like I can get by. And now, it's getting better now, but there's certain things that I still don't understand. That's why I found it a little bit harder when I started going to school here. To try to do my career was, obviously their language is a little bit more extensive, they explain things with some bigger words that I don't understand.Axel: Like I said, I don't like people asking me a lot of questions and I also don't like asking a lot of questions, because I don't like feeling like... I don't want people to think that I'm just not there with them. But it's not that I don't understand that, it's just that there's certain words that I just don't get the full meaning of it. And I don't want to be there in class like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. What does that mean?"

Axel: It was just really fun. That was the only thing that I wouldn't consider bullying, my friends were just more like a teasing type thing. Saying about the money. He's like, "Oh yeah." I don't know why, he's like, "Why don't you take us out to eat?" He's like, "You're the one with money." It was just funny to me. Then later on, they would have some racist jokes in a way, but I knew that they were friends. I knew that it was just teasing, messing around. It was never really serious.Anne: Right, right.Axel: Sometimes it would be like, "Wow, your people don't have a lot of money, blah, blah, blah." And then sometimes it was like, "No, you don't count. You're not even from here." It was always funny. It was never really a serious... I never had really serious issues with school and bullying, nothing like that. It was always pretty fun.

Anne: How was school?Axel: School? Actually, school really wasn't that bad. At first, it was a little bit different, due to the language barrier, but...Anne: Because you hadn't learned English until then. Yeah.Axel: Right. Even though I did go as a little kid, you could go into kinder[garten] and stuff like that, everybody already speaks English and me, it was like I spoke a little bit that I heard here and there, but in my home, my parents didn't know English so they were always speaking Spanish. So in my home, it was always Spanish. Once I started going to school, my first years, it was kind of difficult. They put me in the ESL classes, and it actually really helped a lot. They did help a lot, they explained stuff a lot and by the first year or second year, I was already more understanding and I was getting it really quick.Axel: It's like they do say, once you learn it at a early age, it's kind of easier than learning at a older age, once you've already got this whole other concept of what you're doing. But I mean, yeah. After that, after my second year of school, it was actually pretty good breeze. Breeze through. Nothing like bullying, was never really an issue, anything like that.

I had a cop one time, I didn't have anything on me, no reason for them to even search me to begin with, everything was okay. But the problem was I had two phones. I had just bought a new phone, and I had my old phone that I was going to sell or give away to my ex-wife, so that she could have it and sell her phone. They caught me with... They pulled me over, searched me. They're like, "Why do you have two phones?" Like thought I stole one. I'm like, "No, I didn't. All my information's in both of the phones, I'll show you."Axel: The guy didn't like my whole attitude that I had with them, so he decided he took his phone out, he showed me a bag of... What was it? I think it was weed or I don't know what else it had in it, because it was a big bag, like a trash bag. Just full of stuff. And he's like, "Look, I've got this in my car right now in my trunk. If you don't hand over one of your phones," He's like, "And actually, the one I want is that one." He wanted the brand new one. "And actually, I want this one. So look, this is the deal. Either you give us the phone and everybody goes about their ways, or I take you in and I'm going to put this on you. There's no way that anybody can prove that it's not true. My partner's obviously going to go with me." He's like, "So you decided what you want to do. Do you want to go ahead and let us take you in and we'll put this big bag of stuff that I got with you, on you? Or you give me the phone?"

People know that obviously we get some decent money because we speak English. They know the days that we get paid. The people that live around here in the streets and the cops know when we get paid, so there's cops out here every day, roaming around just looking and they see anybody with tattoos, they'll pull you over and search you. It's probable cause, supposedly.Axel: And if they catch you with something, they won't take you to jail. They'll just ask you for a bribe and they'll take 200 or 300 pesos from you. If you don't have any money, they'll take your phone. If you don't offer them the money or say, "I'm not going to give you any money," they'll scare you to act like they're going to take you to the jail. Then they give you a last chance. They're like, "Okay, last chance before we get there, it's right there across the street. You want to go ahead and cooperate or you want us to go with the judge? Blah, blah, blah."Axel: They're all in cahoots, really. In the end, what they all really want is just some money. If you offer them money, they're going to let you go. It's happened to a lot of people. It's happened even to me. They catch me and they tell me... They don't find nothing on me, but they don't like the fact that we act the way we act. We tell them we don't have anything and we get mad because they're searching us for no reason. They don't like our attitude that we take against them.

they come in and they'd be in a little group, they try asking you for directions, one of them is distracting you, the other one is taking stuff out of your pocket. Then she hands it off to someone else that's behind them, that person walks away. Someone else comes in like a distraction like, "Hey, what's going on?"Axel: They're all in it together and at the end, some people start to act like they're actually caring about what's going on. In the end, they're all in cahoots with it. You can't trust anybody. In the States, at least you knew you could help somebody and it's probably legit. Over here, you can't really trust that thing where somebody comes up to you and they're like, "Hey, I need some help, something's going on right here around the corner. Somebody's trying to hurt my mom or somebody's trying to hurt my sister." You can't even trust that because you might go around the corner and they're just going to jump you and rob you. It's all just in cahoots to get something out of you

Axel: And authorities don't really do much to help. They almost kind of get mad at you for getting robbed. They're like, "We told you not to have your things out in the open, we told you to check your pockets and make sure you have your things in your chest or a visible spot or a spot where you can feel that you're getting to get them swiped out." It's not really a big help. Then it comes down to that part, they're like, "Well, it's gone now." He's like, "Whoever it was, wherever they are now, it's gone."

my mom always told me, she's like, "Trust me, you don't want to go to Mexico." She's like, "Life over there is not as you picture it. It's like your cousins and everything, they say they're having fun over there, but they've been over there they're whole life." He's like, "You? You're going to have difficulties." One, is the tattoos. Two is they look at y'all as a target more because not only for y'all as in general, but then also because they know that you have family over here, they try to use it as extortion and they have tried to call her a couple times and tell her that they have me and, "We have your son and you better send some money and blah, blah, blah."Axel: But she always have someone with her like my sister or my stepdad or something, and while she's on the phone with them, then my stepdad, my sister contacts me to make sure that it's not true and that way they can just go ahead and blow it off and stuff, but thankfully, nothing like that has actually happened but they always worry about that part of... They worry more about that than anything else. They know that I can take care of myself and they know that I work and I'll make my money and I can handle myself as far as economically, but they're still worried about just because they know how the environment is. Not only just in the streets, but just everywhere in general, the transports, everything. You can't even get in transports without have your hands in your pockets or grabbing your stuff because if not, somebody will just take it in the middle of nowhere. Next thing you know, you're just like, "Oh, my wallet, my phone's gone." I don't even know where it happened, nothing.

Once I moved with him, he moved about two blocks down just to another apartment where it was bigger space, where I could stay with him and from there, we never moved again. That's when I started doing from like seventh grade, all the way up till I finished my last six years.Axel: Half of it, mom was everywhere and then the other half, I was in a stable location where I actually met the friends that I have now that still talk to me now that I'm here and that still help me whenever they can. I don't even have to ask them, they'll just tell me, "Hey, right now I'm going to send you some money or I'm going to do this, I'm going to give your kids something, where can I meet them? Blah, blah, blah." I know that they're going to help me, but I don't like to ask them because it's not something that I don't really like to ask them for, for stuff because I know it's not their fault that I got deported or anything like that.

Anne: Nice. What was the city that you moved to when you first moved?Axel: When I first moved over there, we were in Texas, and then mom was always big about moving around. She always wanted to... It was always her idea of looking for a better life, the American dream, whatever you say. So she was always trying to upgrade to a new house and better location for schools, better location for a family, stuff like that. So we went all over Texas.

Talk a little bit about why you went to the US and the circumstances surrounding it, how old you were, that sort of thing.Axel: Went over when I was really young, about a year or two years old, so I didn't know much about it but what my parents told me once I got older was where we lived, it was a small ranch type area, and there was a lot of narc activity going there and it got to the point where one of my uncles got injured in some type of crossfire, and so they wanted to avoid that for us and they also wanted a better life for themselves and see for their whole planning the family type part, so they decided they wanted to come to the States. And they came, they crossed over when I was really young. My mom told me that she carried me in her arms whenever she crossed me over, and so it was... I don't have any idea about it, but that's what she told me. I kind of have an imagination of what kind of went down.

utting it simply, when I first got here, and I considered myself a lot more American than anything, quirks about people annoyed me or not their quirks, just their ways of certain expressions or it's a way of doing something. For me it was just like, "Ugh, that's so not what I'm used to or that's so not accepted." But now it's more, I feel that I've become more flexible in that sense, with people, with culture, with everything. And yeah, I don't really think that you open your eyes to that until you have to live it. And so I definitely think it's a phenomenon to say you're too much of something, but I don't agree with it.

Ana: My current dreams in Mexico is, or are to actually travel. One of the huge benefits of being in your own country and working, or simply just actually being legal is traveling. And I hadn't realized that I really enjoyed it until I had it. So one of my biggest dreams is to continue traveling. I want to continue knowing Mexico and there are really, really beautiful places. I want to get to know other cultures and other countries, and that's one of the freedoms than being a legal alien or a citizen allows you to do. And I want to continue to grow professionally. I'm fortunate enough to work in a global company. So my big, big goal is actually to continue growing within the company and to be sent to a different part of the globe to work.

Do you consider yourself more Mexican or American?Ana: Oh, that's a hard, hard question. So I consider myself more Mexican or American. It's funny because just yesterday, there's a fair here. I'm not sure if you're aware of it. It's called feria de las culturas amigas. it's in Chapultepec, which is basically, it's a fair that happens every year. A lot of whole different countries come, and they expose their culture. It's beautiful. Yesterday, I was there and we stopped by US, a friend of mine and me. It was really funny because he mentioned to me, he was like, “you're more gringa, so this is where you should be.” And I was just like, "Ugh, no." Basically, I don't know. I think 10 years ago, if you would've asked me, I would have said American, definitely. I think six years of finally accepting where I am, really adapting to, trying to adapt to where I currently am, I still wouldn't say…I'm leaning more towards Mexican, but I think, I'm not sure.

Ana: That the States has given me, I actually do feel that it has shaped me in many ways to be where I am now more than the States itself though. It's weird because you don't really... I feel like you don't really know how much is your parent, how much is your culture, how much is your siblings? So for me, English is number one. I think I really enjoy the culture that they have work-wise. Work-wise, or at least, despite the fact never having worked there in school and such, it's a lot of no bullshit, you're here to do what you're here to do. And one of the things that for me has been really hard to adapt to here is that the culture in that sense is very different. Despite the fact that Mexicans are such hard workers and they are, sometimes they're also very lazy. And so I appreciate having grown up in a culture where you don't really beat around the bush. It's direct, it's to the point and it's not about just...Ana: For example, one of the things where I was discussing, previously or last week with a friend, is I'm the type of person that in a restaurant, if I don't get a proper service or something, I speak up. And not necessarily, not talking about rudely, just I speak up when it's normally not done here. People tend to accept or just sit back and let things slide by. And I don't think that that's something that happens a lot in the States, or didn't, not speaking about the current government, but when I grew up there, it was just flu—I remember that things were fluid. And I don't know if that's also because as a kid, you don't notice or know of all the issues that are going on around, but yeah, I would say to summarize: English, definitely; the working mentality of no beating around the bush and directness; and kind of going for what you want and not being rude about it, but just trying to get your point across without hurting others.

Isabel: Do you think that your time in the US has shaped or it made you different, giving you different skills or anything that you can use here?Ana: Well, English would definitely be a skill that I would say the US gave me or the States gave me. The reality is that English is a very valued asset here. I'm not sure, I think around the world, eventually, because it has become the global language. So 10 years ago, when I first arrived and nine years ago, when I first started looking for a job and such, that's pretty much what sold me or what... I had zero prior experience minus the bakery, and I didn't even mention it because it wasn't even... Really, if I remember correctly, I don't know if it was just one or two weekends, but I didn't like it. So I was like, "I'm not doing this." And without any experience at all, it's hard to get a job. It's funny because they always tell you, "we are hiring people," but it's only people with experience. So all of that is hard, but English sold me in the first and only job I went to for that. Aside from the fact that when I first got here, my Spanish was horrible. So many of the jobs that I initially started applying to were over-the-counter jobs. So it was like Blockbuster, when it existed, or the supermarkets and such and people obviously wouldn't hire me. I couldn't even have a conversation in my interview because of my Spanish. So it was a big no. And it wasn't until funnily enough, my mom, who was the one who found out about call centers here. And she asked one of my cousins to take me to one, and that's how I got my first job.

Just from the steps of mourning, right? Acceptance, denial. Or I don't even know them in order, but for a whole long time, it was just denial and then acceptance and now really just flourishing into it.Isabel: And mourning, mourning your life in the US or?Ana: Mourning, I think more than anything, the loss of familiarity. I don't really remember my childhood to be honest. When I grew up here, I remember my grandparents and that's about it. So also adapting here in that sense, was really weird. People going up to you and going, "Oh, I remember when you were so small." You would think that someone would appreciate that. You would think that, "Hey, that's cute." And for me, because of the attitude that I had, for me it was just like, it was annoying. And it was like, "You're a stranger to me. Why are you telling me about you knowing me, you don't know me." So, again, it was just really negative despite having people going to me and talking to me about my parents or talking to me about what they remember about my childhood. For me, it was not a welcome thing. So, it was, yeah. So, it was a mourning of the loss of familiarity.

What do you think it was like being away from your family, being in a new place? Just all of those things?Ana: I don't know. Here, I've met people who, immigrants. It's weird because in New York, I don't remember anyone, but here I've met a whole bunch of people and I think everyone has their own experience and I would compare it to, well, maybe not compare it. It's just, I feel that the fact that I didn't want to be here at first really affected the adapting into the culture because, essentially, Mexico, long-term again, has been wonderful. It's just, there is a lot of beauty, there's a lot of kindness, if you know where to look, or even if not, but just, there is a lot of good, but it took me a really long time to see it. It took me years to acknowledge that I was in a place that I could enjoy being in. So the first year adapting was just harsh. The second year onward after knowing, "You know what, if you're going to be here, you might as well do something with your life," I said.

So the first year adapting was just harsh. The second year onward after knowing, "You know what, if you're going to be here, you might as well do something with your life," I said. That's when I started to look for a job, I started to make friends, but I honestly refused to speak Spanish for the first four years of being in Mexico.Isabel: Wow.Ana: So a lot of people sometimes, for example, my Spanish has gotten much better, but when I meet new people now, one of the first question tends to be, "How long have you been in Mexico?" "I've been here 10 years." And they're surprised to why my Spanish is still... It's like, "We can still tell you have an accent." Or when I get really nervous, my Spanish tends to fuck up. And they're just like, "But you've been here 10 years." And it's kind of like, "Yeah. Speaking Spanish, I've only done it for about six years."

Ana: Integrating into Mexican society at first for me was inexistent in a way. To be honest, for me, my experience was just very negative. I didn't want to be here. So the whole first year of my stay, one was focusing on my health. That's all I basically did for a whole year. Two was basically just cry every single day. And three was question when I was going to go back. It wasn't a matter of “I'm going to stay in Mexico.” It wasn't until it was. So, it was hard, but... And the long term or in the long run, it's actually been pretty good.

Isabel: So then going from that, said your family moved, where did you move to?Ana: North Carolina.Isabel: North Carolina. And then how did you end up back in Mexico from there?Ana: Well, I got really sick. I got really depressed when we moved to North Carolina and to this day, I'm not a hundred percent sure if that's what triggered it, it's more than likely because it's the only thing I attribute to my sickness. I started hemorrhaging. I started to bleed out and it got to a point where it got really, really bad. I was hospitalized about four times. And yeah, it just got really, really bad to a point where I just didn't want to be hospitalized anymore. And so I told my parents that I refused to get hospitalized and my parents said, "Well, we bought you a ticket to Mexico, so."Isabel: So your parents got you a ticket to Mexico so that you could receive help here?Ana: Yes. In Mexico, I have an uncle who's a doctor. So while I was in and out of the hospital and I wasn't getting any better and I wasn't getting any treatment, except blood transfusions and such, my mom sent my medical records to my uncle. Don't really know what the discussion was there, I just knew that she sent him my papers. And from what I know, my uncle told my mom, "You're either going to let her die there or you're going to send her so that I can help her." So my parents were like, "Okay." And they just sat me down. They told me that I had to go get my passport because I was coming to Mexico.Isabel: And was it difficult receiving healthcare in the States with your undocumented status?Ana: Definitely. I wouldn't say that people are harsh. I think that there's a little bit of human in everyone, but it's definitely not the same when you have papers. In terms of care, it's kind of... I don't know how to explain it but just, when you're in the hospital, people will make sure that your vitals are normal, or your vitals are stable. I think that's the word. But other than that, it was hell trying to get attention. It was my mom trying to ask, “What's wrong with her? What can they do?” Doctors just going, "She just needs birth control. Put her on birth control and that's it." Me going on birth control and nothing, not helping. And my mom just kind of desperate I would say, trying to get answers, falling again in the hospital, getting more blood transfusion. It was basically just base work. It wasn't someone actually asking you or checking to see if everything was okay, it was mostly of, "What's going on with you right now?" "I'm bleeding out." And doctors going, "Are you having an abortion? Are you…"—A miscarriage, sorry, here it's abortion—and it was just hard at that time because there was a lot of negligence also. For example, at the time I was still a virgin. And despite saying that I was not pregnant at all, there was no possible way, the doctors still examined me. And you know not being able to do anything legal for it because you couldn't, you're illegal. You can't sue the doctor for malpractice because you're not even supposed to be there. So it's always a lose-lose situation. So yeah, I would not say that it's comfortable being undocumented and needing healthcare.

Isabel: Yeah. That makes sense. And a lot of people mention fear of driving because if they they drive without a license, but probably weren't as much in New York or...Ana: No, or at least from... I don't remember how old I was, but my dad did get a car. And so he would try to teach us to drive, my sisters and myself. I don't recall it being an issue, trying to get a driver's license. I think as I got older, I realized that it could have been a conflict, but I think that he always looked into what state would be giving the driving... Because I didn't know until I was older that only certain states provide that. And so he would find it and he would go for it. But living in a city like New York, it wasn't a necessity, having a car to move around and such, it was more of what my dad wanted in life. So that's what he got.

Were you frightened then of US authorities or the police in that sense or not.Ana: Not really, but I think it's also because I didn't really…I wasn't one to get into trouble. I wasn't one who was looking to commit a crime or cause that kind of conflict or attention. I think it was a bigger deal for my parents. I do remember them saying that we had to behave properly, or we had to take care of how we were behaving to avoid the cops or to avoid the police. But it wasn't something that I would say, I think, I would be intimidated of their figure, but more on my parents’ account than my own.

Isabel: And do you remember any early memories or what was some of your first experiences in the United States and even those surprised you.Ana: I recall the school, the bilingual school, we were only there a year, I have an older sister, my older sister and I. And then we were moved to the elementary school where we finished our studies. I remember my childhood in terms of like school and friends and such, but the first memories of arriving there, I don't recall.Isabel: Can you tell me about then your childhood, both your schools and your friends?Ana: Yeah. I don't remember much about my bilingual school. I just remember that we were there a year, then in the other school where we finished. I remember the school itself, the physical-ness of it, the weather. I remember that I was a huge nerd. [Laughs]. I just focused on reading and doing my schoolwork and finishing school and, yeah.

Isabel: Do you have any teachers that stood out to you?Ana: Yeah, my fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Ogami, really, really great in teaching Math and such and books. And I remember my mom liked him also, because of the program of the school, getting work done and memorizing stuff. So yeah, he would definitely stand out.

what caused you and your family to migrate to the United States?Ana: From what I remember or from what I know, currently, my dad went to the States, I think he was there for about a year, and my mom decided that she wanted us to be with him so she took us to the States.

Anita:Yeah. Do you think that growing up in the U.S. you come back with certain values?Sylent:Now that you mentioned it, yes, we do bring a lot of values, especially in the cleanliness. In Mexico City, everybody's accustomed to whenever they finish their package of whatever food they have, they just throw it on the floor. Not everybody, of course, but most of the people do that. Us, growing up in the States, we know that that's a horrible thing. Like, "You shouldn't do that. What type of person are you?" You know? That's one thing. Cleanliness. We bring that. Being independent. Over there in the United States, when you're 18 like most of the people that turn 18, they get to live in their own apartment, have their own car. Here in Mexico, of course we can't afford it. Sometimes we're 25 and we still live with our parents and we still have to give them some type of expense. Maybe that. Being independent.

Sylent:Back then hip hop was really not a thing. It was bad. If you listened to hip hop, like, "Oh, you're a drug addict. You're bad. You're a criminal." That has always been the issue. I felt discriminated because of that because I'd dress like I do now with my hats. I would go ask for a job, they say, "No. I'm sorry. We're not looking for people like you." Those were the words. I'm like, "What do you mean?" It's like, "Yes. The way you have tattoos, the way you dress. We're not looking for people like you." I said, "What does that have to do with my knowledge? I'm probably smarter than that guy right there. What does that have to do with my knowledge?" "No." Because I had piercings also. Then it's, "Because our image is not like that." I was like, "Why?"Sylent:Every job I try to go get, it was like, "No." I was shut down. I learned that here in Mexico it's all about image. I just changed a little, started wearing dress shoes, maybe tighter pants, maybe dress shirts. I would go back to the same places and they would welcome me with open arms. It's like, "Wow. So, it was just all about image." If you look nice, they're going to treat you nice. Depending on how you dress and how you speak or how you drive yourself, that's how people treat you. I took that to my advantage and said, "Okay. I need to do something." That's when I said, "Okay, maybe teaching is a good opportunity since everybody's asking." I started looking for schools.Sylent:Then there was this one school that they said, "Hey, I don't care how you look, just you do need to change some things, but I'm not asking you to completely change yourself. Just so that you can seem legit." I'm like, "Okay. I can do that, I guess." I was only 18, 19 years old so I was like, "Am I ready to change or do I want to change even?" I said, "Why not? Maybe it could be better." So, I did change for that school, but then I realized that my identity or my personality started to change as well. I started to become somewhat of a prick. Yes. Then I said, "No. I can't do that no more. I can't." Because that's how the system takes you in and eventually it's not you that changes the system but the system that eventually changes you. So, I said, "No. I have to quit. I have to quit. I am getting paid well, I have everything I have because of that, but I can't lose my identity."Sylent:I got out, and then I realized that I didn't have to be different. I could still be me, but I could act some way around certain people. Yeah, it was hard because I didn't want to, I didn't want to but I felt like I have to because if I didn't I wouldn't get what I wanted, or obtain what I would get. But I do feel bad for becoming, not a total prick, but I do remember saying, "I don't know, don't buy from him because he's from the street," or "Don't buy your groceries there because it's not a good store." Things like that.

Anita:Did you see your family again before you were deported?Sylent:Yes. I came back home. I came back home, and we fought my case, and my dad was actually locked up with me in county. He didn't go to prison like I did. He got out pretty quickly. I don't know why even. I'm not sure why. I don't know why I was the only person that was taken to prison. I don't know. Maybe they were just trying to prove a point. Then my dad came back to Mexico first. But I do remember meeting up with my family and then them telling us that we have to do something or we're going to keep getting those type of cases.

They would ask me, "So why are you in here for?" I didn't want to lie because I didn't want to make them think that I was a bad person or like, "Yeah, I'm hard, too." I was like, "No, I'm just here because I'm illegal." Then I remember a group of Mexicans from Mexico City approaching me. It was like 18 people. They were like, "So, why are you here?" "I'm just illegal." They put me in a room. I thought, I don't know, you hear a lot of stories that they're going to do to you. But they were actually – They had my back. It was like, "You are our youngest guy here. Don't worry. We're going to take care of you. What do you need?" They gave me food, they gave me clothing, they gave me sandals.

Sylent:I live it. I guess this is the street slang. We always use different vocabulary than the ones they use just to be different, I guess. We have our own lingo. We definitely want to represent. It's not like we're hiding or anything, but we want to also express ourselves to our full potential. I think that's one of the best ways. I got into the hip hop culture as a very young child, so I knew that there was graffiti, there was music, there was rapping, there was break dancing. We took that, and we placed our own little bits of ourselves into it. I guess that's where it comes from. I've heard immigrant. In school, I remember in elementary school, we were, there was a class called ESL.Anita:Yeah.Sylent:They would call us migrant students. And I didn't understand what it was until I grew older and started looking at the vocabulary. I saw that it could be you know, an alien. I said, "Yes, we are aliens. We're from a different planet called Mexico." I guess that's how it started and just people picking on us that we're illegal, "Go back to your country," and things like that. We definitely wanted to make that statement. Like, "Yes, we are illegal. So what?" That's how it started.

Sylent:Well, since I learned that I was living illegally in the United States, I got discriminated for that. They would call me “illegal Mexican.” So I took that as a positive thing and said, "Yes, I am," and I felt like I needed to represent that not just for myself but for a whole generation because there's a lot of people just like me whose parents took them to the United States, and they struggled through the same thing. I felt that I needed to represent them. I didn't get the tattoos until I came back to Mexico. That's how it started. I do remember in high school, most of my friends that I hung out with were all Mexican, we were all born in Mexico. I guess that's how it started, just hanging out with friends and making jokes about it.Sylent:Eventually it became something that we represented. Other people knew that we were illegal so we took that another step and we said, "Yes. Yes, we are. We are illegal aliens. We are, but we're also Americans. We share the same traditions, we celebrate Thanksgiving, we celebrate the 4th of July." We had to be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans. That's how it started.

Lizzy: Is there anything that, so kind of switching to the Mexico side now, is there anything you wish Mexican people understood about families like yours that went to the US and came back?Laila: I would like them to understand that we don't have cash stashed somewhere. It's not like we went to the States and we came back rich. That's illogical to think. And just to have them be a little more understanding of the kids that come back from the States. Personally, I went through a lot of discrimination from my own people because I didn't perfectly know or understand the language. So, I would like them to try to ease on to those kinds of people that come back from the States. And don't think that, oh you're made of cash or you're not Mexican because you don't speak Spanish. I mean it's not that, it's that we're used to something completely different. We went to school in the States, so you couldn't speak Spanish in school because all of your teachers spoke English. Everybody communicated in English so if you know the basics, but you don't know more than that, just don't be mean to those people. It's not fair.Lizzy: Just like how we hate it when people in the States, if they hear someone speaking Spanish they tell them, "Don't speak Spanish here, speak English." It sounds like kind of that same kind of discrimination happens here if you're speaking English.Laila: Yeah. I have seen a lot of people make fun of other people for speaking English, and it gets me very angry because it's like, okay so you're on them because they speak English, what does that have to do with anything? If they had the chance to learn another language, that's cool. That's good for them, you know? But they hear other people speaking English, or I've seen British people here going on tours and all that, seeing the city, and other Mexican people see them, or hear them, they start making fun of them. And it's like, why are you making fun of them? There's no point. I have gotten into some conflicts with my cousins, specifically, because they think it’s funny for other people to speak English when for me, it's a privilege to have been able to speak another language other than Spanish. For me, it's an advantage. For my cousins, it's a laughing matter, and it does get me angry because I have told them, "I mean, you wouldn't like to be in the States and speak your native language and have someone make fun of you and tell you don't speak Spanish. No. That's your native language, that's what you know." Don't make fun of other people for that, it's pointless to just make fun of other people for situations like that.

Is there anything that you wish just average American people understood about migrant families?Laila: What I would personally like them to understand is, we're not bad people. I mean, a lot of people do bad things, yeah. But it's not because we're immigrant. Everybody chooses what to do. They choose their own path. A lot of immigrant families, like I mentioned, go for a better future for their children and for themselves. A lot of them leave their home countries not because they want to, but because they have to because of violence, because of war, because of a lot of things. A lot of people in the US think that, oh, I'm hearing you don't have the right to be here. But if they lived even a quarter of what the migrant families lived, they would think completely different. It's not nice driving around the city and getting held up at gunpoint with your family and kids in the car, getting told to get out of the car and leave. Because one of my uncles actually got killed that way. He had his five kids in his truck. It was a brand-new truck. He was very excited because he had barely been able to buy it. He was outside of the house, he loaded the kids in the truck, and he was going to go out with them, and a couple of guys came up to the window and were like, "Get out of the truck. Leave the truck. We want the truck" at gunpoint. And he was like, "Let me get my kids out at least. You can take the truck, but my kids are in the car." And they just didn't care and they shot him down in the truck. He died a couple of minutes after he got shot in the leg and I guess it went through one of his primary arteries. And he died because he didn't want to give up the truck with his kids in it.Lizzy: I'm so sorry.Laila: So yeah, my cousins had to grow up without their father. It was very difficult. And I wish a lot of families in the US would just think about it. What it would be like to go through something like that. It's not easy.

is there anything you feel like you want to share that you haven't gotten the chance to share? Or any other things that you just want people to understand?Laila: Just mostly to have an open mind and an open heart to people that don't have papers. Just because we don't have a paper to validate our residency in the States doesn't mean we don't like being there, doesn't mean we don't love the US. In my school we used to always pledge our allegiance to the flag, you know? And a lot of people would be like, "Well you don't have papers, you're not from here so you shouldn't be doing that." And it's like, no. I love being here, I love being in the US. I love all the opportunities I have. It's just that one paper that I don't have. So just to have them be a lot more open minded and open hearted to people like that because, honestly, all those things that are said that Mexico sends their worst, that's not true. I know a lot of people that were in my high school that were actually getting to go on a foreign exchange student to Japan and to other places because they were the top of the class or top of the state. They were going to the best universities and they were all immigrants. So just be a little more open minded to a lot of people like that. And not just Mexican immigrants. Immigrants in general. A lot of people fear immigrants from other places but it's like, no, you don't think we go to the States with fear? You don't think we're scared of being there? Honestly, we are. My parents went to the States without knowing one word of English. So it's scary. It's scary on both sides but just be a little more open to people like that. Yeah.

Laila: I don't know, it's just two different mentalities I guess, because of where we come from and because of how a lot of us are raised. When things are handed to us, we just take them for granted. So, in my point of view, if the US government would want us immigrants to do things correctly and go by their law, they should make it easier for us to do it, to do so. We're not saying we're against paying taxes or against doing this, or against doing that. Like, no. It would, a lot of families would be more than happy to go by the law, but it is just very difficult to get citizenship or something to be able to stay there legally and work.Lizzy: Nearly impossible for a lot of people.Laila: Yeah it is.

Laila: If I had the means and the money to pay for it, definitely, I would. I love studying all of that. I would definitely go back to it if I had a way to pay for all of the tuition and all of what they asked for, yeah, definitely. I mean, never say never I guess. So yeah.Lizzy: It's just much harder here.Laila: It is, it is. Very much harder here. And a lot more expensive, and very difficult to find scholarships and all of that for, I guess, a college education. It is very hard.

Lizzy: As a child, when you were in the States, or as a teenager too, do you remember what did you want to be when you grew up?Laila: I wanted to be a marine biologist. I actually went to a high school where they had that program. They had marine biology there, so it was pretty cool. We had a lot of fish tanks and we were able to see a lot of things. Our school offered scuba diving lessons for free, they would take us to the Catalina Islands to scuba dive in California. But I wasn't able to fulfill that dream of going to the Catalina Islands because of the deportation of my dad and all of that. But yeah, I vividly remember I wanted to be a marine biologist since I was very small.Lizzy: If your dad hadn't been deported and you had stayed in the States, do you think you would have continued down that path?Laila: Completely. Yeah. I actually wanted to finish high school and go to UCLA [University of California, Los Angeles]. I think they had a marine biology program there, and I wanted to go to UCLA. I had already told my parents, and they were like, "You're crazy. You're going to go to California by yourself. Like, what are you going to do there?"Laila: And it's like, I don't know, but I want to be there. I want to do that for a living. I love the ocean, I completely love all of that.Lizzy: I do too [Laila laughs], it's one of my big passions too, I get that. Yeah.Laila: Yeah, so I had already had something planned out you could say. But life just comes at you in a different way. So I couldn't finish that. I looked for a program here in Mexico, but they were all in the Cancún area, the beach areas, and very expensive. So I had to put it, a complete stop on that dream and just, I guess, grow up [Chuckles].

Lizzy: And if you do stay here in Mexico, what do you hope for your future? Is it a job, family, yourself?Laila: I would look for personal growth, trying to get a better job, trying to get more experience in the job area. That would be mostly what I would look forward to if I stayed here in Mexico. One of my personal goals would be to move to the Cancún area with the resorts and all that. I know there's a lot of tourism there and with my English, I think, I would be able to find something stable. And I love the beach, I completely love, I fell in love with Cancún. So, it would be that. Just to fight for something personal, to have something and not depend all the time on asking for handouts. It would just be personally trying to grow

Lizzy: So it's a very different kind of fear than what you had in the States? Something about how in the States you had to be in fear of the police or ICE.Laila: [Affirmative sound]Lizzy: And now here, it's fear of violence. Which one is worse?Laila: I would say, the fear that I have here because probably with ICE, you know that you're going to be detained and deported. Here, you don't know if you're going to go back home. You don't know if you're even going to make it back home. In the news, constantly, there are women being found dead, beaten, shot. Even when you go into the public transportation, constant fear of having someone get in and shoot a gun. It's constant where I live. Public transportation is probably the worst thing you could go on because it's constant. The people getting on there to rob other people—they just shoot without even thinking twice. They shoot you and they don't care.Laila: So, it's probably a lot scarier here [Chuckles] than in the States. In the States, you know you may get detained, you may get deported and that's that. But here you're just scared for your life, completely.

Coming to a place where [Chuckles] the third week that we came to live here, there was a car shot down, completely, and two people killed like right outside my house. That was really scary [Chuckles].Lizzy: Did you see it happen or hear it happen?Laila: I heard the gunshots, and when I looked out of my window I just saw two motorcycles leaving at a high speed. When a lot of the neighbors went to the car to see what happened and to see if they could help anybody, there was two kids dead there. They were probably between fifteen to seventeen-years-old. They were pretty young and they were shot down completely there.Lizzy: This was soon after you got back?Laila: Yeah.Lizzy: So they were about your age?Laila: Yeah, they were about my age and it was really scary seeing that, when in the States you mostly don't see the violence first-hand. You may hear about it and all that, but where I live it's constantly. A couple of months ago, somebody also got killed like a block away from my house. You just hear the gunshots and you just completely freeze. It's really hard.Lizzy: How much of the time would you say that you're in fear? Like every day? Every week?Laila: Every day, every day. Especially now with a lot of women getting targeted in where I live—around I live, there are a lot of missing people posters you could say, and they're all from ten to fifteen-years-old.Lizzy: Wow.Laila: And they're all little girls. It's really hard, and it's scary being a woman here in Mexico, it's really scary. My mom always says if you're going to go out, be back before the sun is down. If you need help, I don't know, get a taxi or get help or I don't know, just run, she says. Don't freeze because the worst thing you could do is freeze. I don't know, it's really scary when your parents have to tell you that before you go out and have them constantly calling you like, "Are you okay? Is everything okay?" It's really hard. It's really hard.

They received a lot of discrimination at various parts. We actually, my mom actually, got into a physical fight with a woman at a store because she called her a dirty immigrant and wetback. My mom physically got into a fight with her, and she was an employee of the store, and it wasn't even called for.Lizzy: The woman that said that to your mom was an employee?Laila: Yes. Yeah.Lizzy: Were you there when this happened?Laila: Yes, I was [Chuckles]. I remember everything she was saying, and my mom was not speaking English, she didn't know what she was saying, and she looked at me and I didn't want to tell her. I was so embarrassed for my mom, for myself, and for everybody there just staring at her and listening to all of the things that she was saying [Emotional]. I just froze, completely. This person kind of knew Spanish, so she insulted my mom in Spanish and my mom absolutely understood that at the first moment. She told her, "You don't need to treat people like this because you work here. It's your job to help people that come here. You don't have to insult them." And this person, she didn't care at all. So, she kept on insulting her and my mom just got completely mad and they went into a physical fight. Both of them. The lady didn't care, she hit my mom, and my mom hit her and it was chaos. And then we got kicked out and they told us that they were going to call the cops and that they were going to call ICE [Immigration and Custom Enforcement] or whatever.Lizzy: They threatened to call ICE on you?Laila: Yeah, so we had to leave. Later we knew that if they would have called the cops, we could have probably fought back, legally because they can't physically hit my mom if they're an employee. We were just scared, they scared us out of doing anything by telling us that they were going to call ICE.

And since my father's deportation process was still—we were still going through that as well. I just had to go with my mom to a couple of hearings with her and translate what they were saying and all of the information and all of that.Lizzy: So, you were in charge of translating for your mom?Laila: Yeah.Lizzy: They didn't provide any sort of translator?Laila: Oh, no, they didn't even really care about the people there.Lizzy: What was that like as a, you're still a child at that point, having to act as a translator in a high-stress situation like that? What was that like for you?Laila: It was scary for me, thinking that we were that close to a police officer. It came to the point where I was scared of the police, completely. I couldn't even trust them with, I don't know, an emergency or something because I knew that they might ask me for papers and I would be completely, I don't know, done at that point. I was actually my parent's translator since I was very young. They didn't have a lot of time to learn English, they just decided to work. So, since I was a child, I would always go with them into stores or places where they needed an English speaker, and I would do that for them.

Laila: Yeah. I told my parents not to get close to the school. A lot of students had to walk home far distances, scared of their parents going for them because they stayed out there for a while and they were stopping cars coming out of the school. They stopped the teachers, they stopped everybody just because of the color of their skin. You got stopped and you got asked for papers or ID, even though a lot of us knew it was illegal for them to stay outside of a school and ask for papers.Lizzy: Absolutely.Laila: They still did it and if you refused to answer, they would still take you in. It was just mostly a lot of kids leaving school through back doors, through the fields, the baseball fields, all of that. They were just jumping the fences and leaving because we were really scared to get stopped. I remember I had to tell my mom to stay away from the school because this was happening. And I actually had a friend who was born in the States and her parents were there legally who offered to take a couple of kids home because they saw that everything that was happening and that they were stopping, like relentlessly, people. Just asking for papers, and so they had to carpool a couple of kids home because their parents couldn't come close to the school.Lizzy: That's so awful. That's terrifying.

Laila: I was living in Arizona, and at that point the Sheriff Joe Arpaio was actually the current sheriff of Arizona, and my high school was mostly Latino. Mostly immigrants. We were all mostly from fourteen to seventeen, a couple of eighteen-year-olds. And there was one day that there was somebody circling, there was a rumor circling that there was going to be a raid close to the school. We thought well, it's a school. Why are you going to come raid a school? That wasn't even a thought for us.Laila: We went to school, and at the time that we were going out, there were sheriffs surrounding the school, stopping parents, stopping students, seniors. There was a senior, a girl that we all kind of knew, she was really nice to everybody, she got stopped because the sheriff said that her back light was out or something like that and it was just an excuse to stop her. She didn't have anything. She didn't have papers, so when the sheriff told her "I need to see an ID, I need to see something. She said, "Well I don't have any papers." So, at that moment she got taken in and sent to a detention center.

Lizzy: Is there anything you don't miss about the States or something that was hard about living there?Laila: The fear. The constant fear, that actually came true [Chuckles], of your family members being deported or coming home from school because since I was underage, I kind of knew that I was safe from that because they weren't going to raid schools, like middle schools and stuff like that. But it was a constant fear of coming home and being told that, I don't know, your dad's not coming back or your mom's not coming back. And it did happen like that. Unfortunately, my father was working and he was raided. So he got taken away and then when I came back home one day from school, my mom told me. It was really hard.

I could say I do have a couple of family members, but I don't feel comfortable, or the need to go and ask for a handout. My mom was never like that, she would always be like, "Work for your own things and do it for yourself." It's really hard. I do have a couple of family members that do that, and are like, "Well put me here." Or, " I want to be in this position because I'm your cousin. I'm related to you in some sort of way." But we're not like that. I don't know if we were raised differently or we saw different things in the States that it’s not really plausible to do that in the States. [Chuckles] There may be a couple of cases where that has happened but there's a lot of more open opportunities in the States so it would be probably that.

Lizzy: What do you miss the most about the States?Laila: I would say my family, mostly. Probably the opportunities that you would get there. In Mexico, it's really hard to get an opportunity. A lot of people are where they are because they know someone [Laughs] or because they've paid to be there and it's really hard trying to be what they would say, the working class. Trying to work your way to a point where you know you're successful and you can say, "I've done a lot of things." But if you're not the cousin of the owner, or if you're not a family member related to somebody in power, it's like you don't have a chance.

Lizzy: What do you miss the most about the States?Laila: I would say my family, mostly.

Lizzy: Do you consider yourself Mexican or American or both?Laila: Mostly, I would say both. I would say both even though I don't have a paper to verify that I'm from the States. I know the language, I know the history, I know a lot of more things from the States than I do for my own country. I would like to consider that I am a part of the States as well. [Chuckles]Lizzy: How much would you say? Like fifty/fifty, or, which percent?Laila: It would be, probably a seventy/thirty. Seventy percent from the States and a thirty percent from Mexico [Chuckles].Lizzy: Because that's where most of your life was.Laila: Yeah, most of it. Probably, I didn't think that I would come back and live back here in Mexico, but I guess I'm going to be staying a lot longer here. It may change at a certain point, but I still do feel like I am more a part of the States than I am from here.

My mom used to always say that we were kind of nomads because we weren't from the States. We were raised there but we're not from the States, but we weren't from Mexico either because we may have been born here, but we didn't know anything about it.Lizzy: Do you still feel that way now? Like a nomad?Laila: Sometimes it does. It does feel difficult like that, it does. It may be a little bit easier now because I'm a lot older and I kind of understand a couple of more things, but it does feel like I don't belong in Mexico.

It was very difficult. Everything's very new. There was a certain language barrier. I was—Lizzy: Yeah, I was going to ask, how was your Spanish when you got back?Laila: It was very poor [Laughs, still emotional]. I knew the basics, but sometimes I'd start a conversation with a family member or somebody and then they'd start saying a couple of words that I didn't understand, and I would actually be like, "Oh, what does that mean?" A lot of people would say, "Oh, well it means this." But a lot of others would just laugh and they'd be like, "How could you not know Spanish if you're Mexican?" And it’s like, yeah, I'm Mexican. I know the basics but—I don't know, it was very confusing

I was happy because I got to meet a lot of family that I had never thought I'd be able to meet, but at the same time I was very sad and very depressed because I knew that it wasn't going to be easy for me to be able to see my brothers and my sister again. They are undocumented so they can't just come whenever they want to. It's been about ten years since I've been able to see them.Lizzy: That's a long time.Laila: It is, and it is very difficult. Very difficult on my mom especially, because she left her kids behind. She was able to stay with me, but I think if I was a little bit older, I would have also stayed and I wouldn't have come back here to Mexico. It was very difficult. Everything's very new

Laila: Yeah, [Very emotional] she was actually trying to give us something better because she knew that Mexico didn't really offer much. Thanks to her strong will, we were able to study in the States. My brother was actually able to go to a college in the States as well.

Laila: Well, mostly from my mom that she has actually told me most of what happened. She says that the first couple of times we were detained, they were just taken back and left at the border. Just go away, go home. There was one time she was actually carrying me. She actually carried me the whole time because I was three so and she says it was around rain time. The shrubs were very tall and all the spines and all that. She didn't want me to get injured, but she actually fell on a rock and got a hole in her knee and she couldn't walk. When the border patrol saw that, they aided her and they gave us water and they wanted to help her. They couldn't really give her medical treatment, but they just helped her get back across the border. She says that one of them told her to go home. Not risk her kids and there was no reason for that. [Pause] There was no reason for that [Chuckle], but I guess my mom says she's very stubborn. So she wanted to reunite her family and we were able to cross on the fifth time [Chuckles].Lizzy: Wow. Your mom sounds like a strong woman.Laila: Yeah, she is. She is. She actually helped us a lot [Emotional]. Sorry.Lizzy: It's okay.Laila: [Starts crying] To get something better. [Pause] sorry.Lizzy: You want me to pause to go get tissues?Laila: Please.

Laila: Well, mostly from my mom that she has actually told me most of what happened. She says that the first couple of times we were detained, they were just taken back and left at the border. Just go away, go home. There was one time she was actually carrying me. She actually carried me the whole time because I was three so and she says it was around rain time. The shrubs were very tall and all the spines and all that. She didn't want me to get injured, but she actually fell on a rock and got a hole in her knee and she couldn't walk. When the border patrol saw that, they aided her and they gave us water and they wanted to help her. They couldn't really give her medical treatment, but they just helped her get back across the border. She says that one of them told her to go home. Not risk her kids and there was no reason for that. [Pause] There was no reason for that [Chuckle], but I guess my mom says she's very stubborn. So she wanted to reunite her family and we were able to cross on the fifth time [Chuckles].

Laila: Well, I was actually three years old when my parents decided to go to the States looking for I guess, a better life. That's what my mom has always told me. She took me and my nine-year-old brother across the border walking when they decided to go. My dad actually went first and then we went second. I lived there for around thirteen years, mostly all my life. Yeah.Lizzy: You surely were too young to have any memories of walking across the border or—Laila: I vaguely remember it was very cold because it was nighttime. We actually got detained four times before being able to cross.Lizzy: Wow.Laila: Yeah. One time the border patrol was actually very nice to us and gave us water and all that, but that was a very long time ago.Lizzy: And you say one time they were nice to you out of four times?Laila: Yeah.Lizzy: Do you know what the other times were like?Laila: Well, mostly from my mom that she has actually told me most of what happened. She says that the first couple of times we were detained, they were just taken back and left at the border. Just go away, go home. There was one time she was actually carrying me. She actually carried me the whole time because I was three so and she says it was around rain time. The shrubs were very tall and all the spines and all that. She didn't want me to get injured, but she actually fell on a rock and got a hole in her knee and she couldn't walk. When the border patrol saw that, they aided her and they gave us water and they wanted to help her. They couldn't really give her medical treatment, but they just helped her get back across the border. She says that one of them told her to go home. Not risk her kids and there was no reason for that. [Pause] There was no reason for that [Chuckle], but I guess my mom says she's very stubborn. So she wanted to reunite her family and we were able to cross on the fifth time [Chuckles].