0:01

Get Lit is back at the

0:03

Crawford & Pasadena. Join us for

0:06

an electric night of spoken word

0:08

performance featuring some of LA's best

0:10

young poets. It's July 12th. Tickets

0:12

at las.com/events. What's

0:15

it like to be deported to a place

0:17

that no longer feels like home? The

0:20

moment I stepped off the bus, I wanted

0:22

to turn around because I felt like I

0:24

didn't belong in Metcalfoldrin. Listen

0:26

to Inheriting from LAist Studios and

0:28

the NPR Network, wherever you get

0:30

your podcasts. This is Imperfect

0:33

Paradise, the show about hidden worlds

0:35

and messy realities. I'm Antonia

0:37

Serejido. Last

0:41

episode, we learned about how Daniel Zamora built

0:43

his life in the U.S., graduating

0:45

from high school and college, building a life

0:48

with his boyfriend, Eric, and how it all

0:50

fell apart when on his way to the

0:52

beach, he was detained near

0:54

the border and deported. I

0:57

wanted to turn around because I felt

0:59

like I didn't belong in Mexico. If

1:02

home is where your heart

1:04

is, my heart was

1:07

in Texas and I was

1:09

heartless. This episode on Return

1:11

to Mexico, Part 2. A whole

1:13

year of transition and limbo.

1:16

When I finally saw him pull up,

1:18

I didn't know whether to kiss him

1:20

or not. It wasn't necessarily

1:22

a happy occasion. I

1:25

knew he'd be staying there and I'd be going back. What

1:28

it's like to be back in a country that

1:30

you left over a decade ago and that no

1:32

longer feels like home. Lead

1:36

reporter Lorena Rios takes it from here.

1:42

After Daniel was deported to

1:44

Mexico in 2011, his family

1:46

scrambled to figure out logistics.

1:49

His sister suggested that he stay

1:52

with her in the border town

1:54

of Ciudad Juarez. When

1:56

Daniel arrived at the bus station to meet her, it

1:58

was a long day. a burning hot

2:01

day in August. The moment

2:03

I stepped off the bus, I wanted to

2:05

turn around because I

2:07

felt like I didn't belong in Mexico.

2:11

He had not eaten or slept

2:13

properly for the last three days.

2:16

He was still wearing flip-flops and a

2:18

green Brazil t-shirt he had on when

2:20

he'd been on his way to the

2:22

beach. And when he

2:24

saw his sister at the bus terminal,

2:27

along with her husband and their baby,

2:30

he finally felt safe enough

2:32

to break down. As

2:35

I was walking towards them, I tried to

2:37

seem happy to see them. And then when

2:39

my sister hugged me, I started

2:41

crying to have her hug me as

2:43

I was crying and have her touch

2:45

my face as if to wipe my

2:48

tears off. I didn't know that I

2:50

needed my family so much. Daniel

2:54

got into the backseat of their car

2:57

and started taking in the city. He

3:00

remembers the Parque Central, the main

3:02

park of Juarez, the

3:04

Avenida Technologico, the main street,

3:07

and the Missiones Mall. But

3:10

all Daniel saw was

3:12

concrete and dust. What

3:18

is felt violent? Juarez

3:21

felt harsh as we

3:23

were driving to my sister's home. There

3:26

were a lot of army

3:28

trucks and soldiers on

3:31

the streets patrolling. Juarez

3:34

was just this ugly, nasty place

3:36

that I didn't want to be in. And

3:39

I had been thrown into it. In

3:42

2011, Juarez was one of

3:45

Mexico's deadliest cities. Mexico

3:48

had launched a so-called war

3:50

on drugs targeting organized

3:52

crime and cartels. There

3:55

were shootouts, murders, and

3:57

disappearances. I remember

3:59

that People were afraid to go

4:02

out at that time in many

4:04

cities across northern Mexico, especially at

4:06

night. Because of that,

4:09

and because Daniel didn't have a

4:11

Mexican ID, his sister told him

4:13

not to leave her house. I

4:16

stayed inside and I didn't go

4:18

out just because I didn't

4:21

want to go through it all over again.

4:23

I didn't want anyone to stop me and

4:25

to question who I was. Daniel

4:32

was determined that this would not

4:35

be his life, that

4:37

he would find a way back to his

4:39

true life in the U.S. So

4:42

he talked to a legal nonprofit

4:44

and filed an appeal to his

4:46

deportation. But

4:49

getting back to the States, it

4:52

would be way harder than

4:54

Daniel expected. They thought

4:56

this is just a bad nightmare. And

5:00

it never dawned on me that it

5:02

would be so difficult to go back. That's

5:06

after the break on Imperfect

5:08

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6:54

This isn't perfect paradise, return to Mexico.

6:56

I'm Lorena Rios. For the first few

6:58

months in

7:22

Juarez while waiting off news of

7:25

his deportation appeal, Daniel stayed with

7:27

his older sister Elizabeth sleeping on

7:29

a mattress in her spare room.

7:32

They hadn't seen each other for years, but

7:35

they had been close growing up. My

7:38

sister and I had some TV

7:40

shows that we would watch Sabrina

7:42

the Teenage Witch and The X-Files.

7:44

And since I was little, I wasn't really allowed

7:47

to stay up until 11 when The X-Files would

7:49

come up on Canal Cinco. But

7:53

she would let me stay

7:55

with her. Now, Daniel

7:57

was back to living with his

12:02

According to this TV ad, the

12:04

only job requirements are that you

12:06

can read, write, and most importantly,

12:09

speak English. Call

12:11

centers often hire people like

12:13

Daniel, Reternese and Fronterisos, who

12:15

speak English and have cultural

12:17

knowledge of the US. Daniel

12:20

says he applied for a job

12:22

like this one to be a

12:24

bilingual customer support agent for a

12:26

call center that served US phone

12:28

companies like Boost. He

12:31

says the interview barely lasted five

12:33

minutes. He started the next day.

12:37

So this was a typical day in

12:39

Daniel's life. He would catch

12:41

the bus around 6 in the morning to

12:43

get to the call center by 6.45. He

12:48

says he'd enter into a giant,

12:50

thinly lit warehouse with no windows,

12:52

which meant you didn't really have

12:55

a sense of time. He'd

12:58

walk past rows and rows

13:00

of desks that were all

13:02

laid out beneath these two

13:04

big towers, where the

13:06

supervisors sat on high looking

13:08

at everyone's screens. One

13:11

of the rules that we had was to actually say

13:13

that we were not based outside of the US. So

13:16

it was kind of interesting

13:19

because everyone there spoke

13:22

English and had some sort of relationship

13:24

with the US. A

13:27

lot of his coworkers were deportees

13:29

too. A lot of people

13:31

missed the US, and I think that's one of

13:33

the reasons why people ended up working at the

13:35

call center was because it

13:37

was a kind of connection to the US.

13:40

And it made you feel like you hadn't lost

13:42

everything. Could you

13:44

describe what a day at work

13:47

looked like? I would start

13:49

my day by logging

13:51

into the computer, doing

13:54

a couple of vocal exercises thanks to

13:56

the theater, just to be able to

13:58

speak a little bit more fluently. And

14:00

then I would start

14:03

taking calls like literally

14:05

nonstop, one call after the

14:07

other. Thank

14:09

you for calling Bus Mobile, this is Dani, how can

14:11

I help you? Thank you

14:13

for calling Bus Mobile, this is Dani, how can I

14:15

help you? The

14:18

calls were timed with a bonus if

14:20

your call average was under 3 minutes.

14:24

So, Danielle was trying to get

14:26

through as many calls as quickly

14:28

as possible. They were

14:30

customer service calls, mainly complaints

14:34

about the service. You

14:36

know silly calls like I'm at the store and they

14:38

don't have this phone in blue and I want it

14:40

in blue, but they said they don't make it in

14:42

blue so I need a blue phone. I

14:51

had this feeling that I had everything taken

14:53

away from me. And

14:56

then when I was at work

14:58

I was hearing people complaining about silly things.

15:01

And it

15:04

was just upsetting. Thank

15:07

you for calling Bus Mobile, this is Dani, how can I

15:09

help you? Thank you for calling Bus Mobile, this is Dani,

15:11

how can I help you? Danielle

15:18

says he took every opportunity

15:21

for overtime, trying to

15:23

fill every part of his day while he

15:25

waited to return to his life in the

15:27

US. When

15:29

Eric was able to finally visit

15:31

him in Mexico, Danielle remembers that

15:34

the visits felt a bit awkward.

15:38

When I finally saw him pull

15:41

up on the street

15:43

where I was living, I didn't know whether to

15:45

kiss him or not. It

15:47

wasn't necessarily a happy

15:50

occasion just because I

15:52

knew he'd be staying there and I'd be going

15:54

back. So it was kind of hard to see

15:57

him uprooted and just move to. to

16:00

a new place like that, like overnight. Daniel

16:03

had moved out of his sisters

16:05

into his own apartment, but he

16:07

hadn't bothered to furnish it. Daniel

16:09

was working constantly. He was too

16:11

new at his job to take

16:13

days off and he didn't really

16:15

know the city. So the

16:18

time he and Eric did

16:20

have together was mostly spent

16:22

at the apartment. One

16:25

highlight was when Eric would

16:27

bring their cat, Bebe. And

16:30

I didn't know that he was bringing her with him. It

16:33

was wonderful to have a kitten, run

16:35

around the house and go from one room to the

16:38

other and finally have

16:40

some life in the

16:42

apartment. Despite the

16:44

joy of Bebe, at each visit, neither

16:46

of them talked about the future. And

16:49

when they did, they kept it light.

16:52

And I said, yes, of course I'm coming back. Like,

16:55

what do you think? This is just a

16:57

random bump on the road. This

16:59

is not something that it's, you know,

17:01

life altering. But

17:04

I tried to stay

17:06

positive, but

17:10

deep down, and

17:14

without letting him see, I

17:18

felt horrible by him

17:20

being there because

17:23

I knew that he was gonna come back

17:25

to Austin. I

17:27

think we probably just both knew that

17:31

things probably weren't going to work out

17:33

if he's there and I'm here. I

17:36

think maybe at times it was just

17:38

easier not to really talk

17:40

too much about it because it was kind

17:43

of painful. Daniel remembers

17:45

the first time he had to

17:47

say goodbye. As

17:50

his car pulled out, he

17:53

was driving away. I

17:55

saw him until

17:57

the car turned right. And

18:02

I couldn't see him anymore. And

18:04

I was back again at that horrible place

18:06

that I don't like to be in where

18:09

I feel alone and

18:11

I feel abandoned. The

18:14

feeling of abandonment is probably

18:17

the biggest fear I have in my life.

18:20

That has shaped who I am and the decisions I

18:22

make a lot because I know it's something

18:24

that I have to struggle with. Eric

18:27

leaving Daniel behind in Juarez triggered

18:29

a feeling in him that he

18:31

remembers from another time. The

18:34

year his mom left. That's

18:42

after the break on Imperfect Paradise.

18:51

Hey everyone, I'm Dan Kortler, the host

18:53

of Ted Climate. Each episode we unpack

18:55

the problems and solutions of climate change.

18:58

This season of the show, we're getting into

19:01

some big ideas that make us optimistic about

19:03

the future, like meat grown from cells and

19:05

leather made from mushrooms. And the

19:07

best part? We look at how building a

19:10

greener future can be an upgrade instead of

19:12

a sacrifice. Find

19:14

and follow Ted Climate wherever you're listening to

19:16

this. That

19:21

lit is back at LAist with spoken

19:23

word performances from some of LA's best

19:25

young poets. Our

19:31

featured poets are the West Hollywood

19:33

Slam Team. It's a night to

19:35

celebrate the best in LA poetry.

19:37

July 12th at the Crawford in

19:40

Pasadena. Tickets at laist.com/events. See

19:42

you there. I'm

19:53

Lorena Rios. You're listening to

19:55

Imperfect Paradise, Return to Mexico.

19:59

A lot of people I know

20:01

migrate out of need, financial or

20:03

educational. But what we often

20:06

don't talk about is the

20:08

consequences to our relationships. Daniel

20:14

grew up in a town of about 40,000 people

20:17

called Rio Blanco in Barracruz.

20:21

His grandmother, aunt and uncle lived

20:23

right next door, so he said

20:25

he was used to being surrounded

20:27

by family. As Daniel

20:30

and his sister Elizabeth tell the

20:32

story, when Daniel was eight years

20:34

old, the factory his dad worked

20:36

at shut down. And he went

20:38

to find work in Puebla, a

20:40

city about two hours away. So

20:43

they saw him a couple times a month.

20:46

When Daniel was around 10 years old,

20:48

that factory shut down. And

20:51

Daniel's dad followed the work, this

20:54

time to Los Angeles. But

20:58

he still had his mom. My mom

21:00

is probably the person that I love

21:02

the most. As I was

21:04

growing up, she was the one

21:07

that was with me. To get me to fall asleep,

21:09

she wouldn't have to read a story. I

21:11

really liked the story

21:14

of Hercules. So

21:16

all the tasks that Hercules had

21:18

to overcome, defeating the Minotaur

21:20

and stuff like that. And I

21:23

would fall asleep and I would dream about that. Whenever

21:26

I fell asleep, it was always with

21:28

her. As

21:33

he grew up, Daniel says he kept

21:35

close to his mom, always

21:37

helping her when she ran

21:39

errands, especially after his dad

21:41

left. She taught me how to

21:43

cook certain things. She taught

21:45

me how to do my own laundry.

21:49

My mom tried to make me as independent as

21:51

possible. And thinking

21:53

back, it's

21:55

probably because she was getting

21:58

me ready for what was coming. Daniel

22:03

and his sister remember that a

22:05

few years after their dad left,

22:07

their mom left too to

22:10

join their dad in Los Angeles. Daniel

22:13

is still very close to his

22:15

mom, says it's not something they

22:17

discuss, and his parents didn't want

22:19

to talk with us for this story either.

22:23

So the kids stayed behind in

22:25

Maracruz, Mexico. It was 1998, Daniel

22:27

was 14, and his sister Elizabeth was 19. We

22:33

divided the things that we had to

22:35

do. I mean, thinking

22:38

about it, I was a

22:41

14-year-old kid taking care of

22:43

a kitchen, taking care of a house. We

22:45

carried out with life without

22:48

a mom or at that present. Daniel

22:52

says it was one of the

22:54

loneliest periods in his life. He

22:57

was struggling, all while taking

22:59

on more and more responsibilities.

23:02

For example, he said his aunt

23:04

asked him to babysit her 3-year-old.

23:08

She would drop her off in the mornings. I

23:11

would make breakfast for her, and then I

23:13

would just, you know, sit her down and

23:16

play or watch a little TV while

23:19

I was doing all these other chores. I would take

23:21

her with me to the market and stuff like that.

23:25

It's crazy to think about that

23:27

I was taking care of a child that

23:29

wasn't mine as if I was

23:32

the child's parent when, like,

23:34

I needed some parents of my own. Daniel

23:38

says it was all too much.

23:41

I felt like I needed to leave. I

23:44

felt lonely, and I

23:46

felt like I needed my mom. I

23:48

felt like there was no one there that

23:50

I didn't have anyone who could understand

23:52

how I was feeling. The

23:54

next time that my parents called, that's the first

23:57

thing I said, like, I need to

23:59

go. I'm

24:01

not sure if Daniel knew at

24:03

the time just how life-altering his

24:05

decision to leave Mexico would be.

24:08

He was 16 around the same

24:10

age I was when I migrated

24:12

to the US. I

24:15

remember having no idea of what

24:17

was coming, and I was

24:19

really worried about making friends in high

24:21

school. But I was coming with my

24:24

family, with a visa, having

24:26

normal teenager worries. Daniel's

24:29

experience of crossing couldn't

24:32

have been more different. He

24:35

remembers being told he could only

24:38

take his one blue backpack. Just

24:41

a couple of changes of clothes, that's it.

24:43

I mean, I literally had a knit strap,

24:45

a pair of pants, a

24:47

couple of shirts, a

24:49

light jacket, socks

24:52

and underwear. I mean, that's all I took. My

24:54

sister gave me a little bit of money, a

24:56

little bit of cash, and

24:59

I was on my way. He

25:06

says he took a bus to Mexico

25:08

City and then a plane ride

25:11

to Tijuana. It was the first

25:13

time that I was flying in

25:15

my life, and I was doing it alone. So

25:19

I walked outside of the airport, and

25:21

I was just looking lost. But

25:25

this man approached me, and

25:27

he asked me if I was

25:30

El Eco de Jose, Jose-san. And

25:33

I said, yes. And he's like, okay,

25:35

well, come with me. Daniel

25:37

remembers the man took him to a

25:40

motel, a small room

25:42

with an old mattress where everything

25:44

smelled like cigarettes. And

25:46

Daniel waited. I literally

25:49

just stayed there, and I remember

25:51

that I cried myself to sleep that

25:53

day. Two, then

25:56

three days went by. Daniel says he was

25:58

running out of time. of

26:00

money, running out of food until

26:02

he was finally transferred to a

26:04

safe house on the third night.

26:07

He still remembers how the

26:09

house looked, pistachio green paint,

26:11

and the siding peeling off

26:13

the house. Inside were lots

26:15

of couches and people. The

26:19

morning of their crossing, Daniel says

26:21

he was given two water jugs.

26:24

Just as I was starting to leave, they

26:27

actually told me, like, leave your backpack

26:30

in that room. And I opened the

26:32

door to the room that they told me I took

26:35

off my backpack. And as I was going to

26:37

put it in, I

26:39

noticed that that room was covered

26:42

in backpacks and

26:45

the belongings of people before me who were

26:47

told that they couldn't take anything with them.

26:50

So I didn't have anything. The

26:58

coyote flagged down a bus that was

27:00

already full of people, and

27:02

they piled in. Daniel says

27:04

he sat on the floor between aisles.

27:08

The bus stopped in the middle of the desert

27:10

and everyone got out. And

27:13

eventually they started walking. The

27:17

desert creates all these dunes that

27:19

oscillate. You feel like you're

27:21

walking aimlessly. They

27:24

walked all afternoon. He

27:26

started running out of water. He

27:29

remembers focusing on one particular

27:31

woman who was walking ahead

27:33

of him. I was starting

27:35

to feel the heat stroke

27:37

coming. And

27:39

the only thing that I held

27:41

onto was the woman

27:44

who was traveling with us. As I

27:47

was walking, I just tried to keep

27:49

track of her. To make

27:51

sure that I wasn't drifting too far

27:53

away from her, she didn't talk to me. She

27:56

didn't touch me not one single time, but in

27:58

my mind she was mine. my mom. Daniel

28:02

remembers having no sense of

28:04

direction. By nightfall, the

28:07

coyote had them cross the road and

28:09

lay down hidden. We

28:12

were in some alfalfa fields. As

28:14

I was with my hands in front

28:16

of my chest, I could smell the

28:18

alfalfa on my nose and I

28:21

could almost taste it. And

28:25

then he told us to keep on

28:27

running. And we started running. Like,

28:29

literally, we started running and running and running and

28:32

running. And I have

28:34

no idea where we were. The

28:37

night continued with stops and starts.

28:40

Finally, Daniel got in a truck

28:42

where he remembers falling asleep. He

28:46

says he was taken to a house where

28:48

he called his dad to tell him to

28:50

wait at a pickup point in LA. From

28:53

there, one final car ride

28:55

to Los Angeles. He

28:58

wasn't really sure of what was going on. But

29:00

when we stopped, we stopped in front

29:03

of a laundromat. The

29:05

car was child locked. Daniel waited

29:07

in the passenger seat. He

29:10

remembers how orderly the parking lot

29:12

looked, with its clean white lines

29:14

against the dark asphalt, and how

29:17

the sun was filtering through the

29:19

canopy of the trees above. And

29:22

then I see him walking towards

29:24

the car that I'm in. And I

29:26

see my dad after, I don't know,

29:28

like eight years that

29:31

I hadn't seen him.

29:33

And I hug him.

29:35

And he

29:38

says the one thing that he's always called

29:40

me, like, campion, right?

29:45

And he tells me, like, it's so nice to

29:47

see me. And I can't

29:49

cry. He doesn't

29:52

cry. And

29:55

he just hugs me, says thank

29:57

you to the man. And we say,

30:00

thank you. start walking. We

30:02

walked over to my parents'

30:04

apartment and short

30:06

after my mom came, that's

30:08

the moment that I remembered that I burst into

30:11

tears because I

30:13

was so happy to finally be reunited

30:15

with my mom. That's

30:21

when his U.S. chapter began. He

30:24

built his life, became a theater

30:26

kid, got an art degree, made

30:28

a home with Eric in Texas

30:31

and became a cat dad. But

30:33

a little over 10 years later,

30:35

Daniel was back in Mexico. His

30:38

parents again on the other

30:40

side of the border from

30:43

him, again feeling alone and

30:45

overwhelmed. That's what he

30:47

kept thinking about sitting in his

30:49

empty apartment in Juarez. Just

30:51

how much it took to get

30:53

to the U.S. in the first

30:55

place and everything he had lost.

31:07

Sometime in the first year back,

31:09

in between visits, Eric left their

31:11

cat, Bebe, with Danielle. Danielle

31:13

remembers being curled up with Bebe one

31:15

night. It was a cold

31:17

night and all I had

31:19

was this one tiny electric heater that

31:22

kept on blowing up my fuse. And

31:24

I was laying down on the bed and

31:26

I was holding onto Bebe. I

31:29

was scurrying her head and

31:31

she was sleeping. And it

31:35

was the saddest moment in my life because

31:39

she was all that I had left.

31:44

And out of what

31:46

I felt was an entire life, this

31:51

little cat meant

31:54

everything. I

31:56

mean, she was the relationship

31:58

that I had with Eric. was Iowa,

32:02

she was Austin, Texas, she was all

32:04

of these things. And

32:07

I was keeping her in this cold

32:10

house in a

32:12

place that she didn't want to be or she hadn't asked

32:14

to be. By

32:17

the end of that first year in

32:19

Juarez, the calls with Eric got less

32:21

frequent. Then in July of

32:24

2012, Daniel found out

32:26

that his deportation appeal, the one

32:28

he had filed with a legal

32:30

nonprofit when he was deported, was

32:33

denied. According

32:35

to documents we got from the

32:37

executive office for immigration review, Daniel

32:39

and his family had been granted

32:41

voluntary departure in 2004 after

32:45

a judge ordered them to leave the

32:47

country. If they didn't

32:49

leave, they could be forcefully deported

32:51

and unable to return legally for

32:53

10 years. Daniel

32:56

says he didn't understand what was

32:58

going on with his immigration status

33:00

as a teen. And as

33:02

we know, he did stay in the States.

33:05

He graduated high school and went on

33:07

to college in Iowa. Now

33:10

that Daniel had been deported,

33:12

there was no legal pathway

33:14

back for him for at

33:16

least a decade. And as

33:18

Daniel started to understand his

33:20

situation, his relationship with

33:22

Eric started to deflate too.

33:28

The relationship started to erode little

33:31

by little. We stopped calling

33:33

each other as often. I started

33:35

having more friends. I started going out. So

33:37

I would sometimes forget to

33:40

text him or call him. And

33:43

he didn't call back. The visits definitely, I

33:45

mean, yeah, they stopped after a bit. A part

33:47

of me always kind of carries around a little

33:50

bit of guilt for what happened

33:52

and mixed emotions, you know, heartbreak. There's

33:55

a little bit of anger. There's a little bit of guilt. So

33:59

then you how did. relationship end

34:01

with Eric. I

34:03

called him and I remember that I was

34:05

doing laundry at a laundromat and I told

34:07

him that

34:09

I thought it was

34:11

unfair for him and for me

34:15

to hold on

34:17

to a relationship that wasn't

34:20

going anywhere because

34:23

he needed to have freedom

34:25

that I also needed to be

34:27

able to not worry about losing

34:29

him at some point. So

34:32

it was better to let go. Daniel

34:35

told me he hates confrontation. He

34:37

had rehearsed what he

34:39

would say a thousand times in

34:41

his mind. He says

34:43

it was a short conversation.

34:45

They agreed to end it.

34:47

I lost

34:52

somebody that I still think

34:54

a lot about. You know, I'll probably spend the

34:56

rest of my life thinking about him from time

34:59

to time. I feel

35:01

like we both lost something on that

35:04

day but I mean we stayed friends

35:07

and I'm very happy. I don't

35:09

know anything about his love life. I don't

35:11

know. I just know that he's happy and

35:14

that he's fulfilled and that's all I

35:16

care about. Do

35:20

you think that that breakup was

35:22

a turning point? Did it allow

35:24

you to see Juarez differently,

35:26

feel differently? Yes,

35:31

actually a lot of

35:33

things change and a lot

35:35

of things happen right

35:38

after that. I mean by

35:41

letting Eric go, I

35:43

was finally letting the US go. Arina

36:00

Rios is the lead reporter of

36:02

Imperfect Paradise Return to Mexico. Next

36:05

episode. How

36:09

the breakup opened up new paths for Danyé.

36:12

An unexpected trip. When I

36:14

got to Paris, that's when I felt

36:16

free. A new love

36:19

story. He literally put his arms around

36:21

me and it's this Mexican hug that

36:23

is face to face. And

36:25

the struggle to let go of the U.S.

36:28

I think that's the only one open

36:30

wound that I have. Because

36:32

I do wonder in that

36:35

multi-person scenario what

36:37

Danyé is doing and how

36:39

Danyé is doing. That's

36:43

next episode on Imperfect Paradise.

36:52

This episode of Imperfect Paradise Return

36:54

to Mexico was written and reported

36:56

by Lorena Rios. Co-writing

36:59

by Natalie Chudnovsky who is also the senior

37:01

producer of the show. I'm

37:03

the show's host Antonia Sirejido. Catherine

37:05

Milhous is the executive producer of the

37:07

show and Shaina Naomi Crockmull is our

37:09

vice president of podcasts. Our

37:12

producer and sound designer is Emma

37:14

Alabaster. Sound design in this episode

37:16

also by Natalie Chudnovsky. Our editor

37:18

is Sofia Padisa Carr. Our

37:21

editorial consultant is Leslie Bares-Tine Rojas.

37:24

Jenz Campbell is our production coordinator. Fact

37:27

checking by Caitlin Antonios. Mixing

37:29

by E. Scott Kelly. And additional

37:31

engineering by Donald Paz. This

37:33

podcast is powered by listeners like you. Support

37:36

the show by donating now

37:38

at las.com/join. This

37:40

podcast is supported by Gordon and Donna

37:43

Crawford who believe quality journalism makes Los

37:45

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38:02

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38:05

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38:07

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38:21

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38:23

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38:25

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38:27

evening will also include a book signing after

38:29

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38:31

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38:34

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