0:00

LAist and show and tell present

0:02

an evening with David Sedaris. The

0:05

writer, humorist, and radio contributor will

0:07

take the stage Saturday, November 16th

0:09

at the United Theatre on Broadway.

0:12

Tickets and information at las.com/events. What's

0:16

it like to be deported to a place

0:18

that no longer feels like home? The

0:20

moment I stepped off the bus I wanted to

0:22

turn around because I felt like I didn't belong

0:25

in Mexico. Subscribe to Imperfect

0:27

Paradise from LAist Studios wherever you

0:29

get your podcasts. This

0:31

is Imperfect Paradise, the show about

0:34

hidden worlds and messy realities. I'm

0:36

Antonia Serrejido. Last

0:41

episode we learned about how Daniel Zamora built

0:43

his life in the US, graduating

0:45

from high school and college, building a life

0:47

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 wanted

0:57

to turn around because I felt like

0:59

I didn't belong in Mexico. If

1:02

home is where your heart is,

1:05

my heart was in Texas

1:07

and I was heartless. This

1:09

episode on Return to Mexico, part two.

1:12

A whole year of transition

1:14

and limbo. When I

1:16

finally saw him pull up I didn't

1:18

know whether to It

1:21

wasn't necessarily a happy occasion. I knew

1:23

he'd be staying there and I'd be

1:25

going back. What it's like

1:27

to be back in a country that you left over

1:30

a decade ago and that no

1:32

longer feels like home. Lead

1:35

reporter Lorena Rios takes it from here.

1:41

After Daniel was deported to

1:43

Mexico in 2011, his family

1:46

scrambled to figure out logistics.

1:49

His sister suggested that he stay

1:51

with her in the border town

1:54

of Ciudad Juarez. When

1:56

Daniel arrived at the bus station to meet

1:58

her, it was a burning. hot

2:00

day in August. The moment

2:02

I stepped off the bus and wanted to

2:05

turn around, because I

2:07

felt like I didn't belong in

2:09

Mexico. He had

2:11

not eaten or slept properly for

2:13

the last three days. He

2:16

was still wearing flip-flops and a

2:18

green Brazil t-shirt he had on when he'd

2:20

been on his way to the beach. And

2:23

when he saw his sister at the bus

2:25

terminal, along with her

2:27

husband and their baby, he

2:30

finally felt safe enough to break

2:32

down. As I was

2:34

walking towards them, I tried to seem happy to

2:36

see them. And then when my sister hugged me,

2:38

I started crying to have her hug me as

2:43

I was crying and have her touch my face as

2:45

if to wipe my tears off. I

2:48

didn't know that I needed my family so much.

2:54

Danielle got into the backseat of their

2:56

car and started taking in the city.

2:59

He remembers the Parque Central, the

3:01

main park of Juarez, the

3:04

Avenida Technologico, the main street,

3:07

and the Missiones Mall. But

3:09

all Danielle saw was

3:11

concrete and dust. Juarez

3:17

felt violent. Juarez

3:20

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

3:30

the streets patrolling. Juarez

3:33

was just this ugly, nasty place that

3:35

I didn't want to be in. And

3:39

I had been thrown into it. In

3:42

2011, Juarez was one of

3:44

Mexico's deadliest cities. Mexico

3:47

had launched a so-called war

3:49

on drugs, targeting organized

3:52

crime and cartels. There

3:54

were shootouts, murders, and

3:57

disappearances. I remember

3:59

that people... were afraid to go

4:01

out at that time in many

4:04

cities across northern Mexico, especially at

4:06

night. Because of that,

4:08

and because Daniel didn't have a

4:10

Mexican ID, his sister told him

4:12

not to leave her house. I

4:15

stayed inside and I didn't go

4:18

out just because I

4:20

didn't want to go through it all over again.

4:23

I didn't want anyone to stop me and to

4:25

question who I was. Daniel

4:32

was determined that this would not

4:34

be his life, that he

4:37

would find a way back to his true

4:39

life in the U.S. So

4:41

he talked to a legal nonprofit

4:43

and filed an appeal to his

4:45

deportation. But

4:48

getting back to the States, it

4:51

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

Paradise, Return to Mexico Part

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6:45

Lethal Descent is a nine-part

6:47

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6:49

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6:51

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6:53

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6:55

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6:57

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6:59

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7:02

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7:08

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7:14

This is Imperfect Paradise, returned to

7:17

Mexico. I'm Lorena Rios.

7:20

For the first few months in Juarez,

7:22

while waiting off news of his deportation

7:25

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,

7:34

but they had been closed growing up. My

7:37

sister and I had some TV

7:39

shows that we would watch, Sabrina

7:41

the Teenage Witch and The X-Files.

7:44

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

7:46

to stay up until 11 when The X-Files would

7:48

come up on Canal Cinco. But

7:52

she would let me stay

7:55

with her. Now, Daniel

7:57

was back to living with his

7:59

sister. He says he

8:01

spent those first few weeks sleeping.

8:07

Elizabeth says she couldn't really understand

8:10

the extent of Daniel's pain at

8:12

the time. But she

8:14

could tell he was struggling

8:16

because he had left his

8:18

whole life behind. I

8:21

don't know if he was in a rally, like he

8:23

was in the past, because he didn't have any

8:25

sense of pain. He was just a little bit

8:27

tired. But

8:30

he was a little bit tired. He was a

8:32

little bit tired. She

8:37

says she didn't push him too

8:39

much or ask too many questions,

8:42

that it hurt her to see him this

8:44

way. I don't know

8:46

if he was in a rally, but I don't know if

8:48

he was in a rally or not. Daniel

8:56

rarely went out, and if he

8:58

did, it was for necessities. Seeing

9:01

American stores in Juarez,

9:03

like Walmart and 7-Eleven,

9:05

brought comfort. And

9:08

his sister's house was only a

9:10

kilometer away from the Saragosa Bridge,

9:13

where you can walk from Ciudad

9:15

Juarez into El Paso, Texas. In

9:23

my mind, I thought that by being so close

9:25

to the border, at least I could have

9:27

some of my

9:30

own life back. And

9:32

did Juarez provide that

9:35

feeling? In its own

9:37

imperfect way, yes. It allowed

9:39

me to keep my U.S. phone line, so

9:41

I had my 3-3 area code for

9:43

the longest time. And I was able

9:45

to call my friends. I was

9:48

able to stay in touch with Eric, constantly

9:50

talking every day. He

9:52

was so close to the border, he still

9:54

got U.S. cell service. And

9:57

his sister, Elizabeth, regularly crossed back to

9:59

the border. and forth. And it

10:01

was just the stupidest thing that

10:04

I missed. But knowing

10:06

that at any given point

10:08

my sister would go to El Paso

10:10

and be able to buy me pop

10:12

tarts, real pop tarts, or

10:15

that she would be able to bring me

10:17

candies from the United States, that felt good.

10:20

And I felt like everything was

10:22

better. During these

10:25

first few weeks, Daniel says he

10:27

and his boyfriend Eric talked on

10:29

the phone every day. They kept

10:31

the topics light and tried to

10:33

maintain a sense of normalcy. We

10:36

would talk a lot about our cat.

10:38

We would talk about what Bibi was

10:40

doing, how she was feeling, what she

10:42

said, because yes, all cats talked to

10:44

their owners. And we

10:47

tried to make it feel as if everything

10:50

was fine. But

10:55

nothing changed for

10:57

weeks. There were

10:59

still no answers from the lawyers

11:01

about Daniel's appeal. And after three

11:04

months, he felt he couldn't live

11:06

off his sister anymore. So

11:08

Daniel decided to get a job.

11:22

Her sister Elizabeth says that the

11:24

daddy she knew started coming out

11:26

again, the one who was daring

11:28

and not afraid. Juarez

11:40

is known to be a place with a lot

11:42

of work. There's tons of

11:44

manufacturing jobs. The town is

11:46

dotted with maquiladoras that make

11:48

medical equipment, electronics and car

11:51

parts. And there's also

11:53

a lot of call centers. According

12:02

to this TV ad, the only

12:04

job requirements are that you can

12:06

read, write, and most importantly, speak

12:08

English. Call centers

12:11

often hire people like Daniel,

12:13

Reternese and Fronterisos, who speak

12:15

English and have cultural knowledge

12:17

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.

12:36

So this was a typical day in

12:38

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

12:47

says he'd enter into a giant,

12:49

thinly lit warehouse with no windows,

12:52

which meant you didn't really have

12:54

a sense of time. He'd

12:57

walk past rows and rows

12:59

of desks that were all

13:01

laid out beneath these two

13:03

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

13:18

because everyone there spoke

13:22

English and had some sort of relationship

13:24

with the US. A

13:26

lot of his coworkers were deportees

13:28

too. A lot of people

13:30

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

13:32

the reasons why people ended up working at the

13:34

call center was because it

13:36

was a kind of connection to the US.

13:39

And it made you feel like you hadn't lost everything.

13:43

Could you describe what a day

13:45

at work looked like? I

13:48

would start my day, you know, by logging

13:51

into the computer, doing

13:54

a couple of vocal exercises, thanks to

13:56

theater, just to be able to speak a

13:58

little bit more fluently. Thank you. And then I

14:01

would start taking calls like

14:04

literally nonstop, one

14:06

call after the 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.

14:23

So, Danielle was trying to get

14:26

through as many calls as quickly

14:28

as possible. There were

14:30

customer service calls, mainly complaints

14:33

about the service. You

14:35

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

14:37

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

14:39

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

14:41

blue so I need a blue phone. I

14:50

had this feeling that I had everything taken

14:52

away from me. And

14:55

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

15:09

I help you? Thank you for calling Bus Mobile, this

15:11

is Dani, how can I help you? Danielle

15:18

says he took every opportunity

15:20

for overtime, trying to

15:22

fill every part of his day while he

15:24

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

15:33

the visits felt a bit awkward.

15:37

When I finally saw him pull

15:40

up on the street

15:42

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

15:44

kiss him or not. It

15:47

wasn't necessarily a happy

15:50

occasion just because I knew

15:52

he'd be staying there and I'd be going back. So it

15:54

was kind of hard to see him uprooted and just move

15:56

to a new place. like

16:00

that, like overnight. Daniel

16:02

had moved out of his sisters into

16:05

his own apartment, but he

16:07

hadn't bothered to furnish it. Daniel

16:09

was working constantly. He was too new

16:11

at his job to take days off,

16:14

and he didn't really know the city. So

16:17

the time he and Eric did

16:19

have together was mostly

16:21

spent at the apartment. One

16:25

highlight was when Eric would

16:27

bring their cat, Bebe. And

16:29

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

16:37

other and finally have

16:40

some life in the

16:42

apartment. Despite the joy

16:44

of Bebe, at each visit, neither of

16:46

them talked about the future. And

16:49

when they did, they kept it light. And

16:52

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

16:54

what do you think? This is just a

16:56

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

17:09

deep down, and without

17:14

letting him see, I

17:18

felt horrible by him

17:20

being there because

17:22

I knew that he was going to come back

17:24

to Austin. I

17:27

think we probably just both knew, you know, that

17:31

things probably weren't going to work

17:33

out if he's there and I'm

17:35

here. I think maybe at times it was

17:37

just easier not to really talk

17:40

too much about it because it was kind

17:42

of painful. Daniel remembers

17:44

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

18:01

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

18:08

I feel alone. And

18:10

I feel abandoned. The

18:14

feeling of abandonment is probably

18:16

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

18:26

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.

18:50

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

19:00

some big ideas that make us optimistic about

19:02

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

19:09

greener future can be an upgrade instead of

19:11

a sacrifice. Find

19:13

and follow Ted Climate wherever you're listening to

19:15

this. That

19:20

lit is back at LAist with spoken

19:23

word performances from some of LA's best

19:25

young poets. Our

19:30

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

19:39

Pasadena. Tickets at laist.com/events. See

19:41

you there. I'm

19:53

Lorena Rios, you're listening to

19:55

Imperfect Paradise, Return to Mexico.

19:58

A lot of people I know. migrate

20:00

out of need, financial or

20:03

educational. But what we

20:05

often don't talk about is

20:07

the consequences to our relationships.

20:13

Daniel grew up in a town of about

20:15

40,000 people called

20:17

Rio Blanco in Barracruz. His

20:21

grandmother, aunt and uncle lived right

20:23

next door, so he

20:25

said he was used to being surrounded

20:27

by family. As Daniel

20:29

and his sister Elizabeth tell the

20:31

story, when Daniel was eight years

20:33

old, the factory his dad worked

20:35

at shut down, and he went

20:37

to find work in Puebla, a

20:39

city about two hours away, so

20:42

they saw him a couple times a month.

20:45

When Daniel was around ten years old,

20:48

that factory shut down, and

20:50

Daniel's dad followed the work,

20:53

this time to Los Angeles. But

20:57

he still had his mom. My mom

20:59

is probably the person that I love

21:02

the most. As I was

21:04

growing up, she was the one

21:06

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

21:08

wouldn't have to read a story. I

21:11

really liked the story

21:13

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

21:32

he grew up, Daniel says he kept

21:34

close to his mom, always

21:36

helping her when she ran errands,

21:39

especially after his dad left. She

21:42

taught me how to cook certain things. She

21:45

taught me how to do my own laundry.

21:50

My mom tried to make me as independent as

21:52

possible, and thinking

21:54

back, it's

21:56

probably because she was getting

21:58

me ready for what was done. coming. Daniel

22:03

and his sister remember that a few

22:06

years after their dad left, their

22:09

mom left too, to

22:11

join their dad in Los Angeles. Daniel

22:14

is still very close to his mom

22:16

but he says it's not something they

22:19

discuss and his parents didn't want

22:21

to talk with us for this story either.

22:24

So the kids stayed behind

22:26

in Maracruz, Mexico. It

22:28

was 1998, Daniel was 14 and his sister Elizabeth was 19.

22:35

We divided the things that we had to

22:37

do. I mean thinking

22:39

about it, I was a 14 year

22:42

old kid taking care of

22:44

a kitchen, taking care of a house. We

22:46

carried out with life without

22:49

a mom or at that present.

22:52

Daniel says it was one of

22:54

the loneliest periods in his life.

22:57

He was struggling all while taking on

22:59

more and more responsibilities. For

23:02

example, he said his aunt asked

23:04

him to babysit her three year

23:06

old. She would drop her off

23:09

in the mornings. I

23:11

would make breakfast for her and then I

23:14

would just you know sit her down and

23:17

play or watch a little TV while I

23:20

was doing all these other chores. I would take her

23:22

with me to the market and stuff like that. It's

23:26

crazy to think about that

23:28

I was taking care of a child that

23:30

wasn't mine as if I

23:32

was the child's parent

23:35

when like I needed some parents

23:37

of my own. Daniel says it

23:39

was all too much. I

23:42

felt like I needed to leave. I felt

23:44

lonely and I felt

23:46

like I needed my mom. I felt like

23:49

there was no one there that

23:51

I didn't have anyone who could understand how

23:53

I was feeling. The

23:55

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

24:04

the time just how life-altering his

24:06

decision to leave Mexico would be.

24:09

He was 16 around the same

24:11

age I was when I migrated

24:13

to the US. I

24:15

remember having no idea of what

24:17

was coming, and I was

24:20

really worried about making friends in high

24:22

school. But I was coming with my

24:24

family, with a visa, having

24:27

normal teenager worries. Daniel's

24:30

experience of crossing couldn't

24:32

have been more different.

24:36

He remembers being told he could

24:38

only take his one blue backpack.

24:41

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

24:44

I mean, I literally had a knit strap, a pair

24:46

of pants, a couple of

24:48

shirts, a light jacket,

24:52

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

24:55

sister gave me a little bit of money, a little bit

24:57

of cash. And

25:01

I was on my way. He

25:07

says he took a bus to Mexico City

25:10

and then a plane ride to Tijuana. It

25:13

was the first time that I was flying in

25:15

my life, and I was doing it alone. So

25:20

I walked outside of the airport, and

25:22

I was just looking lost. But

25:25

this man approached me, and

25:28

he asked me if I was El

25:30

Eco de Jose, Jose's son. And

25:33

I said, yes. And he's like,

25:35

okay, well, come with me. Daniel

25:38

remembers the man took him to a

25:40

motel, a small room

25:42

with an old mattress where

25:44

everything smelled like cigarettes. And

25:47

Daniel waited. I literally

25:49

just stayed there, and I remember

25:51

that I cried myself to sleep that

25:53

day. He

26:00

was running out of money, running out

26:02

of food, until he was finally transferred

26:04

to a safe house on the third

26:06

night. He still remembers

26:09

how the house looked, pistachio green

26:11

paint, and the siding killing off

26:13

the house. Inside were

26:16

lots of couches and people. The

26:19

morning of their crossing, Daniel says

26:21

he was given two water jugs.

26:25

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

26:40

noticed that that room was covered

26:43

in backpacks and

26:45

the belongings of people before me, who were

26:48

told that they couldn't take anything with them.

26:51

So I didn't have anything. The

26:59

coyote flagged down a bus that was

27:01

already full of people, and

27:03

they piled in. Daniel says

27:05

he sat on the floor between aisles.

27:09

The bus stopped in the middle of the

27:11

desert 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

27:21

like you're walking aimlessly. They

27:24

walked all afternoon. He started running out

27:26

of water. He

27:29

remembers focusing on one particular woman

27:31

who was walking ahead of him.

27:34

I was starting to feel the

27:36

heat stroke coming. And

27:40

the only thing that I held

27:42

on to was the woman

27:45

who was traveling with us. As

27:47

I was walking, I just tried to

27:49

keep track of her. To

27:51

make sure that I wasn't drifting too

27:53

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

27:56

She didn't touch me not one single time,

27:58

but in my mind. she was my mom.

28:02

Daniel remembers having no sense

28:04

of direction. By

28:07

nightfall, the coyote had them cross

28:09

the road and lay down hidden.

28:12

We were in some alfalfa fields. As

28:15

I was with my hands in front

28:17

of my chest, I could smell the

28:19

alfalfa on my nose and I

28:21

could almost taste it. And

28:25

then he told us like to keep on

28:27

running. And we started running,

28:30

like literally we started running and running and running

28:32

and running. And

28:34

I have 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

28:51

wait at a pickup point in LA. From

28:54

there, one final car ride

28:56

to Los Angeles. He

28:58

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

29:01

when we stopped, we stopped in front

29:03

of a laundromat. The

29:06

car was childlocked. Daniel waited

29:08

in the passenger seat. He

29:10

remembers how orderly the parking lot

29:13

looked with its clean white lines

29:15

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

29:25

the car that I'm in. And I

29:27

see my dad after, I don't know,

29:29

like eight years that I

29:31

hadn't seen him. And I hug

29:33

him. And he

29:38

says the one thing that he's always called

29:40

me, like, campaign, right?

29:45

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

29:47

see me. And I can't

29:50

cry. He

29:53

doesn't cry. And

29:56

he just hugs me, says thank

29:58

you to the man. and

30:00

we start walking. We

30:03

walked over to my parents'

30:05

apartment, and short

30:07

after my mom came, that's

30:09

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.

30:24

He built his life, became a

30:27

theater kid, got an art degree,

30:29

made a home with Eric in

30:31

Texas, and became a cat dad.

30:33

But a little over 10 years

30:36

later, Daniel was back in Mexico.

30:38

His parents, again on the other side

30:41

of the border from him, again

30:43

feeling alone and overwhelmed.

30:46

That's what he kept thinking about, sitting

30:49

in his empty apartment in Juarez. Just

30:52

how much it took to get

30:54

to the U.S. in the first

30:56

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 Daniel. Daniel

31:14

remembers being curled up with Bebe one

31:16

night. It was a cold

31:18

night, and all I had

31:20

was this one tiny electric heater that

31:23

kept on blowing up my fuse. And

31:25

I was laying down on the bed, and

31:27

I was holding onto Bebe, I was

31:29

scurrying her head, and she was

31:32

sleeping. And it

31:36

was the saddest moment in my life, because

31:39

she was all that I had left.

31:44

And out of what

31:47

I felt was an entire life, this

31:52

little cat meant

31:54

everything. I

31:56

mean, she was the relationship that I

31:59

had with her. She was Iowa. She

32:02

was Austin, Texas. She was all of

32:05

these things. And

32:08

I was keeping her in this cold

32:11

house in a place

32:13

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

32:15

to be. By

32:18

the end of that first year in

32:20

Juarez, the calls with Eric got less

32:22

frequent. Then in July of 2012, Daniel

32:25

found out that his deportation appeal,

32:28

the one he had filed with a

32:30

legal 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

32:40

and his family had been granted

32:42

voluntary departure in 2004 after

32:45

a judge ordered them to leave the country.

32:48

If they didn't leave, they could

32:51

be forcefully deported and unable to

32:53

return legally for 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

33:03

as we know, he did stay in the

33:05

States. He graduated high school

33:07

and went on to college in Iowa.

33:10

Now that Daniel had been deported, there

33:12

was no legal pathway back for him

33:15

for at least a decade. And

33:18

as Daniel started to understand his

33:20

situation, his relationship

33:22

with Eric started to deflate

33:25

too. The relationship started to

33:27

erode little by little. We

33:29

stopped calling each other as

33:31

often. I

33:34

started having more friends. I started going

33:36

out. So I

33:38

would sometimes forget to text him or call

33:40

him. And he didn't

33:42

call back. The visits definitely, I mean,

33:45

yeah, they stopped after a

33:47

bit. A part of me always kind of

33:49

carries around a little bit of guilt for what happened and

33:52

mixed emotions, you know, heartbreak. There's a little

33:54

bit of anger. There's a little

33:56

bit of guilt. How

34:00

did the relationship end with Eric?

34:03

I called him and I remember that I

34:05

was doing laundry at a laundromat and

34:08

I told him that I

34:10

thought it was unfair for

34:13

him and for me to

34:16

hold on to a relationship

34:19

that wasn't going anywhere

34:22

because he needed

34:24

to have freedom that I

34:26

also needed to be able

34:29

to not worry about losing him at some

34:31

point. So it was better

34:33

to let go. Daniel

34:35

told me he hates confrontation.

34:38

He had rehearsed what he would say

34:40

a thousand times in his mind. He

34:44

says it was a short conversation.

34:47

They agreed to end it. I

34:52

lost somebody that I still

34:55

think a lot about. I'll probably spend

34:57

the rest of my life thinking about him

34:59

from time to time. I

35:01

feel 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

35:10

know anything about his love life. I don't know.

35:12

I just know that he's happy and

35:15

he's fulfilled and that's all I care

35:17

about. Do

35:20

you think that that breakup was a

35:22

turning point? Did it allow you to

35:25

see what is differently,

35:27

feel differently? Yes,

35:32

actually a lot

35:34

of things change and a lot

35:36

of things happen right

35:38

after that. I mean, by

35:41

letting Eric go, I

35:44

was finally letting the US go. Thank

35:53

you. Lóríná

36:00

Ríos 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

36:11

Danyél. An unexpected trip.

36:14

When I got to Paris, that's when

36:16

I felt free. A

36:18

new love story. He literally put his

36:21

arms around me and it's this Mexican

36:23

hug that is face to face. And

36:26

the struggle to let go of the

36:28

U.S. I think that's the only one

36:30

open wound that I have. Because

36:32

I do wonder in that

36:35

multi-person scenario what

36:38

Danyél is doing and how

36:40

Danyél is doing. That's

36:43

next episode on Imperfect Paradise.

36:53

This episode of Imperfect Paradise Return to

36:55

Mexico was written and reported by Lóríná

36:57

Ríos. Co-writing by

36:59

Natalie Chudnovsky who is also the senior producer

37:02

of the show. I'm the

37:04

show's host, Antonia Sirejido. Catherine

37:06

Milhous is the executive producer of the show

37:08

and Shaina Naomi-Krockmull is our vice president of

37:10

podcasts. Our producer

37:12

and sound designer is Emma Alabaster. Sound

37:15

design in this episode also by Natalie

37:17

Chudnovsky. Our editor is Sofia Padisa

37:19

Carr. Our editorial

37:22

consultant is Leslie Bares-Stein Rojas. Jenz

37:24

Campbell is our production coordinator. Fact

37:27

checking by Caitlin Antonios. Mixing

37:29

by E. Scott Kelly. And additional engineering

37:32

by Donald Paz. This

37:34

podcast is powered by listeners like

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you. Support the show by donating

37:38

now at las.com/join. This podcast is

37:40

supported by Gordon and Donna Crawford

37:43

who believe quality journalism makes Los

37:45

Angeles a better place to live.

38:05

This program is made possible in part

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by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a

38:09

private corporation funded by the American people.

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