Episode Transcript
This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.
Xorje Olivares, Host: You know, I’ve probably been asked more than 1,000 times if I’m a U.S. citizen, and that’s not even an exaggeration. Growing up in a town along the U.S.-Mexico border, I constantly had to verify my documentation status and citizenship to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents. And to be clear, this wasn’t even when we were crossing the border. We were just going outside city limits, still within the state.
It’d go a little something like this. My family and I would drive to an inspection point where an armed, uniformed officer would approach the car window. Upon lowering it, they’d promptly ask, “‘You a citizen?’ To which we’d each respond, “‘Yes, U.S. citizen.'” And that was it. Unless my late Tio was traveling with us. Because he was a permanent resident, not a U.S. Citizen, he’d quietly hand over his green card and await further questions, which he never really got. But I’m talking about more than 10 years ago.
Because this process felt so normalized to us, I never thought to ask him how he felt during those interactions. I know for me, as a third generation Texan born into citizenship, I never felt worried during these exchanges, which I know is a huge privilege. But I did learn early on that asking for someone’s documentation is a high-stakes question and the gun at the officer’s hip, the giant fence just minutes away from my house, was proof of that somehow. Even though I was born, legit, less than two miles away from the Rio Grande, I’m on one side of a line, a line that the United States government has used to decide that my existence in this country is permitted, while others are criminalized.
Now, as you may have heard, the undocumented community has been placed at the center of some very aggressive immigration policies right now. There are promises to deport millions of undocumented people and to end birthright citizenship, which is a constitutional protection. And on top of that, the current administration is threatening deportation against U.S. citizens. So at this moment, the line of criminality is being drawn deeper and is changing very quickly.
I’m Xorge Olivares, and I wanna ask this question. What does the idea of citizenship even mean today? This is Hyphenation, where conversation and cultura meet.
Xorje Olivares: So joining me today to have this conversation are two people who have written extensively about the issue of documentation and citizenship. I wanna ask each of them if there is a written work, a piece of written work that they feel is very important for us to be reading right now. So first, excited to welcome to the program Carla Cornejo via Vicentio. She’s the author of the book, The Undocumented Americans, which chronicles the experiences of many undocumented people in this country. So Karla, thank you so much for joining us today. Uh, and I want to ask if you have a recommendation for listeners.
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: Hello, thanks for having me. I would recommend Pedro Le Mebel’s My Tender Matador or in Spanish, it’s Tengo Miedo Torero. It’s a Chilean novel set during the Pinochet years and it’s about like an aging drag queen and trans woman who just survives those years with incredible imagination and. glamor and melodrama and I found it very inspiring and it’s pretty slim too.
Xorje Olivares: Nice. Thank you for sharing that. Also, I love a queer story. I will always add queer stories to my repertoire of books. Also excited to welcome to the program Javier Zamora, who is best known for his 2022 memoir, Solito, which chronicled his own experience as an unaccompanied minor going from El Salvador to the United States. Javier, thank you so much for joining us today and asking if you also have a recommendation for a piece of written work that we should be reading.
Javier Zamora: I do. I think the unexpected perk of publishing a book is getting books in advance. And there’s this forthcoming one by Daisy Hernandez called Citizenship, a Story. And the subtitle is Notes on Origin, Familias, and Who We Are. And it’s going to come out in early 2026. and I genuinely think everybody should read it because she talks directly about this idea, which is an idea about citizenship, and countries, and race, and sexuality, like all these things that are affecting us today.
Xorje Olivares: Well, thank you each for those suggestions. And for again, joining me today, I, I like that you’re getting at exactly what we’re hoping to talk about during this episode, which is the idea of citizenship. Yes, there is the, by the books, understanding of what citizenship means, especially here in the United States, but it also is an idea in the sense of being documented is also an idea. But I want to ask, starting with you Javier, this notion of documentation. And when you became fully aware that you were undocumented, or that the United State’s government viewed you as such.
Javier Zamora: You know what? I had no idea. You know, I was just a kid. Like I didn’t, my nine year old brain didn’t understand why we didn’t come on a plane per se. I just thought that yes we didn’t get a visa but there was no understanding of borders, passports and legality. But I don’t think I truly understood. or it began to hit, that I was different, completely different, until 9-11 happened. Around that time, my parents were hoping that because they had fled a war-torn area and they had applied to this thing called Nakata and political asylum, my dad was one of immigrants and I think could be the man. that he was very sure that the green card was gonna arrive at the mailbox and he didn’t hire a lawyer. And it’s by sheer bad luck that our appointment happened the first week of October of 2001. And so then my first instances of understanding that, oh, sh-t, like, we have to be afraid, is that we had… a huge break, because when you interview, you’re always down to just one person. And it’s usually for us, it has always been a white man who has to like validate whether your story and your testimony is true. And he thought that our story wasn’t true. But he did, instead of directly sending us to deportation, he did allow us to go seek a lawyer immediately. And so I’m 11 years old and I remember running through downtown to the financial district of San Francisco, looking for an immigration lawyer that would help us stay. We were under deportation proceedings, but somehow we stayed. And again, you know, I was 11 and it wasn’t until I got to college that I would, that I completely began to like read and understand what my family’s legal story was.
Xorje Olivares: Thank you for sharing that experience. I want to ask you, Karla, if you remember growing up just how you had to navigate this status that had been placed upon you by the government and by people who didn’t know where you were coming from, where your family was coming from.
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: I would equate being undocumented with feeling perpetually unsafe. It’s not necessarily the same thing as feeling always afraid, but you’re certainly always unsafe, you’re always precarious. And I knew that, just as I knew that as a girl, like I could be abused by a man at any time, as an undocumented girl, I felt like the state could do anything to me at any times as well. So it was, it was scary growing up.
Xorje Olivares: Yeah, I, I think this, this issue of safety is what most people forget when we have this much larger conversation about immigration is that there is an element of feeling unsafe that folks are trying, whether in their country of origin, even here in the States that they’re trying to relieve themselves of. Part of the thing that I guess you learn early on, even when you are not undocumented, I’ll say is I understood this issue or this notion of papeles and that documentation needed to exist. And so I’m curious, Javier, if this just the language of papeleis resonates with you or means something with you and if it did at a very early age.
Javier Zamora: You know, that word citizenship, I think I learned in school. You know the, the first instance was my parents, you know, when I mentioned, oh, the green card is going to come. He didn’t even say the word green card. Los papeles van a llegar, nos van a mandar los papeles. So like this idea of a piece of paper. It’s not like, to me, I think as a nine year old, you know, learning English and I knew I was different and I knew that I couldn’t tell my friends because my parents told me not to tell anybody how I had gotten to this country. By 10, 5th, 6th grade, I also learned a story to tell people that I had been born at the local hospital. But all these things, I still didn’t understand these ideas of citizenship. What I did understand was that I didn’t have a piece of paper. And usually as a nine, 10 year old, that piece of paper with a birth certificate that didn’t say that I had been born in this country
Xorje Olivares: I’m curious, kind of similar to what Javier just mentioned. Did you create certain stories or narratives? Like to protect yourself, just so that way you knew that nobody would be able to figure something out that could then be used against you.
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: Sure, I mean, that’s when I started my campaign of personal misinformation. I don’t really give people access to myself. And that is obviously something that I learned. I’m not, I don’t deceive, but I also do not feel like the world is entitled to my interiority. And it’s the one thing that I’ve had that has belonged to me, has just been my mind. And so I’m very protective of it. And I think growing up, I learned how to have conversations where I learned to navigate social situations while staying safe, right? And some of that involves knowing when to be invisible and knowing when to stand out a little bit more, learning how to like a pretty intuitive understanding of that. And I mean, I guess that’s part of the story. It was that I was just Um, like an elusive chanteuse.
Javier Zamora: And if I can hear, I think, you know, Karla’s book was published before I published anything in prose. And I did those were the parts of your book, Karla, that really spoke to me because I had never really read anybody like address this almost like superpower that we don’t want, but we learn in order to to remain safe. And that is exactly what it feels like. And I think that term that you just mentioned, I think it’s brilliant. And it helped me even as a 30-year-old man begin to learn something of how I had lived my life for 20 years up to that point.
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: That’s really sweet Javier, thank you.
Xorje Olivares: I want to pull into this, what Karla just said about the invisibility and the visibility dynamics. I’m curious, Javier, about your own navigation of invisibility, invisibility and when you realized you preferred one over another.
Javier Zamora: For me, I think like most stories begins in the relationship that you have with your parents. For me my dad was absent for my first nine years of my life, but my mom was there, but then she left. But before she left, you know, she was a young teenage mom and I think she really pressed upon this at times, toxic relationship of you have to be the best. You have to be the valedictorian in order to get a free uniform and free books. And you are going to be my ticket out and our ticket out of poverty. And so I had to navigate this hyper visibility. I knew that I had to had to be an honor roll student in order to get ahead and also get out of poverty, but also to hide and be invisible at different times in order to stay in this country and not go back.
Xorje Olivares: I mean, one of the most, uh, kind of explicit moments of visibility is the fact that each of you have written something about your experiences. And I love that Javier, you mentioned how Karla’s book was kind of one of the, the first that you were able to see where this experience had been shared and I do want to ask, I’m going to ask both of you, but I want to start with you, Carla about the decision to write the book and to place yourself in such a vulnerable position by talking about a subject that most people would be quite scared to share.
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: The story that I tell is that I kind of fell into it because like Trump won the first time and I felt like there was like nothing really that felt representative to me of what being undocumented felt like. I think I desperately needed to witness what was happening in the first Trump administration. I think that I knew one of the things I learned just intuitively growing up is what it’s like to be a sort of a powerless being and the sort of the little safeties that you build up over the years, you know, like Javier said, a lot of that happens academically, happens through standing out academically, like melting into the background is something that, speaking for myself, was dangerous, would have condemned me to a sameness of sort of the world around me, and that was un-conceivable.
Javier Zamora: You know, similarly to what Karla just said, you know, I think, again, there aren’t, there weren’t many complete or dignified representations of immigrants during the first Trump administration. It was like all these white liberals were like, oh my god, we never heard of undocumented people before when we’ve been here all along. Let me write some, you know, not thought out book about it. This happened all the time during the first administration. And somehow there were some glimmers, some diamonds there like Karla’s book, you knows, Antonio Arguez’s book. But then there was nothing. And so for me, I think I was also, you I was writing poetry. And I didn’t like what I had produced, my first book of poems came out in 2017 uh, write on as he took power the first time. And I felt that poetry couldn’t tell my whole story. But then there were a lot of these non-immigrants writing about immigrants. And it made me think, you know, talking about hyper visibility and like this valedictorian mentality, which I wasn’t a valedictorian, but I wanted to be. Um, but I could do it better. I can tell this story better than all these non-immigrants. And so I think that’s how I entered it. By that point, I also had the comfort of having a green card with my book of poems. I did not have a green card. I’m not a citizen yet.
Would I publish the book now? Yes. But I think our stories are necessary at the end of the day. If I have ever written something that jeopardizes my own legal status in this country, and if I get to be sent out because of anything that I said for any shirt that I’m wearing for saying free Palestine, then you know, honestly I don’t need this country. You know, why are we trying to? be such good quote unquote citizens in order for what you know the the U.S. is showing its colors and it always has.
Xorje Olivares: I do want to take a break and when we come back, focus a little bit on the representation that you have shared with the world. We’re gonna get a short, little break.
[SPONSOR MESSAGE]
Xorje Olivares: So we were talking about dignified representation and the fact that each of you saw a moment to be able to share your story. And Carla, when I introduced you, I mentioned again that your book was called the undocumented Americans. And I love the juxtaposition of those words, especially because I feel like in this national narrative in the political discourse, most people will say on one particular side of the aisle that those two words don’t necessarily go together. So I’m curious for you about the choice to title your book. undocumented Americans, where they can coexist as a hyphenation.
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: Yes, well, people can’t really take the term, the hemispheric term America. The publishers recommended undocumented America, which felt to me like very national geographic. And I was like, no. And then I wanted to be a little bit of a b-tch. And I want it to… I want it to be an homage to Henry James. So I want to call it The Undocumented Americans. And yeah, I mean, I don’t really feel too intimately with the name, but I do know that my Connecticut State Senator, Chris Murphy, got in trouble for saying something very nice, but very mild, you know? He was just something like, I feel sorry for our neighbors. are the undocumented Americans. And I think maybe he thought that that was the term we’re now using. But he got into so much trouble for it. He got so much hate. I know that because I have a Google alert on the undocumented American. I would get like, like right wing blogs being like, you know, all sorts of things. Poor Chris Murphy. So I think my book did have an impact in that they got Chris Murphy. into a lot of trouble for embracing the term. So people seem to have an issue with it.
Xorje Olivares: It’s interesting. I talk about the story of how, you know, I’m always having to say I’m a U S citizen when I’m back home, because it’s a border point, it’s an entry point. And we were always told to say U S citizens, not American citizen, because of this notion of you can be for many part of the Americas. What does that mean? So I think even just that specification of U S citizen was just ingrained in me at such an early age.
Xorje Olivares: So, I want to focus on language because there is that notion of American and citizen. And so I want to start with you Javier about if either of those words, American or citizen resonate more with you.
Javier Zamora: None – I’ve never considered myself either. You know, I’ve been, especially since the second administration Trump presidency began, I’ve really been looking at my own trajectory into obtaining papeles. You know, I finally get a green card, When? During the first Trump administration, I’ve had a green card for six years now. And I haven’t applied to become a citizen. And so for me it’s like now that I don’t have to look over my shoulder as much, or so I thought, now we’re learning in this presidency that, oh, a green card is also not as safe as you once thought. And now even facing this very real and almost urgent question for myself because I have to either apply to renew my green card or apply for citizenship next year. And so I’m like, why would I want to become? And what does that mean? What am I gaining? I am gaining a vote. You know, I’ve never voted in my life. Not in El Salvador, I’m not here. But is that, is it political citizenship? What am I gaining socially? I don’t think I will be gaining anything else that I don’t already have. So what is the difference? So I don’t know. I am with you. I’m still actively thinking about it every single day.
Xorje Olivares: Karla, are you in a similar situation where you think about it every day, about whether you choose one of those words over another, American or citizen?
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: Um, my life is not filled with a lot of choices and that’s also not a choice I’m given. So, um, I’m fine with whatever people want to call me so long as it’s not a slur. I guess I do identify as an immigrant. I am naturalized as a citizen, but my brain developed under a certain set of circumstances, and I have a certain set of skills, like I said. So you don’t stop being an immigrant at any point in the legalization process. There is a process of like acculturation. There’s a process with assimilation or not. There’s like so many like things, there’s like code switching. There’s, there’s a certain set of experiences, I think that do unite immigrants but I don’t think that, I don’t think you really stop being an immigrant because it is sort of about being someone who doesn’t have a place that necessarily wants to claim them. And they are kind of looking out for themselves and looking for a place of safety and freedom and dignity. And then you’re willing to move for it.
Xorje Olivares: Yeah, I do wanna focus and pivot us a little bit to the future. And I wanna ask in this moment, what do you think we’ve started to understand if anything at all or what is exposed now about the idea of American citizenship?
Javier Zamora: I think the empire is crumbling. We can see it. I think that settler colonial colony that the United States is showing its framework. And so for me, you know, the answer, because I do think that artists and writers should look at what is wrong with the world, but also dream of something to provide or gift for the future. For me, I think the answer is easy. The answer was here before white people showed up.It took me 30 plus years for me to even begin to identify as Native, as Indigenous, which I also am. And I think a lot of us in the Latina community are still carrying that shame of being part Black, part Indigenous, and we want to be proud of the small percentage of Spanish or European blood that we have. But that’s not the answer. That is the poison that we within us and we do. And so what is left for the future? For me, the future is looking back and imagining a Turtle Island or the Americas before any white man came here. You know, that is where the answers lie.
Xorje Olivares: Karla, are you optimistic about what we can anticipate? Not necessarily in this current administration, but for the years to come, the next 20, 30 years. Will the conversation surrounding citizenship and people who are undocumented, do you think it’ll change or will be kind of what we’ve experienced for generations?
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: I mean, I’m optimistic every day because that’s what keeps me going and that’s why keeps me alive and committing to the human social experiment. But I definitely don’t believe in a utopia ever materializing. I think human beings are bad and selfish and desirous of power in ways that cannot really be trusted. This is something that happened slowly and it happened over time. and it involved the participation and non-participation of a lot of people. And so I would say we need to have people who believe in democracy, even though it might be an illusion and it might be a myth and it may be a pyramid scheme. Like so many things are, like love or religion, like faith, these are things that become real because you all participate in a collective delusion about it. And so I think that people who care to participate in the delusion of democracy, when you could participate in the delusion of many other things, they should run for office. They should become judges. They should become lawyers. They should become doctors who work at free clinics. How do you use yourself and your safety if you are a person who is safe to contribute to the safety of people who have literally no rights.
Xorje Olivares: I wanna thank both of you for sharing a lot of yourselves, a lot of your experiences and providing your insight on this very difficult topic, especially because of what’s happening politically in the world.
Javier Zamora: Thank you
Xorje Olivares: If you wanna follow them and get any of their works, all you have to do is go to our show notes. We will show you how to follow them on social, buy their books, and support everything that they’ve got going on. So please do that. And also, if you want to send us any information about your own story or anything you wanna see represented on hyphenation, just email us at hyp at kqed.org. Thank you all for listening. Hasta luego.
Credits:
Hyphenación is a KQED Studios Production. It is produced by Ana De Almeida Amaral, Alex Tran, and me, Xorje Olivares. Chris Hambrick is our editor. Mixing and mastering by Jim Benett and Christopher Beale. Jen Chien is executive producer and KQED’s director of podcasts. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local. Special thanks to Megan Tan, Martina Castro, and Paulina Velasco for their development support. Thank you to Maha Sanad and Alana Walker for their audience engagement support, to podcast operations manager Katie Sprenger, Video Operations manager Vivian Morales, and our chief content officer Holly Kernan. Okay mi gente, cuídense.
