While ICE Raids Loom, ‘No Llegamos Aquí Solos’ Is for Immigrants, by Immigrants

This story was reported for K Onda KQED, a monthly newsletter focused on the Bay Area’s Latinx community. Click here to subscribe.

When poet Yosimar Reyes started writing the play No Llegamos Aquí Solos in early 2025, he could not have pictured the extent of the Trump administration’s violent crackdown on undocumented immigrants. But fear and injustice is all too familiar for Reyes, 37, who came to the United States from Mexico when he was three years old and lived for many years without authorization.

Decades of storytellers’ efforts to humanize undocumented people have evidently failed to convince people that immigrants are people too, Reyes tells KQED. So when Teatro Visión tapped Reyes to write a play, he focused on speaking directly to immigrants and celebrating them.

No Llegamos Aquí Solos (which translates as “we did not come here alone”) tells the stories of characters living in an East San José apartment building in the lead-up to a raid by immigration enforcement. “I wanted to showcase the different characters that I grew up with, and write about the people that inspired me to become a poet,” says Reyes, who is a DACA recipient and serves as Santa Clara County’s Poet Laureate.

No Llegamos Aquí Solos runs through Feb. 22 at Mexican Heritage Plaza Theater in San José. KQED’s Blanca Torres talked with Reyes about his experience writing the play and seeing it come to the stage in this current moment.

This conversation was edited for length and clarity.

Blanca Torres: Can you tell me about some characters in this play that you created based on your life?

Yosimar Reyes: The script follows a series of neighbors. They’re undocumented, but they all have a different issue that’s impacting them. Oftentimes, plays or stories about undocumented people are meant to educate people. What’s more important is to hold a mirror to undocumented people. There’s a scene where a group of day laborers are all living in one apartment. There’s another character who sells food in the courtyard. It was important to also showcase the way in which characters contribute back to the community as well.

How do you feel about the stage production of the play coming at this particular moment?

I’ve always been keenly aware of the way undocumented people have been represented. That has been the looming theme in a lot of my work. My grandmother, who I was a caregiver to, passed away in November 2024. I had advanced parole, which allows me to leave my country, so I was able to transport her remains back to Mexico. That was like an awakening. The story of so many undocumented immigrants that return home is either they are deported or in a coffin. I don’t necessarily want that to be my fate.

The character Ignacio, throughout the play, is bombarded with all these ICE raids that he’s seeing. And because he’s so focused on preparing, he forgets to enjoy the little moments or the small things that are happening. The play juxtaposes the madness of living under this constant threat of deportation with how do undocumented people actually live full lives?

So has your thinking about telling the stories of undocumented people changed?

We spent so much time and energy telling undocumented narratives, and it was to no avail, because people are willing to believe that we’re all these negative things. I wanted to write a play that’s unapologetic and is catered to my community. The question that I’m asking undocumented people is: What are the sacred things you lose when you choose to remain here? And how do we start taking care of our mental and spiritual well-being? The reality is that the deportation machine is going to grow and we are going to have to leave. How do we hold on to things that are more sacred than papers?

Can you tell more about East San José? Is this a community that people know a lot about?

What happens with San José is we are put under the umbrella of Silicon Valley, right? There’s so much tech. There’s so much innovation. When I was growing up, that was kind of frustrating because I was like, yes, that’s downtown. The East Side is different. There’s multiple families in an apartment. People are living in deplorable housing conditions because we have slumlords. My grandma used to recycle bottles and cans. She used to hustle to pay the rent. We have families that are just trying to stay in this very, very expensive city. I remember growing up constantly feeling like an outsider. Yes, we might not be acknowledged, but we’re contributing to this city. We’re living full lives in this corner of the city.

What do you see, longer-term, coming out of the current immigration enforcement? How would you want things to either change or for the community to change?

This country has always had a turbulent relationship with immigrants and people of color. Look at the history of the Civil Rights movement. There are Americans losing their civil liberties because they want to believe this lie that I’m a criminal. At this moment, undocumented people need to protect their energy. We need to enjoy our families. We need to start saving and dreaming of a different future.

For so long we have been told this is the only place we could build, that our home is here, that this is the only place we can make it. And all this effort that I have been putting in for 30-something years to become legal and doing things the right way, and it’s not happening – we are not going to get legalized anytime soon. So can we take time to pause, assess, protect our energy and really start thinking: If I have to go, how do I not lose a sense of myself and know that I have the fortitude to build all of this again?

‘No Llegamos Aquí Solos’ runs through Sunday, Feb. 22, at the Mexican Heritage Plaza Theater in San José. Tickets and more information here.