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"content": "\u003cp>In this country, people with criminal records are regularly used in fear-mongering news reports or political catchphrases to sway the general public’s opinion about crime, violence and public safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s no surprise, then, that many find it hard to accept those who’ve spent time behind bars as full human beings. But a criminal conviction doesn’t negate a person’s need to learn, love, play with their kids and practice religious ceremonies. Hell, some folks who’ve been incarcerated even find joy in painting images of hummingbirds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984126\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984126\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.24.09%E2%80%AFPM.png\" alt=\"Two women stand on a beach sharing an embrace as the sunsets.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1328\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.24.09 PM.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.24.09 PM-160x106.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.24.09 PM-768x510.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.24.09 PM-1536x1020.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julia Arroyo (at right), executive director of the Young Women’s Freedom Center, shares a moment on the beach with her daughter as the sun sets in the film ‘Off the Record: Julia.’ \u003ccite>(The Adachi Project)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, Dec. 2, San Francisco’s Roxie Theater hosts \u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/adachi-project-presents-defender-off-the-record/\">Defender: Off The Record\u003c/a>, a series of films about three people who’ve seen the ins and outs of the criminal justice system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Accompanying the films is a discussion with filmmaker, organizer and rapper Boots Riley and San Francisco’s sitting public defender \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11732158/s-f-mayor-breed-appoints-manohar-raju-as-successor-to-late-public-defender-jeff-adachi\">Manohar “Mano” Raju\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The duo will be joined by two subjects of the films: Bayview-Hunters Point–raised rapper \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13828036/talking-with-prezi-the-rapper-pledging-to-do-better-for-hunters-point\">Charles ‘Prezi’ Gardner\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://youngwomenfree.org/staff/julia-arroyo/\">Julia Arroyo\u003c/a>, the executive director of the Young Women’s Freedom Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984128\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1308px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984128\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-25-at-9.46.33%E2%80%AFPM.png\" alt=\"An older man with long hair in a grey hoodie sitting on a park bench painting. \" width=\"1308\" height=\"1504\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-25-at-9.46.33 PM.png 1308w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-25-at-9.46.33 PM-160x184.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-25-at-9.46.33 PM-768x883.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1308px) 100vw, 1308px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In the short film ‘Off the Record: Sal,’ Salesh Prasad shares his affinity for art and his deep appreciation for hummingbirds. \u003ccite>(The Adachi Project)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The subject of the third film, \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/28/queer-california-man-deportation-fiji-us\">Salesh Prasad\u003c/a>, was born in Fiji and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of six. He was raised in Modesto, where a rough childhood left him scarred. During an altercation at the age of 22, Prasad took someone’s life and was later charged with second-degree murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He served 27 years in prison before being granted parole. As soon as he was released, he was taken into ICE custody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although not currently incarcerated, Prasad is haunted by the fear of deportation, given the administration’s escalated actions against immigrants. Additionally, as a queer man, he faces potential persecution in Fiji. Prasad and his legal team are seeking a full pardon from Governor Newsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s so much you can say about the narrative of crime, and how that has been so weaponized in San Francisco and the Bay Area,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/hkinder/\">Henry Kinder\u003c/a>, a creative producer at \u003ca href=\"https://evenodd.studio/\">Even/Odd\u003c/a> who also directed two of the three films.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we have a real opportunity to present an alternative vision for what public safety really looks like,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984129\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13984129\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.22.46%E2%80%AFPM-2000x1330.png\" alt=\"Two people stand atop a lookout point, overlooking San Francisco. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1330\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.22.46 PM-2000x1330.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.22.46 PM-160x106.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.22.46 PM-768x511.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.22.46 PM-1536x1021.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.22.46 PM-2048x1362.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julia Arroyo and her daughter overlook San Francisco as they prepare for an upcoming ceremony in the short documentary ‘Off the Record: Julia.’ \u003ccite>(The Adachi Project)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A filmmaker who uses his skills to bring attention to injustice, Kinder insists that correcting the narrative is more than just about \u003cem>how\u003c/em> the story is told.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want these stories to be made for, by and with the people of San Francisco,” he says, excited to show the films next week to the very communities featured.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The short films are poetic, touching even, but not corny. Instead, there’s a edge to them, along with a visual gloss that makes for a highly produced but relatable aesthetic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It sort of defies the expectation,” Kinder says, about a public defender’s office producing films of such quality. But that’s part of the strategy. “A lot of that comes from trying to reach audiences that are closer to the clientele that the public defender serves,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kinder adds that a short “sentencing mitigation video” will also screen on Dec. 2, allowing the audience to see the media he and his team create to steer judges into more lenient sentencing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s all part of a push to understand and represent defendants’ full humanity, both in media and in the courtroom. That’s the central mission of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13899104/firsthand-accounts-of-surviving-prisons-and-pandemic-power-the-adachi-projects-films\">The Adachi Project\u003c/a>, an organization carrying on the work of the late San Francisco public defender Jeff Adachi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a person’s story is told well, with thorough context, the result tends to be empathy. And when one commits themselves to comprehending the complexities of another person, it might start as a social study but can quickly become a public service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Somewhere in the process, it morphs into an art form — in this case, one that’s fit for the silver screen.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Adachi Project Presents ‘\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/adachi-project-presents-defender-off-the-record/\">Defender: Off The Record\u003c/a>’ on Tuesday, Dec. 2, at the Roxie Theater (3117 16th St., San Francisco). \u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/adachi-project-presents-defender-off-the-record/\">Tickets and more information here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In this country, people with criminal records are regularly used in fear-mongering news reports or political catchphrases to sway the general public’s opinion about crime, violence and public safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s no surprise, then, that many find it hard to accept those who’ve spent time behind bars as full human beings. But a criminal conviction doesn’t negate a person’s need to learn, love, play with their kids and practice religious ceremonies. Hell, some folks who’ve been incarcerated even find joy in painting images of hummingbirds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984126\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984126\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.24.09%E2%80%AFPM.png\" alt=\"Two women stand on a beach sharing an embrace as the sunsets.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1328\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.24.09 PM.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.24.09 PM-160x106.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.24.09 PM-768x510.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.24.09 PM-1536x1020.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julia Arroyo (at right), executive director of the Young Women’s Freedom Center, shares a moment on the beach with her daughter as the sun sets in the film ‘Off the Record: Julia.’ \u003ccite>(The Adachi Project)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, Dec. 2, San Francisco’s Roxie Theater hosts \u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/adachi-project-presents-defender-off-the-record/\">Defender: Off The Record\u003c/a>, a series of films about three people who’ve seen the ins and outs of the criminal justice system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Accompanying the films is a discussion with filmmaker, organizer and rapper Boots Riley and San Francisco’s sitting public defender \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11732158/s-f-mayor-breed-appoints-manohar-raju-as-successor-to-late-public-defender-jeff-adachi\">Manohar “Mano” Raju\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The duo will be joined by two subjects of the films: Bayview-Hunters Point–raised rapper \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13828036/talking-with-prezi-the-rapper-pledging-to-do-better-for-hunters-point\">Charles ‘Prezi’ Gardner\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://youngwomenfree.org/staff/julia-arroyo/\">Julia Arroyo\u003c/a>, the executive director of the Young Women’s Freedom Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984128\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1308px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13984128\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-25-at-9.46.33%E2%80%AFPM.png\" alt=\"An older man with long hair in a grey hoodie sitting on a park bench painting. \" width=\"1308\" height=\"1504\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-25-at-9.46.33 PM.png 1308w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-25-at-9.46.33 PM-160x184.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-25-at-9.46.33 PM-768x883.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1308px) 100vw, 1308px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In the short film ‘Off the Record: Sal,’ Salesh Prasad shares his affinity for art and his deep appreciation for hummingbirds. \u003ccite>(The Adachi Project)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The subject of the third film, \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/28/queer-california-man-deportation-fiji-us\">Salesh Prasad\u003c/a>, was born in Fiji and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of six. He was raised in Modesto, where a rough childhood left him scarred. During an altercation at the age of 22, Prasad took someone’s life and was later charged with second-degree murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He served 27 years in prison before being granted parole. As soon as he was released, he was taken into ICE custody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although not currently incarcerated, Prasad is haunted by the fear of deportation, given the administration’s escalated actions against immigrants. Additionally, as a queer man, he faces potential persecution in Fiji. Prasad and his legal team are seeking a full pardon from Governor Newsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s so much you can say about the narrative of crime, and how that has been so weaponized in San Francisco and the Bay Area,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/hkinder/\">Henry Kinder\u003c/a>, a creative producer at \u003ca href=\"https://evenodd.studio/\">Even/Odd\u003c/a> who also directed two of the three films.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we have a real opportunity to present an alternative vision for what public safety really looks like,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13984129\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13984129\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.22.46%E2%80%AFPM-2000x1330.png\" alt=\"Two people stand atop a lookout point, overlooking San Francisco. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1330\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.22.46 PM-2000x1330.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.22.46 PM-160x106.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.22.46 PM-768x511.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.22.46 PM-1536x1021.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-06-at-7.22.46 PM-2048x1362.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julia Arroyo and her daughter overlook San Francisco as they prepare for an upcoming ceremony in the short documentary ‘Off the Record: Julia.’ \u003ccite>(The Adachi Project)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A filmmaker who uses his skills to bring attention to injustice, Kinder insists that correcting the narrative is more than just about \u003cem>how\u003c/em> the story is told.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want these stories to be made for, by and with the people of San Francisco,” he says, excited to show the films next week to the very communities featured.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The short films are poetic, touching even, but not corny. Instead, there’s a edge to them, along with a visual gloss that makes for a highly produced but relatable aesthetic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It sort of defies the expectation,” Kinder says, about a public defender’s office producing films of such quality. But that’s part of the strategy. “A lot of that comes from trying to reach audiences that are closer to the clientele that the public defender serves,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kinder adds that a short “sentencing mitigation video” will also screen on Dec. 2, allowing the audience to see the media he and his team create to steer judges into more lenient sentencing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s all part of a push to understand and represent defendants’ full humanity, both in media and in the courtroom. That’s the central mission of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13899104/firsthand-accounts-of-surviving-prisons-and-pandemic-power-the-adachi-projects-films\">The Adachi Project\u003c/a>, an organization carrying on the work of the late San Francisco public defender Jeff Adachi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a person’s story is told well, with thorough context, the result tends to be empathy. And when one commits themselves to comprehending the complexities of another person, it might start as a social study but can quickly become a public service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Somewhere in the process, it morphs into an art form — in this case, one that’s fit for the silver screen.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Adachi Project Presents ‘\u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/adachi-project-presents-defender-off-the-record/\">Defender: Off The Record\u003c/a>’ on Tuesday, Dec. 2, at the Roxie Theater (3117 16th St., San Francisco). \u003ca href=\"https://roxie.com/film/adachi-project-presents-defender-off-the-record/\">Tickets and more information here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/hilary_riversh/\">Hilary Rivers\u003c/a>, a San Francisco drag artist who was \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/drag-performer-detained-ice-20399122.php\">arrested by ICE\u003c/a> during Pride month, makes her return to the stage on \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chillonas-x-sabes-que-present-caballo-blanco-against-ice-tickets-1843064287899?aff=ebdssbcategorybrowse\">Friday, Nov. 7 at Oakland’s White Horse\u003c/a> for a performance that doubles as a fundraiser as she rebuilds her life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Born in El Salvador and raised in Guatemala, Rivers came to San Francisco as an asylum seeker fleeing persecution for her LGBTQ+ identity. The day after she placed second in Miss & Mr. Safe Latino, a long-running pageant presented by Instituto Familiar de la Raza, ICE agents arrested her at a routine immigration appointment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='news_12061844']In a recent \u003ca href=\"https://48hills.org/2025/10/drag-queen-snatched-by-ice-released-with-asylum-it-was-terrible/\">interview with \u003cem>El Tecolote\u003c/em> and 48 Hills\u003c/a>, Rivers recounted her harrowing three months in immigration detention at the Golden State Annex detention center in McFarland, California, where she was kept in a freezing cold cell so overcrowded that people had to take turns sitting down. She said she experienced sexual abuse while behind bars, and survived an injury that now requires surgery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rivers was granted asylum and returned home to San Francisco on Sept. 20. Now, the drag community is rallying around her as she works to bounce back physically, emotionally and financially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I learned I’d lost almost everything, housing and belongings,” she told \u003cem>El Tecolote\u003c/em> reporter Emma Lorraine Garcia. “Some documents were missing. I’m starting from zero. Physically, I still need surgery on my leg, which got worse during detention. But I’m free, and that gives me strength.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='news_12058784']At White Horse, a nearly 100-year-old queer bar in North Oakland, Rivers will take the stage at a party called \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chillonas-x-sabes-que-present-caballo-blanco-against-ice-tickets-1843064287899?aff=ebdssbcategorybrowse\">Caballo Blanco Against ICE\u003c/a>. Joining her will be drag artists \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/xochitlqueensf/\">Xochitl\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/la_toritia/#\">Tori Tia\u003c/a>, plus DJ Deft behind the decks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show is organized by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/chillonassf/\">Chillonas\u003c/a>, a queer Latine party in San Francisco that’s been sharing immigration resources and protest information, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/sabesquecollective/#\">Sabes Que\u003c/a>, a Latine and Indigenous queer artist collective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rivers also has a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-hilary-rivers-reestablish-her-life-after-ice-detention\">GoFundMe\u003c/a> to cover moving expenses, lost income and basic necessities as she recovers from surgery.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Hilary Rivers, Xochitl and Tori Tia perform as part of \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chillonas-x-sabes-que-present-caballo-blanco-against-ice-tickets-1843064287899\">Caballo Blanco Against ICE\u003c/a> on Friday, Nov. 7 at the White Horse (6551 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland). \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chillonas-x-sabes-que-present-caballo-blanco-against-ice-tickets-1843064287899\">Tickets and more information here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/hilary_riversh/\">Hilary Rivers\u003c/a>, a San Francisco drag artist who was \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/drag-performer-detained-ice-20399122.php\">arrested by ICE\u003c/a> during Pride month, makes her return to the stage on \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chillonas-x-sabes-que-present-caballo-blanco-against-ice-tickets-1843064287899?aff=ebdssbcategorybrowse\">Friday, Nov. 7 at Oakland’s White Horse\u003c/a> for a performance that doubles as a fundraiser as she rebuilds her life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Born in El Salvador and raised in Guatemala, Rivers came to San Francisco as an asylum seeker fleeing persecution for her LGBTQ+ identity. The day after she placed second in Miss & Mr. Safe Latino, a long-running pageant presented by Instituto Familiar de la Raza, ICE agents arrested her at a routine immigration appointment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In a recent \u003ca href=\"https://48hills.org/2025/10/drag-queen-snatched-by-ice-released-with-asylum-it-was-terrible/\">interview with \u003cem>El Tecolote\u003c/em> and 48 Hills\u003c/a>, Rivers recounted her harrowing three months in immigration detention at the Golden State Annex detention center in McFarland, California, where she was kept in a freezing cold cell so overcrowded that people had to take turns sitting down. She said she experienced sexual abuse while behind bars, and survived an injury that now requires surgery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rivers was granted asylum and returned home to San Francisco on Sept. 20. Now, the drag community is rallying around her as she works to bounce back physically, emotionally and financially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I learned I’d lost almost everything, housing and belongings,” she told \u003cem>El Tecolote\u003c/em> reporter Emma Lorraine Garcia. “Some documents were missing. I’m starting from zero. Physically, I still need surgery on my leg, which got worse during detention. But I’m free, and that gives me strength.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>At White Horse, a nearly 100-year-old queer bar in North Oakland, Rivers will take the stage at a party called \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chillonas-x-sabes-que-present-caballo-blanco-against-ice-tickets-1843064287899?aff=ebdssbcategorybrowse\">Caballo Blanco Against ICE\u003c/a>. Joining her will be drag artists \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/xochitlqueensf/\">Xochitl\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/la_toritia/#\">Tori Tia\u003c/a>, plus DJ Deft behind the decks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show is organized by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/chillonassf/\">Chillonas\u003c/a>, a queer Latine party in San Francisco that’s been sharing immigration resources and protest information, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/sabesquecollective/#\">Sabes Que\u003c/a>, a Latine and Indigenous queer artist collective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rivers also has a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-hilary-rivers-reestablish-her-life-after-ice-detention\">GoFundMe\u003c/a> to cover moving expenses, lost income and basic necessities as she recovers from surgery.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Hilary Rivers, Xochitl and Tori Tia perform as part of \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chillonas-x-sabes-que-present-caballo-blanco-against-ice-tickets-1843064287899\">Caballo Blanco Against ICE\u003c/a> on Friday, Nov. 7 at the White Horse (6551 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland). \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chillonas-x-sabes-que-present-caballo-blanco-against-ice-tickets-1843064287899\">Tickets and more information here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>At just 83 minutes long, \u003cem>Kim’s Convenience\u003c/em> may be short, and set entirely in a small corner store, but it embraces the big stuff: family, regret, forgiveness, the need for belonging. Ultimately, it asks: What is the story of a life? Is it the work we do, the things we accumulate, or the other lives we touch along the way?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Appa (Ins Choi) runs a convenience store, where toiletries and “Canada” T-shirts share space with Korean flags in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in Toronto. When he’s not launching into tirades about the history of Korea, he bluntly roasts customers and pressures his adult daughter Janet (Kelly Seo) to successfully live up to his high immigrant-parent expectations. (Years prior, his son Jung [Ryan Jinn] chafed under his pressure, cut all ties after a violent fight, and left the house.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981819\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981819\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2545.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2545.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2545-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2545-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2545-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Appa (Ins Choi) detains Alex (Brandon McKnight) and Janet (Kelly Seo) in a scene from ‘Kim’s Convenience.’ \u003ccite>(Dahlia Katz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Adding to the thickness in the air, a Walmart is set to open nearby. A real estate developer offers to buy Appa’s store, where business isn’t exactly brisk. Alex (Brandon McKnight), a childhood friend of Jung who’s now a cop, stops in and is mesmerized by Janet, who is similarly love-stricken. While sparks fly between the two, we learn that Umma (Esther Chung), Appa’s wife, has secretly been meeting with Jung at their local church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That all of this gets resolved neatly and hilariously over the course of a single day is a testament to Choi’s taut script. As the playwright, Choi based the story on his own immigrant family, and his acting performance as Appa carries extra emotional weight. He also garners the largest howls of laughter, whether explaining to Janet the different types of customers who shoplift, or persistently offering Alex some snacks for the road in an accent so thick that you’ll never think of chocolate-covered peanuts the same way again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981812\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981812\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2348.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2348.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2348-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2348-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2348-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Umma (Esther Chung) and Jung (Ryan Jinn) have a heart-to-heart in a scene from ‘Kim’s Convenience.’ \u003ccite>(Dahlia Katz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Kim’s Convenience\u003c/em> will especially resonate with second-generation audience members, or anyone who’s ever worked behind the counter of a small mom ‘n’ pop retail business. But its themes cut across all ethnic and economic lines, exemplified in a monologue by Appa about a Korean shopkeeper in South Central L.A. during the Rodney King riots, and the unlikely bond between the owner and the Black residents of the neighborhood during a time of high tensions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those of a certain age may remember “\u003ca href=\"https://genius.com/Ice-cube-black-korea-lyrics\">Black Korea\u003c/a>,” the controversial song by Ice Cube recorded after the murder of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins, which called out business owners’ racial profiling and threatened to burn down Korean convenience stores in L.A. Ice Cube eventually apologized for the song, but the dehumanization of immigrants has now been federalized, with ICE’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101910650/ices-budget-just-tripled-whats-next\">massive budget increase\u003c/a> and unprecedented powers to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/09/13/nx-s1-5507125/the-supreme-court-clears-the-way-for-ice-agents-to-treat-race-as-grounds-for-immigration-stops\">racially profile\u003c/a>, detain and deport anyone without oversight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Kim’s Convenience\u003c/em>, meanwhile, played to a rapturous full house. It was enough to make you believe that, despite everything, maybe humanization will win after all.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Kim’s Convenience’ runs through Oct. 19 at the Toni Rembe Theater (415 Geary St,, San Francisco). \u003ca href=\"https://www.act-sf.org/whats-on/2025-26-season/kims-convenience/\">Tickets and more information here\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>At just 83 minutes long, \u003cem>Kim’s Convenience\u003c/em> may be short, and set entirely in a small corner store, but it embraces the big stuff: family, regret, forgiveness, the need for belonging. Ultimately, it asks: What is the story of a life? Is it the work we do, the things we accumulate, or the other lives we touch along the way?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Appa (Ins Choi) runs a convenience store, where toiletries and “Canada” T-shirts share space with Korean flags in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in Toronto. When he’s not launching into tirades about the history of Korea, he bluntly roasts customers and pressures his adult daughter Janet (Kelly Seo) to successfully live up to his high immigrant-parent expectations. (Years prior, his son Jung [Ryan Jinn] chafed under his pressure, cut all ties after a violent fight, and left the house.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981819\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981819\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2545.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2545.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2545-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2545-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2545-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Appa (Ins Choi) detains Alex (Brandon McKnight) and Janet (Kelly Seo) in a scene from ‘Kim’s Convenience.’ \u003ccite>(Dahlia Katz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Adding to the thickness in the air, a Walmart is set to open nearby. A real estate developer offers to buy Appa’s store, where business isn’t exactly brisk. Alex (Brandon McKnight), a childhood friend of Jung who’s now a cop, stops in and is mesmerized by Janet, who is similarly love-stricken. While sparks fly between the two, we learn that Umma (Esther Chung), Appa’s wife, has secretly been meeting with Jung at their local church.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That all of this gets resolved neatly and hilariously over the course of a single day is a testament to Choi’s taut script. As the playwright, Choi based the story on his own immigrant family, and his acting performance as Appa carries extra emotional weight. He also garners the largest howls of laughter, whether explaining to Janet the different types of customers who shoplift, or persistently offering Alex some snacks for the road in an accent so thick that you’ll never think of chocolate-covered peanuts the same way again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981812\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981812\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2348.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2348.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2348-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2348-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/SPKims-photocall-photobyDahliaKatz-2348-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Umma (Esther Chung) and Jung (Ryan Jinn) have a heart-to-heart in a scene from ‘Kim’s Convenience.’ \u003ccite>(Dahlia Katz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Kim’s Convenience\u003c/em> will especially resonate with second-generation audience members, or anyone who’s ever worked behind the counter of a small mom ‘n’ pop retail business. But its themes cut across all ethnic and economic lines, exemplified in a monologue by Appa about a Korean shopkeeper in South Central L.A. during the Rodney King riots, and the unlikely bond between the owner and the Black residents of the neighborhood during a time of high tensions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those of a certain age may remember “\u003ca href=\"https://genius.com/Ice-cube-black-korea-lyrics\">Black Korea\u003c/a>,” the controversial song by Ice Cube recorded after the murder of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins, which called out business owners’ racial profiling and threatened to burn down Korean convenience stores in L.A. Ice Cube eventually apologized for the song, but the dehumanization of immigrants has now been federalized, with ICE’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101910650/ices-budget-just-tripled-whats-next\">massive budget increase\u003c/a> and unprecedented powers to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/09/13/nx-s1-5507125/the-supreme-court-clears-the-way-for-ice-agents-to-treat-race-as-grounds-for-immigration-stops\">racially profile\u003c/a>, detain and deport anyone without oversight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Kim’s Convenience\u003c/em>, meanwhile, played to a rapturous full house. It was enough to make you believe that, despite everything, maybe humanization will win after all.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Kim’s Convenience’ runs through Oct. 19 at the Toni Rembe Theater (415 Geary St,, San Francisco). \u003ca href=\"https://www.act-sf.org/whats-on/2025-26-season/kims-convenience/\">Tickets and more information here\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Younger generations of Latinos are openly talking about their strained bilingual journeys, calling themselves either “pocho or pocha” or “no sabo kids,” both of which allude to a lack of Spanish fluency. For many U.S. Latinos, struggling with Spanish raises questions about identity and feeling truly connected to their culture. At the same time, Spanish-dominant Latinos in the U.S. face a different set of challenges with finding belonging as they navigate an English-forward society. Both sides are contending with language barriers, so how do we stand strong in ourselves and our native tongues? This week on Hyphenación, host Xorje Olivares speaks with Spanish-language comedian Angelo Colina and Spanglish podcaster Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss to discuss the pride and struggle of living between languages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC7078599028&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Watch this episode on YouTube\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/yUR4IjqHoSA\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Guests\u003c/b>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss (\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/rachellaloca/?hl=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://rachellaloca.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Website\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://pod.link/1330248548\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Latinos Out Loud Podcast\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">)\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Angelo Colina (\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/angelocolina/?hl=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@angelocolina?lang=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tiktok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.angelo-colina.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tickets to see Angelo live\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">)\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the series or have an idea to share? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:hyp@kqed.org\">hyp@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m giving you two seconds to tell me how to say the word grapefruit in Spanish. Alright, guess the one. Now, the correct answer, at least the one I know, is toronja. But the judges here are telling me that we’re also accepting pomelo. So if you said either one of those two, felicidades, te debo unos cancitos. But if you had asked 10-year-old me, I would have yelled out, fruta de uva! Fruta de Uva. You guys, that is not a hypothetical situation. There was a time, I was at a restaurant with my grandmother and I asked her if she wanted some fruta de uva, qué vergüenza. But, hey, at least I know the difference between avergüenzado and embarazado, eh? Por favor, I’m not that pocho. Pendejo a veces, pero pocho, no. Now, I feel like a native Spanish speaker would say differently, because I am not one. Yes, I grew up surrounded by English and Spanish on the border, but I’ve never been able to confidently say that I am incredibly fluent. Can I carry a conversation with my Spanish monolingual relatives? Sure. Am I able to respond to questions from my suegros? I’d like to think so. But deep down, I feel like they’re always thinking, “Pobrecito no sabe.” Because the further I get away from my Spanish, the closer I am, I think, to losing my Latino card, which I’m holding onto for dear life. But the truth is, I am a product of my third-gen, Mexican-American circumstances. So how do I exist between these two languages? I’m Xorge Olivares, y hoy preguntamos, how does language make me who I am? This is Hyphenación, where conversation and cultura meet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right, I just shared a very embarrassing story about my inability to know Spanish that well. So I wanna ask each of my guests if they have a similar moment, embarrassing moment, something that they’re like, oh, I never wanna relive again when it comes to either English or Spanish. So first excited to welcome to the program, Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss, who I must bow down to as one of the OG Latino podcasters has paved the way for me and many others in this field. She is the host of the Latinos Out Loud podcast. She is also an adjunct professor at CUNY, which is the City University of New York. Rachel, thank you for joining me for this conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you for having me. Thank you for that really warm introduction. I’m really, really happy to be here. I have so many embarrassing language stories, but this one is still pretty fresh. And it all happened when I was maybe seven years old, which was a really long time ago. My mother’s Dominican. And I remember one time as, you know, mind you, I grew up half Jewish and half Catholic. So like just mixed race and mixed up. So we were at my Tia’s house and she told me in Spanish, She was like. Pide la mano de tu tía. So I took my tía’s hand. And I’m like, okay, what do you want me to do with it now? And she was like, no, no no no, es que cuando tu pide la mano le está preguntando por una bendición. So like pide a mano is asking for a blessing from your tía and I had no idea. I just thought she told me to grab my tia’s hand and you know, you do what your mom tells you to do no matter how weird. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, I would have done the same thing. Even now, I wouldn’t have thought that that’s what she was telling you to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Totally, and then after like she told me in english what to do i was like oh bendición tia and then of course she was like dios te bendiga so ever since then i’m like oh that’s how you pide la bendición like the Dominican way got it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Got it. Okay, okay. See, now I’m putting this in my back pocket so that way if anybody ever asks, I can say that this is what that particularly means. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Also excited to welcome to the program Angelo Colina, who is a stand-up comedian. I’d like to say I was telling the group here, my production team, that my algorithm serves me up drag queens, gay men, and Angelo Colina comedy sets. So that’s how deep in I am in watching Angelo’s comedy. But he is the creator of the Gente Funny comedy showcase, that is a Spanish language comedy showcase that is touring the country right now. Angelo, thank you so much for joining us. And do you have an embarrassing moment that you’d be willing to share with us? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">First of all, nice to meet you both. Second, I think the reason why I come up in your grade, it might be my high waist pants or just my mustache. It’s both of them, I get in the mix of those mixes you were mentioning. And for me, it was the other way around. So that’s funny because I didn’t grow up here. I’ve only been here for eight years or so, seven years. And so… It wasn’t that way for me. It was mostly, and when I was learning English, we were just learning. So you’re kind of allowed to make mistakes. And so I didn’t have that embarrassing moment. And then when I came here, I already spoke English. And so for me, it was the other way around because I used to be an English and a Spanish teacher. For me, how do I correct this person without making them feel embarrassed about themselves? But the things I heard were actually. The reason why I started doing stand-up like my first show was about those mistakes like we call them in when we do the English lessons we call it false friends which are words that look like familiar to you in a language but then they’re not and so like I had students telling me, teacher, I don’t import, like no me importa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So for me, that was all the time, how do I correct them without making them feel embarrassed? So once a student told me that in Colombia, he said, teacher, I don’t import, I’m like, no, no. You export. And then a couple of students got the joke. And that’s how, that’s I started teaching the differences. So that’s funny, but I would have been your tia is what I’m trying to say. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love, you know, what’s interesting is that my dad was a Spanish teacher, a high school Spanish teacher for many, many years. And so I feel like for me, even though my dad was a Spanish teacher, I don’t have the best command of Spanish, so I actually want to start the conversation there, Rachel, if we can talk about how you feel like you have a good or maybe not so good command of Spanish, considering how you grew up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, well Jorge, we’re more connected than you think, because my father was also a Spanish teacher, okay? That’s how, like, my parents met. My mother didn’t speak English. My father was studying to be a Spanish Teacher that summer on Brighton Beach, and they hooked up. Pero, that will save that for another episode. But I feel like my command of Spanish should be so much better being the daughter of a woman born in the Dominican Republic where Spanish is her native language, and the daughter of a Spanish teacher in New York City public schools for close to 30 years. However, let me give myself some grace, okay?\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before I took the dive into comedy, I was working a corporate gig. I was at like every Spanish language magazine. Remember magazines? Like the thing that you turn with your. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">mhmm! People en Español!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes! So I worked at People en Español for a really long time. I worked a Latina, I worked in Vanidades, a bunch of different magazines. And my command of Spanish was so much better during those years. Like, I was able to read in Spanish, write in Spanish. And now, I find it so hard to, like, get words that I need. But I speak Spanglish fluently, AF. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I thank you for saying that because I always say that my first language is actually Spanglish because I don’t know when Spanish happened. I don’t know when English happened. It just tada! I knew both languages somehow when I was three or four, whatever age it was. So I’m curious for you, Angelo, one, about your command of let’s say English because you were born in Venezuela, correct? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I was. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So maybe let’s talk about command of English. And I am curious as we’ve brought up Spanglish, if you have any particular feelings about the usage of Spanglish. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, I do. And I was actually, I’m on the other side in the sense, it might be a generational thing because so, I lived in Venezuela for 20 years, then I lived in Colombia for two years, then I came here to the States. What I used to see was that there was some type of shame between, well, coming from the Latinos who grew up in Latin America to the ones who were born in the States and they didn’t speak Spanish fluently. And there was that type of shame in that entire conversation. Uh, everyone would make jokes about it. Like for me coming to shows in Spanish, that would happen a lot. And for me, I feel like when people say, oh, they’re not real Latinos because they were born here, whatever, I’m like. I would completely disagree, because I feel like people learn how to be Latinos when they aren’t here, because you’re aware of other nationalities. And I used to say when I was in Venezuela, cuando yo estaba en Venezuela yo no era Latino, yo era venezolano. Y cuando vivia en Colombia tampoco era Latino, era un malparido Venezolano, but you are still not that. That’s what I’m trying to say. You’re not Latino until you are here in the States and you’re aware of like pupusas. I had never had one. And so now you start connecting. With other nationalities, with other people like, that’s what it is. I don’t think there should be any type of shame of not being fluent because at the same time, the way you speak, it just has like, you just spoke like, Dominican Spanish like a while ago, you know that that’s as pure as it gets. And it’s the same the other way around, where people are, I see that a lot now at the shows, a lot of people bring their partners who are, let’s say they have a white husband and he’s learning Spanish and he says a word in Spanish and everyone’s like, yeah, or they’re laughing. It’s like we’re encouraging people to learn. And I’m like, yeah, that doesn’t happen the other way around. And it should, because when people are not speaking English fluently, it’s like hey, that’s a second language. So I think that’s what it is. I think we should give more credit to ourselves. I think we’re killing it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think we’re killin it but I want to talk about the places where we do feel comfortable speaking Spanish, speaking English, speaking Spanglish, whatever iteration of language we want. And Angelo, you were just talking about this Gente Funny Showcase. It is an all Spanish language show. So talk about that, your choice to use Spanish in a professional setting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Umm, I started doing standup comedy in Salt Lake City, Utah, that I would speak in English at the time and I would do the shows in English and I still do comedy, I do standup in English every once in a while, but I just realized it wouldn’t be, the things I find funny won’t translate. And it’s not about situations, because that’s not what it is. It’s not language. It’s culture. And so. I’m way more familiar with like Latino culture and I’m like in love with it with all of the different nationalities and I try to learn a lot. It’s really not funny if I go to, I don’t know, the Upper West Side and I am doing a show in English and I make an impression of the Argentinian accent. It doesn’t really translate because we’re not aware of it. Whereas with the, if I do it in Spanish about the Argentinean or the Dominican or I speak about our differences. It automatically translates because we share a lot more of the references. But I do think in general, the audiences, Latino audiences are way funnier than any other audience. Like the Dominicans listening to you they be like “Que tu dices mi loco” and it’s like, they’re just funnier!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">laughter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachel, you are somebody who has had a microphone and I love that you could see the bedazzled microphone. If you’re watching us on YouTube, there’s a beautifully pink bedazzled, the microphone in front of Rachel. But we are in a beautiful position that we do have microphones in front of us. So how do you make the choice on what language comes out when you do record in front of that pink bedazzled microphone? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, I think in English and I translate to Spanish, but sometimes the slang is so much easier in Español. ¿Tu me entiendes loco? You know? Like right then and there, like for emphasis, the Dominicanisms work really well for me. You know. Tu estas pasado, You know like things like se me sale de la boca\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ya tu sabes\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Ya tu sabes lo que lo es loco, KLK! Yeah, so I tend to like to think in English. And let me tell you, I’m the most under pressure in front of family. You know, I feel like I have to say the right vocabulary word. I’m terrible at conjugating verbs and like tenses in Spanish. It’s so hard.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I hate that, it’s really with my family, like the people who shouldn’t judge you, even though they do judge you and bully you and do all the things like before anybody else does. Like, I didn’t think that I would feel so vulnerable around them speaking Spanish, but that’s exactly who I hate speaking Spanish with because of the like, oh, poor guy. We didn’t teach him right. Oh, this is a failure on us because he doesn’t know the language of his grandmother or grandfather or whatever, antepasado is the one who spoke Spanish the most. I’m curious, Rachel, if you’ve noticed that, especially growing up in New York, there’s so many different Latinos that you can experience in New york. Just seeing how distinct your accent was or how special it was in comparison to other Latinos. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I get Brooklyn right away. People somehow know that I’m from freaking Brooklyn. I’m like, forget about it. How? I don’t understand. What are you talking about? Yeah, like, hey, can I get some water? And they’re like, you’re from Brooklyn, aren’t you? Yeah. I, I really try my hardest to represent, you know, for the cultura, as you were saying earlier. And it’s beyond just sounding Dominican or Rican or… You know, whatever it is, what comes out of my mouth, I think, is is New York. But I don’t really identify that much with like sounding Dominican. Like I can sound Dominican sometimes true talk. But like I also people tell me like, oh, you must be Puerto Rican. I’m like, no, not at all. You know, or sometimes I get Sicilian. I don’ even get Latino. They’re like, Oh, you’re some kind of Mediterranean or something. Right. No, far from it, like I’m just like a mixed-bred girl with a little bit of everything, un sancocho, if you will. But I will say, when I start like singing my dembow, my toquicha, you mentioned Rochy, Yo me siento como una dominicana pura, loco!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, en español que se te sale, en inglés no, en ingles you could be, you’re very New York en inglés. Pero en español, sancocho. Like, as soon as you do it, una sola palabra dijiste, san-cocho, and I’m like Dominican. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For reaal? I don’t even hear it! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love that though! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, you’re very…I cannot tell you how Dominican you are. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Seriously, you guys? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your family is here from Santo Amigo or El Cibao, one of the two.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, I love that! I don’t hear that myself. You know, you never hear what you sound like, right? But like, I don’t think I sound Dominican. I am so proud. Let me get my guira. Hold on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hahaha! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you! [\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">percussive sounds\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">oh, hey!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Emotional support guira, claro.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do want to take a quick little break. But when we come back, more hyphenación. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sponsor message\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I wanna share this quick story of when I was 22 years old and I had first moved to New York, my first broadcasting on air job. I was really excited because I was gonna be able to do something that my parents could listen to. And I would be able to say, you know, Jorge Olivares every time I signed off on these broadcasts. But very quickly, I had to have a conversation with my older white supervisor who said I needed to anglicize my name. That if I was going to do anything on air, I had to say Jorge Olivares, which even now coming out of my mouth sounds really weird. And this was a shock to me because I’ve grown up on the Texas-Mexico border. Everybody knows how to say my name. I was surrounded by a bunch of Latinos growing up, so it never felt weird for me to say it how I was taught it. So I… Since then, since I was 22, I have had to be very intentional and deliberate with how I say my name because I need folks to know that I’m from the border, I’m Mexicano. I’m Tejano. I’ve got all this stuff behind me, and so definitely my relationship to my name and to language has shifted over the years. So I want to ask you, Rachel, if you’ve had a similar situation, where your relationship with either language has changed a bit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, you know, you actually, like, struck a chord with the name, because I feel less Latina when I say my actual government name without my stage name baked in, where it’s like, Hi, I’m Rachel Strauss. You know, like I don’t know how many I can’t tell you how many job interviews I’ve been on where I show up, I’m like, “Hi, I am Rachel Straus,” and they look at me like, no, you can’t be. You don’t look like a Strauss. Wait, what are you exactly? You know with their eyes I don’t think that’s allowed to be said by like HR and stuff. But like, um, you know, I get that feeling like, Oh, you weren’t expecting a mixed race girl who’s half Latina and whose father’s Jewish. I get it. Um, let me tell you a little bit about me. So then when I do say, “Oh I’m Rachel, la loca Strauss” that pretty much encapsulates who I am to the T. Um, I am this mixed bred that loves both of her cultures. That fully embraces being Dominican and like a descendant of Eastern European Jew, you know, Russian and a whole bunch of other stuff mixed in with the borscht. And like, it’s the name for me. I never really gave it thought until you brought up how you say your name. And I do say La Loca with intent. Because I could easily say Rachel La Loca Strauss, you know? But then I don’t sound like me, okay? It’s Rachel La Loca Strauss. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">See, cause the thing is it is, it is what feels unnatural because I’ve never in my life said, my name is Jorge. You’ve never, in your life, have not said La Loca in the accent that you have. Right? Uh, so Angelo, did you like just thinking about accents, names, how you present yourself to the world, have you had to contend with that and, and like deal with some of the, the inner workings of how you feel about how you express yourself? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the beginning of my immigrant career in the US, I had to. Like as soon as I was in Salt Lake City, Utah, yes, I have to pronounce, I would say Angelo. But if I’m here in New York, and I do come listen, like a lot of times, it’s like, it’s my show, I’m doing my show in Spanish, it says en español, it’s just everything. I’m gonna just speak the way I speak because that’s the actual thing people are paying for. They want to see that part of themselves even, not even mine. And so they also introduce themselves pronouncing their name, how they normally wouldn’t do it. That I do see. I know they would normally say, My name is Maria, but when they see me, they go like, ah, mi nombre es Maria, mucho gusto. Like that’s, it’s like, okay, I’m free. I won’t be judged here. And so my focus, but of course, I’m lucky enough to say that because I also live in New York City where everyone’s aware of that and everyone’s like actually curious. I feel like people want to learn. And so when I have the chance to do this outside, in other cities, yes, of course, sometimes I try to…I try to sound like I have been here for longer if I’m, you know, in other places, because you feel it. I’ve been to Kansas City, you know, I’ve been to Louisville, Kentucky, I’ve been to, and it’s, it’s not as welcoming, you know. I don’t know if I would get away saying Angelo El Loco Colina. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> [\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laughter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">La Loca, that was also Dominican, the way you said, you said La Loca. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">percussive sounds\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I feel so Dominican right now! Oh my god!\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You should!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is what I love because I’m a Mexican American, Dominican American, somebody from Venezuela who has that very distinct, like we are all from our own distinct backgrounds and yet look at how much we’re having fun with, with language, with culture, with identity. And I feel like the thing that has also helped is I’ve just like me vale madre now when I speak Spanish sometimes, like I’ve had to make certain agreements with myself about like, it’s okay to be embarrassed. It’s okay to kind of walk around with your tail between your legs, just live. So I wonder Angelo, if you’ve had these moments where you had to throw all of that out the window, any preconceived feelings, any hangups? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think part of it was just the people around me. It’s a privilege of living here in New York City, where only the attempt of doing something with enough passion is gonna be applauded. Like people are gonna cheer you up and they’re gonna be supportive. And so I think New York did it for me. Like just people here were like, dale cabrón, dale, métate, okay, dale. Laigala, dice la gente del cibao in Dominican Republic they say laigala. I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing 100% if it wasn’t because of the community. Maybe we’re not completely unified. And nobody wants that from the others, because it would be, we would be unstoppable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I wanna end by asking, especially as the host of a show called Hyphenacion, which we made up and it’s fun. Rachel, is there a word or a phrase that you love in Spanish that just doesn’t hit in English? That nobody, when you’re trying to do the literal translation, como que no. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Totally and it’s so Dominican and I love to motivate others so I’m always like \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">ponte la pila. Ponte la pila, loco! Ponte la pila. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">laughter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a good one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which I guess a literal translation of that was what to put yourself on a battery? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Put on your batteries. Put in your batteries. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah,That’s a we say it a lot too. You know what’s very Dominican? I love, my Dominican friends say it all the time. They would say en Dominicana el único país que dice and then it’s something everyone Like, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">ponte la pila.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We say it, Colombians say it. Everyone knows it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s like we’re like just trying to like own it \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love it. My friend explained me the reason but that’s a longer story. For me it’s uh it’s one that it’s used in Venezuela, Cuba, Dominicana Puerto Rico, Colombia tambien, we say alot, Ya tú sabes. But Dominicans have one now that is “Tu Supiste”, but without the S, Tu supi’te. They say, if you say, now I’m giving you this audience, use it. If a Dominican ever tells you you have to say it, if you said Tu supiste, they’ll be blown away. Because Tu Supiste implies you’ve been knowing for longer. So that’s my favorite one at the moment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I used to ‘tu ta pasa’o’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I will add mine. Mine is, uh, there’s a phrase it’s just like nada que ver. And it translates to like nothing to see, but it’s really not that it’s like this, this isn’t so little importance. It’s so dumb. That like…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>‘\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Na que ver. You say na sometimes without the d. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have had such a fun time with my, they’re all my new friends. Thank you so much for joining me for this conversation about the beauty of language, the power of language. How it unites, how it distinguishes us, how, it’s just a beautiful way of identifying yourself. So thank you both for what you do. And thank you so much for, for being a part of this really fruitful, fantastic conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you, this has been so fun. Congrats to you both. Let’s get it. We are hot right now. I’m here to support. La puerta ya está abierta. So come on and have some sancocho, loco. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ya tu sabes, Rachel mi loca. Un abrazo.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do want to say to our listeners, thank you for joining us on this first season of Hyphenación– if you like what we’ve been creating, please remember to rate and review us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and comment on our YouTube videos. It all helps us out, and helps other people find us. And if you have an idea of a topic you’d like us to cover in the future, send it over to hyp@kqed.org. For more information about our guests you can go to the show notes where you’ll find tickets to see Angelo performing in a city near you \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">and \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">how you can listen to Rachel on Latinos Out Loud. But until next time, mi gente– take care! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Credits: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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 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. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you to Maha Sanad for her audience engagement support and to podcast operations intern Alana Walker. Thanks to podcast operations manager Katie Sprenger, Video Operations manager Vivian Morales, and our chief content officer Holly Kernan. Special thanks to Megan Tan, Martina Castro, and Paulina Velasco for their development support. Okay mi gente, cuídense.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Younger generations of Latinos are openly talking about their strained bilingual journeys, calling themselves either “pocho or pocha” or “no sabo kids,” both of which allude to a lack of Spanish fluency. For many U.S. Latinos, struggling with Spanish raises questions about identity and feeling truly connected to their culture. At the same time, Spanish-dominant Latinos in the U.S. face a different set of challenges with finding belonging as they navigate an English-forward society. Both sides are contending with language barriers, so how do we stand strong in ourselves and our native tongues? This week on Hyphenación, host Xorje Olivares speaks with Spanish-language comedian Angelo Colina and Spanglish podcaster Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss to discuss the pride and struggle of living between languages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC7078599028&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Watch this episode on YouTube\u003c/h2>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/yUR4IjqHoSA'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/yUR4IjqHoSA'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cb>Guests\u003c/b>:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss (\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/rachellaloca/?hl=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://rachellaloca.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Website\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://pod.link/1330248548\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Latinos Out Loud Podcast\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">)\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Angelo Colina (\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/angelocolina/?hl=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@angelocolina?lang=en\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tiktok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.angelo-colina.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tickets to see Angelo live\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">)\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the series or have an idea to share? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:hyp@kqed.org\">hyp@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m giving you two seconds to tell me how to say the word grapefruit in Spanish. Alright, guess the one. Now, the correct answer, at least the one I know, is toronja. But the judges here are telling me that we’re also accepting pomelo. So if you said either one of those two, felicidades, te debo unos cancitos. But if you had asked 10-year-old me, I would have yelled out, fruta de uva! Fruta de Uva. You guys, that is not a hypothetical situation. There was a time, I was at a restaurant with my grandmother and I asked her if she wanted some fruta de uva, qué vergüenza. But, hey, at least I know the difference between avergüenzado and embarazado, eh? Por favor, I’m not that pocho. Pendejo a veces, pero pocho, no. Now, I feel like a native Spanish speaker would say differently, because I am not one. Yes, I grew up surrounded by English and Spanish on the border, but I’ve never been able to confidently say that I am incredibly fluent. Can I carry a conversation with my Spanish monolingual relatives? Sure. Am I able to respond to questions from my suegros? I’d like to think so. But deep down, I feel like they’re always thinking, “Pobrecito no sabe.” Because the further I get away from my Spanish, the closer I am, I think, to losing my Latino card, which I’m holding onto for dear life. But the truth is, I am a product of my third-gen, Mexican-American circumstances. So how do I exist between these two languages? I’m Xorge Olivares, y hoy preguntamos, how does language make me who I am? This is Hyphenación, where conversation and cultura meet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right, I just shared a very embarrassing story about my inability to know Spanish that well. So I wanna ask each of my guests if they have a similar moment, embarrassing moment, something that they’re like, oh, I never wanna relive again when it comes to either English or Spanish. So first excited to welcome to the program, Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss, who I must bow down to as one of the OG Latino podcasters has paved the way for me and many others in this field. She is the host of the Latinos Out Loud podcast. She is also an adjunct professor at CUNY, which is the City University of New York. Rachel, thank you for joining me for this conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you for having me. Thank you for that really warm introduction. I’m really, really happy to be here. I have so many embarrassing language stories, but this one is still pretty fresh. And it all happened when I was maybe seven years old, which was a really long time ago. My mother’s Dominican. And I remember one time as, you know, mind you, I grew up half Jewish and half Catholic. So like just mixed race and mixed up. So we were at my Tia’s house and she told me in Spanish, She was like. Pide la mano de tu tía. So I took my tía’s hand. And I’m like, okay, what do you want me to do with it now? And she was like, no, no no no, es que cuando tu pide la mano le está preguntando por una bendición. So like pide a mano is asking for a blessing from your tía and I had no idea. I just thought she told me to grab my tia’s hand and you know, you do what your mom tells you to do no matter how weird. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, I would have done the same thing. Even now, I wouldn’t have thought that that’s what she was telling you to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Totally, and then after like she told me in english what to do i was like oh bendición tia and then of course she was like dios te bendiga so ever since then i’m like oh that’s how you pide la bendición like the Dominican way got it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Got it. Okay, okay. See, now I’m putting this in my back pocket so that way if anybody ever asks, I can say that this is what that particularly means. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Also excited to welcome to the program Angelo Colina, who is a stand-up comedian. I’d like to say I was telling the group here, my production team, that my algorithm serves me up drag queens, gay men, and Angelo Colina comedy sets. So that’s how deep in I am in watching Angelo’s comedy. But he is the creator of the Gente Funny comedy showcase, that is a Spanish language comedy showcase that is touring the country right now. Angelo, thank you so much for joining us. And do you have an embarrassing moment that you’d be willing to share with us? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">First of all, nice to meet you both. Second, I think the reason why I come up in your grade, it might be my high waist pants or just my mustache. It’s both of them, I get in the mix of those mixes you were mentioning. And for me, it was the other way around. So that’s funny because I didn’t grow up here. I’ve only been here for eight years or so, seven years. And so… It wasn’t that way for me. It was mostly, and when I was learning English, we were just learning. So you’re kind of allowed to make mistakes. And so I didn’t have that embarrassing moment. And then when I came here, I already spoke English. And so for me, it was the other way around because I used to be an English and a Spanish teacher. For me, how do I correct this person without making them feel embarrassed about themselves? But the things I heard were actually. The reason why I started doing stand-up like my first show was about those mistakes like we call them in when we do the English lessons we call it false friends which are words that look like familiar to you in a language but then they’re not and so like I had students telling me, teacher, I don’t import, like no me importa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So for me, that was all the time, how do I correct them without making them feel embarrassed? So once a student told me that in Colombia, he said, teacher, I don’t import, I’m like, no, no. You export. And then a couple of students got the joke. And that’s how, that’s I started teaching the differences. So that’s funny, but I would have been your tia is what I’m trying to say. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love, you know, what’s interesting is that my dad was a Spanish teacher, a high school Spanish teacher for many, many years. And so I feel like for me, even though my dad was a Spanish teacher, I don’t have the best command of Spanish, so I actually want to start the conversation there, Rachel, if we can talk about how you feel like you have a good or maybe not so good command of Spanish, considering how you grew up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, well Jorge, we’re more connected than you think, because my father was also a Spanish teacher, okay? That’s how, like, my parents met. My mother didn’t speak English. My father was studying to be a Spanish Teacher that summer on Brighton Beach, and they hooked up. Pero, that will save that for another episode. But I feel like my command of Spanish should be so much better being the daughter of a woman born in the Dominican Republic where Spanish is her native language, and the daughter of a Spanish teacher in New York City public schools for close to 30 years. However, let me give myself some grace, okay?\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before I took the dive into comedy, I was working a corporate gig. I was at like every Spanish language magazine. Remember magazines? Like the thing that you turn with your. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">mhmm! People en Español!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes! So I worked at People en Español for a really long time. I worked a Latina, I worked in Vanidades, a bunch of different magazines. And my command of Spanish was so much better during those years. Like, I was able to read in Spanish, write in Spanish. And now, I find it so hard to, like, get words that I need. But I speak Spanglish fluently, AF. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I thank you for saying that because I always say that my first language is actually Spanglish because I don’t know when Spanish happened. I don’t know when English happened. It just tada! I knew both languages somehow when I was three or four, whatever age it was. So I’m curious for you, Angelo, one, about your command of let’s say English because you were born in Venezuela, correct? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I was. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So maybe let’s talk about command of English. And I am curious as we’ve brought up Spanglish, if you have any particular feelings about the usage of Spanglish. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, I do. And I was actually, I’m on the other side in the sense, it might be a generational thing because so, I lived in Venezuela for 20 years, then I lived in Colombia for two years, then I came here to the States. What I used to see was that there was some type of shame between, well, coming from the Latinos who grew up in Latin America to the ones who were born in the States and they didn’t speak Spanish fluently. And there was that type of shame in that entire conversation. Uh, everyone would make jokes about it. Like for me coming to shows in Spanish, that would happen a lot. And for me, I feel like when people say, oh, they’re not real Latinos because they were born here, whatever, I’m like. I would completely disagree, because I feel like people learn how to be Latinos when they aren’t here, because you’re aware of other nationalities. And I used to say when I was in Venezuela, cuando yo estaba en Venezuela yo no era Latino, yo era venezolano. Y cuando vivia en Colombia tampoco era Latino, era un malparido Venezolano, but you are still not that. That’s what I’m trying to say. You’re not Latino until you are here in the States and you’re aware of like pupusas. I had never had one. And so now you start connecting. With other nationalities, with other people like, that’s what it is. I don’t think there should be any type of shame of not being fluent because at the same time, the way you speak, it just has like, you just spoke like, Dominican Spanish like a while ago, you know that that’s as pure as it gets. And it’s the same the other way around, where people are, I see that a lot now at the shows, a lot of people bring their partners who are, let’s say they have a white husband and he’s learning Spanish and he says a word in Spanish and everyone’s like, yeah, or they’re laughing. It’s like we’re encouraging people to learn. And I’m like, yeah, that doesn’t happen the other way around. And it should, because when people are not speaking English fluently, it’s like hey, that’s a second language. So I think that’s what it is. I think we should give more credit to ourselves. I think we’re killing it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think we’re killin it but I want to talk about the places where we do feel comfortable speaking Spanish, speaking English, speaking Spanglish, whatever iteration of language we want. And Angelo, you were just talking about this Gente Funny Showcase. It is an all Spanish language show. So talk about that, your choice to use Spanish in a professional setting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Umm, I started doing standup comedy in Salt Lake City, Utah, that I would speak in English at the time and I would do the shows in English and I still do comedy, I do standup in English every once in a while, but I just realized it wouldn’t be, the things I find funny won’t translate. And it’s not about situations, because that’s not what it is. It’s not language. It’s culture. And so. I’m way more familiar with like Latino culture and I’m like in love with it with all of the different nationalities and I try to learn a lot. It’s really not funny if I go to, I don’t know, the Upper West Side and I am doing a show in English and I make an impression of the Argentinian accent. It doesn’t really translate because we’re not aware of it. Whereas with the, if I do it in Spanish about the Argentinean or the Dominican or I speak about our differences. It automatically translates because we share a lot more of the references. But I do think in general, the audiences, Latino audiences are way funnier than any other audience. Like the Dominicans listening to you they be like “Que tu dices mi loco” and it’s like, they’re just funnier!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">laughter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachel, you are somebody who has had a microphone and I love that you could see the bedazzled microphone. If you’re watching us on YouTube, there’s a beautifully pink bedazzled, the microphone in front of Rachel. But we are in a beautiful position that we do have microphones in front of us. So how do you make the choice on what language comes out when you do record in front of that pink bedazzled microphone? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, I think in English and I translate to Spanish, but sometimes the slang is so much easier in Español. ¿Tu me entiendes loco? You know? Like right then and there, like for emphasis, the Dominicanisms work really well for me. You know. Tu estas pasado, You know like things like se me sale de la boca\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ya tu sabes\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Ya tu sabes lo que lo es loco, KLK! Yeah, so I tend to like to think in English. And let me tell you, I’m the most under pressure in front of family. You know, I feel like I have to say the right vocabulary word. I’m terrible at conjugating verbs and like tenses in Spanish. It’s so hard.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I hate that, it’s really with my family, like the people who shouldn’t judge you, even though they do judge you and bully you and do all the things like before anybody else does. Like, I didn’t think that I would feel so vulnerable around them speaking Spanish, but that’s exactly who I hate speaking Spanish with because of the like, oh, poor guy. We didn’t teach him right. Oh, this is a failure on us because he doesn’t know the language of his grandmother or grandfather or whatever, antepasado is the one who spoke Spanish the most. I’m curious, Rachel, if you’ve noticed that, especially growing up in New York, there’s so many different Latinos that you can experience in New york. Just seeing how distinct your accent was or how special it was in comparison to other Latinos. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I get Brooklyn right away. People somehow know that I’m from freaking Brooklyn. I’m like, forget about it. How? I don’t understand. What are you talking about? Yeah, like, hey, can I get some water? And they’re like, you’re from Brooklyn, aren’t you? Yeah. I, I really try my hardest to represent, you know, for the cultura, as you were saying earlier. And it’s beyond just sounding Dominican or Rican or… You know, whatever it is, what comes out of my mouth, I think, is is New York. But I don’t really identify that much with like sounding Dominican. Like I can sound Dominican sometimes true talk. But like I also people tell me like, oh, you must be Puerto Rican. I’m like, no, not at all. You know, or sometimes I get Sicilian. I don’ even get Latino. They’re like, Oh, you’re some kind of Mediterranean or something. Right. No, far from it, like I’m just like a mixed-bred girl with a little bit of everything, un sancocho, if you will. But I will say, when I start like singing my dembow, my toquicha, you mentioned Rochy, Yo me siento como una dominicana pura, loco!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, en español que se te sale, en inglés no, en ingles you could be, you’re very New York en inglés. Pero en español, sancocho. Like, as soon as you do it, una sola palabra dijiste, san-cocho, and I’m like Dominican. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For reaal? I don’t even hear it! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love that though! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, you’re very…I cannot tell you how Dominican you are. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Seriously, you guys? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your family is here from Santo Amigo or El Cibao, one of the two.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, I love that! I don’t hear that myself. You know, you never hear what you sound like, right? But like, I don’t think I sound Dominican. I am so proud. Let me get my guira. Hold on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hahaha! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you! [\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">percussive sounds\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">oh, hey!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Emotional support guira, claro.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do want to take a quick little break. But when we come back, more hyphenación. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sponsor message\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I wanna share this quick story of when I was 22 years old and I had first moved to New York, my first broadcasting on air job. I was really excited because I was gonna be able to do something that my parents could listen to. And I would be able to say, you know, Jorge Olivares every time I signed off on these broadcasts. But very quickly, I had to have a conversation with my older white supervisor who said I needed to anglicize my name. That if I was going to do anything on air, I had to say Jorge Olivares, which even now coming out of my mouth sounds really weird. And this was a shock to me because I’ve grown up on the Texas-Mexico border. Everybody knows how to say my name. I was surrounded by a bunch of Latinos growing up, so it never felt weird for me to say it how I was taught it. So I… Since then, since I was 22, I have had to be very intentional and deliberate with how I say my name because I need folks to know that I’m from the border, I’m Mexicano. I’m Tejano. I’ve got all this stuff behind me, and so definitely my relationship to my name and to language has shifted over the years. So I want to ask you, Rachel, if you’ve had a similar situation, where your relationship with either language has changed a bit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, you know, you actually, like, struck a chord with the name, because I feel less Latina when I say my actual government name without my stage name baked in, where it’s like, Hi, I’m Rachel Strauss. You know, like I don’t know how many I can’t tell you how many job interviews I’ve been on where I show up, I’m like, “Hi, I am Rachel Straus,” and they look at me like, no, you can’t be. You don’t look like a Strauss. Wait, what are you exactly? You know with their eyes I don’t think that’s allowed to be said by like HR and stuff. But like, um, you know, I get that feeling like, Oh, you weren’t expecting a mixed race girl who’s half Latina and whose father’s Jewish. I get it. Um, let me tell you a little bit about me. So then when I do say, “Oh I’m Rachel, la loca Strauss” that pretty much encapsulates who I am to the T. Um, I am this mixed bred that loves both of her cultures. That fully embraces being Dominican and like a descendant of Eastern European Jew, you know, Russian and a whole bunch of other stuff mixed in with the borscht. And like, it’s the name for me. I never really gave it thought until you brought up how you say your name. And I do say La Loca with intent. Because I could easily say Rachel La Loca Strauss, you know? But then I don’t sound like me, okay? It’s Rachel La Loca Strauss. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">See, cause the thing is it is, it is what feels unnatural because I’ve never in my life said, my name is Jorge. You’ve never, in your life, have not said La Loca in the accent that you have. Right? Uh, so Angelo, did you like just thinking about accents, names, how you present yourself to the world, have you had to contend with that and, and like deal with some of the, the inner workings of how you feel about how you express yourself? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the beginning of my immigrant career in the US, I had to. Like as soon as I was in Salt Lake City, Utah, yes, I have to pronounce, I would say Angelo. But if I’m here in New York, and I do come listen, like a lot of times, it’s like, it’s my show, I’m doing my show in Spanish, it says en español, it’s just everything. I’m gonna just speak the way I speak because that’s the actual thing people are paying for. They want to see that part of themselves even, not even mine. And so they also introduce themselves pronouncing their name, how they normally wouldn’t do it. That I do see. I know they would normally say, My name is Maria, but when they see me, they go like, ah, mi nombre es Maria, mucho gusto. Like that’s, it’s like, okay, I’m free. I won’t be judged here. And so my focus, but of course, I’m lucky enough to say that because I also live in New York City where everyone’s aware of that and everyone’s like actually curious. I feel like people want to learn. And so when I have the chance to do this outside, in other cities, yes, of course, sometimes I try to…I try to sound like I have been here for longer if I’m, you know, in other places, because you feel it. I’ve been to Kansas City, you know, I’ve been to Louisville, Kentucky, I’ve been to, and it’s, it’s not as welcoming, you know. I don’t know if I would get away saying Angelo El Loco Colina. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> [\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laughter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">La Loca, that was also Dominican, the way you said, you said La Loca. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">percussive sounds\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I feel so Dominican right now! Oh my god!\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You should!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is what I love because I’m a Mexican American, Dominican American, somebody from Venezuela who has that very distinct, like we are all from our own distinct backgrounds and yet look at how much we’re having fun with, with language, with culture, with identity. And I feel like the thing that has also helped is I’ve just like me vale madre now when I speak Spanish sometimes, like I’ve had to make certain agreements with myself about like, it’s okay to be embarrassed. It’s okay to kind of walk around with your tail between your legs, just live. So I wonder Angelo, if you’ve had these moments where you had to throw all of that out the window, any preconceived feelings, any hangups? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think part of it was just the people around me. It’s a privilege of living here in New York City, where only the attempt of doing something with enough passion is gonna be applauded. Like people are gonna cheer you up and they’re gonna be supportive. And so I think New York did it for me. Like just people here were like, dale cabrón, dale, métate, okay, dale. Laigala, dice la gente del cibao in Dominican Republic they say laigala. I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing 100% if it wasn’t because of the community. Maybe we’re not completely unified. And nobody wants that from the others, because it would be, we would be unstoppable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I wanna end by asking, especially as the host of a show called Hyphenacion, which we made up and it’s fun. Rachel, is there a word or a phrase that you love in Spanish that just doesn’t hit in English? That nobody, when you’re trying to do the literal translation, como que no. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Totally and it’s so Dominican and I love to motivate others so I’m always like \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">ponte la pila. Ponte la pila, loco! Ponte la pila. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">laughter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a good one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which I guess a literal translation of that was what to put yourself on a battery? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Put on your batteries. Put in your batteries. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah,That’s a we say it a lot too. You know what’s very Dominican? I love, my Dominican friends say it all the time. They would say en Dominicana el único país que dice and then it’s something everyone Like, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">ponte la pila.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We say it, Colombians say it. Everyone knows it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s like we’re like just trying to like own it \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love it. My friend explained me the reason but that’s a longer story. For me it’s uh it’s one that it’s used in Venezuela, Cuba, Dominicana Puerto Rico, Colombia tambien, we say alot, Ya tú sabes. But Dominicans have one now that is “Tu Supiste”, but without the S, Tu supi’te. They say, if you say, now I’m giving you this audience, use it. If a Dominican ever tells you you have to say it, if you said Tu supiste, they’ll be blown away. Because Tu Supiste implies you’ve been knowing for longer. So that’s my favorite one at the moment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I used to ‘tu ta pasa’o’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I will add mine. Mine is, uh, there’s a phrase it’s just like nada que ver. And it translates to like nothing to see, but it’s really not that it’s like this, this isn’t so little importance. It’s so dumb. That like…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>‘\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Na que ver. You say na sometimes without the d. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have had such a fun time with my, they’re all my new friends. Thank you so much for joining me for this conversation about the beauty of language, the power of language. How it unites, how it distinguishes us, how, it’s just a beautiful way of identifying yourself. So thank you both for what you do. And thank you so much for, for being a part of this really fruitful, fantastic conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachel ‘La Loca’ Strauss: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you, this has been so fun. Congrats to you both. Let’s get it. We are hot right now. I’m here to support. La puerta ya está abierta. So come on and have some sancocho, loco. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Angelo Colina: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ya tu sabes, Rachel mi loca. Un abrazo.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do want to say to our listeners, thank you for joining us on this first season of Hyphenación– if you like what we’ve been creating, please remember to rate and review us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and comment on our YouTube videos. It all helps us out, and helps other people find us. And if you have an idea of a topic you’d like us to cover in the future, send it over to hyp@kqed.org. For more information about our guests you can go to the show notes where you’ll find tickets to see Angelo performing in a city near you \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">and \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">how you can listen to Rachel on Latinos Out Loud. But until next time, mi gente– take care! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Credits: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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 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. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you to Maha Sanad for her audience engagement support and to podcast operations intern Alana Walker. Thanks to podcast operations manager Katie Sprenger, Video Operations manager Vivian Morales, and our chief content officer Holly Kernan. Special thanks to Megan Tan, Martina Castro, and Paulina Velasco for their development support. Okay mi gente, cuídense.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The US-Mexico border has been a central issue in recent decades of American politics. The southern borderlands are often depicted in media and by politicians as a dangerous ground zero for crime and violence. But is this an accurate image of the place thousands of Americans call home? This week on Hyphenación, host Xorje Olivares gathers with two other fronterizas, artist natalia ventura and filmmaker Robie Flores, who were born and bred along the border. Together they ask, “Is the border we see on TV real life?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5546019730&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Watch this episode on YouTube\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/J9TwPY_bVwo\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Guests\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">natalia ventura (\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nataliaventura.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Artwork\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nataliaxventura/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.friendshippark.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Friendship Park\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">)\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Robie Flores (\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theinbetween-film.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ambiente Films\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/the-in-between/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Watch ‘The In Between’ on PBS\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/robieflores/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">)\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the series or have an idea to share? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:hyp@kqed.org\">hyp@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares, Host: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it turns out that JD Vance and I have something in common. We both paid a visit to my hometown on the Texas-Mexico border earlier this year. Surprise! Now the VP was in Eagle Pass doing the kind of political parade that my neighbors and I had seen for years. Because regardless of party affiliation, elected officials almost always do this kind of thing when it comes to these border stops. First, they take a tour of the area, which mostly centers on the incomplete border fence. Then they make some passionate remarks chock full of buzzwords tied to border security and immigration, cause you never know if the base is listening. And at some point there’s a photo op with border patrol and local law enforcement because y’all, these DC folks didn’t wear their good jeans and belt buckles for nothing! Now, if you don’t believe me, just comb through the hours of cable news footage that exists. Fox News, MSNBC, CNN– all of these news outlets have practically set up shop in Eagle Pass these past couple of years as my hometown has become more politicized. And honestly, it feels like they’re playing out this National Geographic wildlife documentary fantasy. Migrant caravans, undocumented immigrants, drug and human trafficking. Okay, given that we are talking about an international border, some of that is true. But I can only speak to what I know and what I see. And most of that is just mostly going to Kohl’s department store with my mother or grabbing a mango nada with my sister at our local paleteria. Not exactly a ratings draw, but which of these is a more accurate representation of the border?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Xorje Olivares, and today I’m asking, is the border from TV, real life? This is Hyphenation, where conversation and cultura meet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, talking about the border, I’m getting very homesick and the best way for me to address homesickness is to listen to music. So I’m going to ask each of my guests what song reminds them of the border. Because for me, it is a song by Tejano artist, Gary Hobbs, and it’s called Las Miradas. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Las Miradas by Gary Hobbs plays\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is fantastic. But excited to first welcome to the program, natalia ventura, who is a community organizer and an artist out of San Diego, California. Who uses her art as a tool for social change. So, natalia, thank you so much for joining us today. And I wanna ask you about what song reminds you of home or the border.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks so much for having me. My song is not a traditional borderlands song, but I think this kind of speaks to, you know, the many cultures that exist here. My mom is from Tijuana, but she was like an 80s New Wave fanatic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Love it!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so she very much embraced the music on the other side and loved New Wave. And so a song that really reminds me of home is Our House by Madness, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our House by Madness plays\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because I grew up on a cul-de-sac and just the lyrics just really remind me of her. She always played that one growing up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing that. Also excited to welcome to the show Robie Flores, who is a filmmaker. Her latest film called “The In-Between” is now available for you to watch and I highly recommend it, especially because it showcases my hometown of Eagle Pass because Robie is a classmate of mine and we’ve known each other for quite some time. So excited to have her and excited to see her and to know what her answer is to the song that reminds her of the border.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, my God, I’m so excited to say this because I think it’s going to take us all back to like morning pep rallies and cake walks. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Okay.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Robie Flores:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think, is it Fito Olivares, La Vibora…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">La Cobra! Yeah, it’s called a Cobra and it starts with It’s called La Coba and it starts with…da-da-da, if it resembles a rattlesnake\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">La Cora by Fito Olivares plays\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it’s so classic EP that’s like, it always was just kind of embarrassing to me because I felt so small town but then it’s just so good and every time you hear it we’re just like get up and dance.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It makes me happy being around other border people. I feel like we speak a special language and I’m happy for us to share that language with everybody right now, especially because the border is such an expansive place. We are talking about two specific areas right now. Eagle Pass, South Texas and San Diego, but it spans miles upon miles. So I wanna start with you, natalia, about what your specific border experience was like, has been like, just so folks can get a sense as to how you’re approaching today’s topic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>Yeah, so I think something that people who aren’t from the border don’t realize is that even within this border identity, there’s so many layers of privilege and experiences and intersections. I feel I grew up very privileged in my border crossing experience. I was born on this side as a U.S. citizen and I crossed with a global entry pass. I grew up visiting my grandparents every weekend, just being able to cross the border to enjoy like food and culture and life on the weekends over there. And then I would, you know, do my schooling during the week on this side and grew up on this side.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mmhmm, I want to ask you, Robie, because natalia hits it at a point that a lot of us understand, which is sometimes families on the other side, there’s a lot of cultural activities that happen on the other side that we want to show ourselves, especially if we don’t have those on the American side of things. So what was your border experience like growing up? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, similar to natalia, that it was, you know, it was like very lucky to be born on the American side, but it’s just, it’s such a, like on the border, it’s, just there’s resources that everybody on both sides that can cross back and forth use and do it. You know, people on either side go to school or work or, you, know, the doctor or like after school activities, every day. Ao like for me it was like I went to school in Eagle Pass but every day after school I went into dance class and piano class like my mom would pick me up and I change in the car and like put my medias on and like as we’re going over the bridge and um and it felt like I was just kind of like getting into this like different identity of like, now I’m a la bailarina and stuff. And so I’d like go to dance class every day after school and then like to my abuela’s house. And I’d wait for my parents to be done with their errands then we’d like take the bridge back home. And that was like every day. And then on the weekends, we go to, you know, my abuela’s house and then we do the carne asadas. You know, that was my border life experience. But with everybody that I was around, it was pretty typical. And so. I assumed that if you lived on the border you could just do that. And it really wasn’t until I started this movie that I was like, oh, you need a visa if you’re on the other side. Like, I didn’t understand that. I didn’t know that because the border that you and I had when we were kids, it was so fluid. And so that’s what I thought that it’s just on the border. This is just how it is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was, I was trying to explain to folks here, I’d say, you know, some folks who lived across the the river in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, that they would come to high school and they say, Well, how would they do that? I don’t know, they would just come to school. And we knew that, you knew that they were the kids that lived in Piedras. And I still to this day can’t really tell you why that is. But I love that it was indicative of the porous nature. Like we were one very large community, the Piedra Negras-Eagle Pass community. natalia, would you say that the San Diego-Tijuana community feels like that or maybe a little different in your experience? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It sounds like Eagle Pass is a little bit of a smaller town. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: It is.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here, San Ysidro is the busiest border crossing in the world. So it’s not as easy to just cross quickly. It takes time, you gotta kind of plan around it. But we still had such a cross-border community. I also had the kids in high school who crossed every day to go to school. My mom was one of those. She crossed every day to go school her whole life. So it’s very much a part of our lives as well, even though it’s a bit of a bigger city. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I’d like to also say that like kids in Eagle Pass for us also crossed to go to school on the Mexican side like it wasn’t just like Mexicans coming you know the people on the Mexican site coming for everything in the U.S. Like everybody on the Eagle Pass side was going to Piedras for also you know, the doctor, for school. So like, it’s just it’s super fluid. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I appreciate you making the distinction that it’s not just one side always coming to the other, that it goes both ways. Because growing up, even though we didn’t necessarily have immediate family relatives that lived in Piedras, that’s where I would go to the dentist.Um, but one thing I have not had a chance to do on the border and it’s not part of my border experience just yet is to do work that showcases the border. And each of you are doing such great work that highlights the fronteriza experience. So I want to start with you, natalia about, uh your navigation of art on the border.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah so for me it really started like once I left the Borderlands for college. I went up to Orange County for my undergrad and I didn’t realize how much the border was a part of my life until I left. Like even just saying I was Latina or Mexican wasn’t enough like I had to talk about my border experience in order to really speak to my Latinidad. Um, and so once I graduated. I came back home with the intention of like really rooting myself even deeper in the borderlands and to do art that was focused on uplifting my community. And so I started doing a lot of workright where the border wall meets the Pacific Ocean. It’s like the westernmost point of the border and it’s also home to a place called Friendship Park where families traditionally are able– are supposed to be able to come together and meet each other, families and friends who aren’t able to cross the border because of their citizenship status. And this is a place that has been under attack over the last few decades because of our government’s opinions and stances on border crossers and migration. And so when I started working with them, the construction of 30-foot walls was beginning at the park under the Biden administration, but it was a project started by the Trump administration. And I did a lot of organizing work with them bringing art to their activism work and using art as like a tactic of non-violence to fight against militarization at the Park. Cause this is supposed to be a place that symbolizes cross-border unity and friendship. And it was very much not that anymore.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mmhmm\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b> Some of the interventions that I’ve done with others include hanging banners on the border wall. “Parque si, muro no” is one of our slogans that we use to say we want to park here, not a wall. And I climbed up on the border wall to hang that. And then there’s also a planter that holds white sage, which is a native plant here in Southern California and Northern Baja. And we hung it on top of the border fence to kind of signify the power of this, you know, native plant, native species, and how it overcomes borders. And there’s two sculptural hands that are coming from on top of those planters touching each other to kind symbolize the human connection that we hope will win over these borders. It’s really about reconnecting to our humanity, reconnecting the land, so that’s kind of what my practice is focused on right now. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mhmm, I wanna pull this word that natalia just used, reconnecting, because it feels like that was at the focus, it was a focus point for you in this film, “The In-Between”, Robie, which I wanna share a trailer for listeners…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[ Trailer ] I must have crossed this bridge a million times, but the first time I remember was when my brothers, the twins, Mars and Alex were born. But Mars is gone now, and all I’m left with is his camera. Now that I’m back here, can I find my memories of us? Can I find you? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Robie, tell us about “The In-Between” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ay güey, Well, now you’re making me cry. This is just so surreal because, um, uh, yeah, I, I wanted to go back and make this movie in 2016. I was, I was in New York working at Bloomberg at the time. Um, and I was uh, you know, in the newsroom, I was working next to the news editors while I was like editing on another show and it was just these constant sound bites about the border and how dangerous it is and how we need walls and all these things, and it just sounded so foreign to me. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I was just like, what? It’s really chill. I mean, at least the one that I know. Like it’s like. It’s really not like they were making it sound like an action movie. And I was like, “No, let me let me show you like, I’ll invite you like come with me and I’ll show you the cool parts.” You know, and that’s, that’s what the movie was, I just wanted to invite people home and show that. But at the core of it, I wanted it to be, you know, a visit to the border for everybody that hasn’t had the privilege of getting to experience it yet.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like if you look up border on IMDB and all the movies that come out with border are always like the same stories. And I looked it up. They all are like. You know, like trauma and, you know, violence and carteles and like, you know, whatever, all the same shit. And like, we, we know that, but for us that are from the border, like we know. That border frontera, I means like carne asada means cumbia means like, you know. Like the identity crisis of not being ni de aquí, ni de alla. Yeah, it’s just like, that’s the real border crisis in my mind, you know? And it’s like, and no one’s talking about that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, like I think I didn’t realize as I was a child because there were other people around me who felt this too, but there also weren’t of just like leaving the walls of your house where you speak Spanglish to like going to school where It was discouraged to speak any Spanish. Learning from a really young age to cross borders, even when you’re not physically crossing the border or when you are. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>being from like two different worlds and not really seeing that in the media around you. I think maybe Hannah Montana was like the closest like \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, duality like…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Robie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And she said the best of both worlds, which we are.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Totally. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But this is something that I’ve been like realizing, slowly realizing and is what our mission is with this movie and like the work that we do is that there isn’t like, if you think about like, for example, New York and New Yorkers and stuff, like there’s a culture and everybody knows it. Everybody around the world knows it, like we know the accents, like we the fucking baseball hats, Like, we know, like… You know, we know all the nuances of it. And like, yet when someone makes like a movie or writes a book about New York or like a song, no one’s like, but what about the crime? Like, why isn’t, you know, like, but isn’t New York dangerous? You know what, like we do that about the border all the time!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mhmm. We’re going to take a short little break, but we’ll be back with some more Hyphenación after this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So I still get a chance to go home, maybe two to three\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">times a year and a couple of years ago, I went home for Thanksgiving and we celebrated at my primo’s ranch. He owns quite a bit of land, literally about maybe a few yards away from the Rio Grande. So we were pretty much at what you would call ground zero. And while we were there, my primo wife said, Hey, would you like a tour? Just since you haven’t seen it, we said, sure. Do you know, I saw some of the things that have been shown on TV. So saw the barbed wire, saw the dozens of national guardsmen, saw the mounds of clothing and the artifacts that have been left behind by folks making their migratory journey here into the United States. And even though I was a little bit taken aback, like, oh my God, I I wasn’t expecting to see all of this. My prima, asi como si nada, was just like saying hi to all the National Guardsmen that she sees every day and passing by all of these things that have now become, part of her day-to-day. So it does get into this notion of the normalization of what we do see on the border. And so I’m curious for you, natalia, since you do live still on the Border, what has become normalized for you of what you see? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, as you just said, it’s very normal to see barbed wire, to see construction projects constantly at the border, um, border patrollers, um, multiple like law enforcement agencies. Um, it’s normal to see people making their journeys. And all of it is very much a part of our culture here. At this point we’ve accepted the border as such a permanent strong thing as a society when in reality it’s so, it’s been a blip in our human history and we need to remember that and we need to move towards that again. Like, for example, the border walls at Friendship Park in the 70s, when the park got inaugurated by the first lady, Pat Nixon, it was just a string of barbed wire and she had her Secret Service cut it so she could greet the people on the Tijuana side. And she said, “I hope there won’t be a fence too long here.” And over the decades, it’s become a 30 foot galvanized steel double wall. Most people are just used to seeing it at this point, which is sad because it shouldn’t be that way. It’s a place where so much of the world just kind of comes together because migrants who come here are coming from all over the world, not just Latin America. And so we have a real opportunity to have kinship with people from all over the world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to focus in on this word kinship, can you tell me about the beauty of working at friendship Park?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>Yeah, I have learned so many beautiful examples of how to care radically for each other, even when we are not family, even if we’ve only known each other for a split second. The way that people who live here really care for the people on their migratory journeys is so inspiring to me and it’s something that I’ve tried to like embody more and more. When I’m driving around near the border and I see someone walking on the street, I know they’re probably on their journey and I will stop and offer them water or food. You know, it’s just something that we need to ingrain more in if you are living near the border because this is a part of that life and really practicing like treating somebody like they are your kin. I think is like the answer to so much injustice and problems around us. And it’s how we like can survive these conditions.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We also in Eagle Pass have a connection to this idea of friendship because there is an international friendship parade and day that happens in Eagle Pass where we do meet up with folks in Piedras and there’s this huge celebration and Robie I love that the in-between starts and ends with imagery that is at least to me because I know it happens for a friendship day and also for 4th of July but tell me about your reasoning for showcasing this particular moment and day. That we celebrate on the border. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean, it just like it was so funny it was the first thing I shot when I went home. It was so funny because everybody like back in New York and like this like the center of news is like freaking out about everything that’s going out on the border and like and so I’m like so like living in that for so long that I go home and I am being like, oh my God, how is everybody going to be like. I came back and they were still doing it, you know, and it’s like and they still do it now with all this shit going on. You know, like they’re still doing all the binational celebrations. Like to see the wide shot of this is like, this is what we don’t get to see, Everybody’s hanging out here under like the same beautiful sky. And like, and our river is so narrow that you can literally say hi to each other and hang out and stuff and and and it’s really beautiful. It’s just like, you know, this is our culture. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I do want to just quickly say, I do, every time I bring someone home for a visit\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">,\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I always take them during friendship week because of the Noches Mexicanas festival that you’re talking about, which interestingly enough, it’s called Noches Mexicanas on the American side.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just to further paint this picture that Robie was showing. It all takes place in a park that is beyond the border fence. So it is in this, like, weird purgatory section where it’s in between the border fence and the Rio Grande, but it has always been there. So it’s everybody with their puestecitos selling the funnel cakes, their espiropapas, the raspas, like the I was frescas. It all happens right there and it is such a beautiful reflection of community and just everything that We have. Again, this culture that we have to offer on the border, which I do want to end with this one question to each of you, which is, what is your favorite part about being from the border? I’ll say that for me, it is every time I go home, every time, I go to the border. I am allowed to remember the core of who I am and like I feel like I’ll never be able to lose that joy and pride of border identity. I want to start with you, natalia. What is your favorite part?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>Yeah, very similar. Just being able to go to Tijuana, get the world’s best tacos, eat some nieves, and just like really tap into those childhood memories, you know, just being a kid, visiting my family, enjoying life. There’s so much beauty and color in Tijuana and it’s hustling and bustling and I love it so much. And it’s such a privilege to be able to just go enjoy that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nice. What about your Robie?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love just like the remix that like we create, like we’re like the hybridity, the hyphenación, you know, like I like for us, like, I think that we’re, like so beautifully defined. When I was like in New York, all my Mexican friends that were there from Mexico City were like, nachos aren’t a Mexican food. And then, I was always like constantly being shamed for not being Mexican enough. But then I’m like, no, they’re fucking Frontera food and you’re welcome because they’re amazing and everybody has them. And this is what happens at the border. That’s one example of all these amazing things that happen at the border when these two beautiful cultures collide and influence each other. And from there, we have margaritas and Caesar salad and burritos and so many more things. And that’s the beauty of the fluidity and that I’m so proud of.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I feel like the the greatest takeaway is that there’s four great exports from the border each of us and the nacho. Well I want to think each of you for for joining me for this wonderful conversation about home Because at the center of it it really is about home for for all three of us and for a lot of people who are. So thank you both for joining me today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you. Thank you for having us, Jorge. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I do want to let folks know if you want to look at each of their works, just go to our show notes, you will have links to natalia’s work to how you can find and watch the in between Robie’s film and how you can support them in the efforts that they do. And if you are a border person, or if you have a question for us to address on hyphenation, all you have to do is email us at hyp@kqed.org. But until next time, Take care.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Credits: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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 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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you to Maha Sanad for her audience engagement support and to podcast operations intern Alana Walker. Thanks to podcast operations manager Katie Sprenger, Video Operations manager Vivian Morales, and our chief content officer Holly Kernan. Special thanks to Megan Tan, Martina Castro, and Paulina Velasco for their development support. Okay mi gente, cuídense.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"description": "The US-Mexico borderlands are often depicted in media and by politicians as a dangerous ground zero for crime and violence. But is this an accurate image of the place thousands of Americans call home? This week on Hyphenación, Host Xorje Olivares gathers with two other fronterizas, artist Natalia Ventura and filmmaker Robie Flores, who were all born and bred along the border. Together they ask, “Is the border we see on TV, real life?”",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The US-Mexico border has been a central issue in recent decades of American politics. The southern borderlands are often depicted in media and by politicians as a dangerous ground zero for crime and violence. But is this an accurate image of the place thousands of Americans call home? This week on Hyphenación, host Xorje Olivares gathers with two other fronterizas, artist natalia ventura and filmmaker Robie Flores, who were born and bred along the border. Together they ask, “Is the border we see on TV real life?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5546019730&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Watch this episode on YouTube\u003c/h2>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/J9TwPY_bVwo'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/J9TwPY_bVwo'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cb>Guests\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">natalia ventura (\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nataliaventura.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Artwork\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nataliaxventura/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.friendshippark.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Friendship Park\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">)\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Robie Flores (\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theinbetween-film.com/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ambiente Films\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/the-in-between/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Watch ‘The In Between’ on PBS\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/robieflores/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">)\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the series or have an idea to share? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:hyp@kqed.org\">hyp@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares, Host: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it turns out that JD Vance and I have something in common. We both paid a visit to my hometown on the Texas-Mexico border earlier this year. Surprise! Now the VP was in Eagle Pass doing the kind of political parade that my neighbors and I had seen for years. Because regardless of party affiliation, elected officials almost always do this kind of thing when it comes to these border stops. First, they take a tour of the area, which mostly centers on the incomplete border fence. Then they make some passionate remarks chock full of buzzwords tied to border security and immigration, cause you never know if the base is listening. And at some point there’s a photo op with border patrol and local law enforcement because y’all, these DC folks didn’t wear their good jeans and belt buckles for nothing! Now, if you don’t believe me, just comb through the hours of cable news footage that exists. Fox News, MSNBC, CNN– all of these news outlets have practically set up shop in Eagle Pass these past couple of years as my hometown has become more politicized. And honestly, it feels like they’re playing out this National Geographic wildlife documentary fantasy. Migrant caravans, undocumented immigrants, drug and human trafficking. Okay, given that we are talking about an international border, some of that is true. But I can only speak to what I know and what I see. And most of that is just mostly going to Kohl’s department store with my mother or grabbing a mango nada with my sister at our local paleteria. Not exactly a ratings draw, but which of these is a more accurate representation of the border?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Xorje Olivares, and today I’m asking, is the border from TV, real life? This is Hyphenation, where conversation and cultura meet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, talking about the border, I’m getting very homesick and the best way for me to address homesickness is to listen to music. So I’m going to ask each of my guests what song reminds them of the border. Because for me, it is a song by Tejano artist, Gary Hobbs, and it’s called Las Miradas. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Las Miradas by Gary Hobbs plays\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is fantastic. But excited to first welcome to the program, natalia ventura, who is a community organizer and an artist out of San Diego, California. Who uses her art as a tool for social change. So, natalia, thank you so much for joining us today. And I wanna ask you about what song reminds you of home or the border.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks so much for having me. My song is not a traditional borderlands song, but I think this kind of speaks to, you know, the many cultures that exist here. My mom is from Tijuana, but she was like an 80s New Wave fanatic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Love it!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so she very much embraced the music on the other side and loved New Wave. And so a song that really reminds me of home is Our House by Madness, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our House by Madness plays\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because I grew up on a cul-de-sac and just the lyrics just really remind me of her. She always played that one growing up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing that. Also excited to welcome to the show Robie Flores, who is a filmmaker. Her latest film called “The In-Between” is now available for you to watch and I highly recommend it, especially because it showcases my hometown of Eagle Pass because Robie is a classmate of mine and we’ve known each other for quite some time. So excited to have her and excited to see her and to know what her answer is to the song that reminds her of the border.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, my God, I’m so excited to say this because I think it’s going to take us all back to like morning pep rallies and cake walks. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Okay.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Robie Flores:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think, is it Fito Olivares, La Vibora…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">La Cobra! Yeah, it’s called a Cobra and it starts with It’s called La Coba and it starts with…da-da-da, if it resembles a rattlesnake\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">La Cora by Fito Olivares plays\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it’s so classic EP that’s like, it always was just kind of embarrassing to me because I felt so small town but then it’s just so good and every time you hear it we’re just like get up and dance.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It makes me happy being around other border people. I feel like we speak a special language and I’m happy for us to share that language with everybody right now, especially because the border is such an expansive place. We are talking about two specific areas right now. Eagle Pass, South Texas and San Diego, but it spans miles upon miles. So I wanna start with you, natalia, about what your specific border experience was like, has been like, just so folks can get a sense as to how you’re approaching today’s topic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>Yeah, so I think something that people who aren’t from the border don’t realize is that even within this border identity, there’s so many layers of privilege and experiences and intersections. I feel I grew up very privileged in my border crossing experience. I was born on this side as a U.S. citizen and I crossed with a global entry pass. I grew up visiting my grandparents every weekend, just being able to cross the border to enjoy like food and culture and life on the weekends over there. And then I would, you know, do my schooling during the week on this side and grew up on this side.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mmhmm, I want to ask you, Robie, because natalia hits it at a point that a lot of us understand, which is sometimes families on the other side, there’s a lot of cultural activities that happen on the other side that we want to show ourselves, especially if we don’t have those on the American side of things. So what was your border experience like growing up? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, similar to natalia, that it was, you know, it was like very lucky to be born on the American side, but it’s just, it’s such a, like on the border, it’s, just there’s resources that everybody on both sides that can cross back and forth use and do it. You know, people on either side go to school or work or, you, know, the doctor or like after school activities, every day. Ao like for me it was like I went to school in Eagle Pass but every day after school I went into dance class and piano class like my mom would pick me up and I change in the car and like put my medias on and like as we’re going over the bridge and um and it felt like I was just kind of like getting into this like different identity of like, now I’m a la bailarina and stuff. And so I’d like go to dance class every day after school and then like to my abuela’s house. And I’d wait for my parents to be done with their errands then we’d like take the bridge back home. And that was like every day. And then on the weekends, we go to, you know, my abuela’s house and then we do the carne asadas. You know, that was my border life experience. But with everybody that I was around, it was pretty typical. And so. I assumed that if you lived on the border you could just do that. And it really wasn’t until I started this movie that I was like, oh, you need a visa if you’re on the other side. Like, I didn’t understand that. I didn’t know that because the border that you and I had when we were kids, it was so fluid. And so that’s what I thought that it’s just on the border. This is just how it is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was, I was trying to explain to folks here, I’d say, you know, some folks who lived across the the river in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, that they would come to high school and they say, Well, how would they do that? I don’t know, they would just come to school. And we knew that, you knew that they were the kids that lived in Piedras. And I still to this day can’t really tell you why that is. But I love that it was indicative of the porous nature. Like we were one very large community, the Piedra Negras-Eagle Pass community. natalia, would you say that the San Diego-Tijuana community feels like that or maybe a little different in your experience? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It sounds like Eagle Pass is a little bit of a smaller town. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: It is.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here, San Ysidro is the busiest border crossing in the world. So it’s not as easy to just cross quickly. It takes time, you gotta kind of plan around it. But we still had such a cross-border community. I also had the kids in high school who crossed every day to go to school. My mom was one of those. She crossed every day to go school her whole life. So it’s very much a part of our lives as well, even though it’s a bit of a bigger city. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I’d like to also say that like kids in Eagle Pass for us also crossed to go to school on the Mexican side like it wasn’t just like Mexicans coming you know the people on the Mexican site coming for everything in the U.S. Like everybody on the Eagle Pass side was going to Piedras for also you know, the doctor, for school. So like, it’s just it’s super fluid. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I appreciate you making the distinction that it’s not just one side always coming to the other, that it goes both ways. Because growing up, even though we didn’t necessarily have immediate family relatives that lived in Piedras, that’s where I would go to the dentist.Um, but one thing I have not had a chance to do on the border and it’s not part of my border experience just yet is to do work that showcases the border. And each of you are doing such great work that highlights the fronteriza experience. So I want to start with you, natalia about, uh your navigation of art on the border.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah so for me it really started like once I left the Borderlands for college. I went up to Orange County for my undergrad and I didn’t realize how much the border was a part of my life until I left. Like even just saying I was Latina or Mexican wasn’t enough like I had to talk about my border experience in order to really speak to my Latinidad. Um, and so once I graduated. I came back home with the intention of like really rooting myself even deeper in the borderlands and to do art that was focused on uplifting my community. And so I started doing a lot of workright where the border wall meets the Pacific Ocean. It’s like the westernmost point of the border and it’s also home to a place called Friendship Park where families traditionally are able– are supposed to be able to come together and meet each other, families and friends who aren’t able to cross the border because of their citizenship status. And this is a place that has been under attack over the last few decades because of our government’s opinions and stances on border crossers and migration. And so when I started working with them, the construction of 30-foot walls was beginning at the park under the Biden administration, but it was a project started by the Trump administration. And I did a lot of organizing work with them bringing art to their activism work and using art as like a tactic of non-violence to fight against militarization at the Park. Cause this is supposed to be a place that symbolizes cross-border unity and friendship. And it was very much not that anymore.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mmhmm\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b> Some of the interventions that I’ve done with others include hanging banners on the border wall. “Parque si, muro no” is one of our slogans that we use to say we want to park here, not a wall. And I climbed up on the border wall to hang that. And then there’s also a planter that holds white sage, which is a native plant here in Southern California and Northern Baja. And we hung it on top of the border fence to kind of signify the power of this, you know, native plant, native species, and how it overcomes borders. And there’s two sculptural hands that are coming from on top of those planters touching each other to kind symbolize the human connection that we hope will win over these borders. It’s really about reconnecting to our humanity, reconnecting the land, so that’s kind of what my practice is focused on right now. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mhmm, I wanna pull this word that natalia just used, reconnecting, because it feels like that was at the focus, it was a focus point for you in this film, “The In-Between”, Robie, which I wanna share a trailer for listeners…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[ Trailer ] I must have crossed this bridge a million times, but the first time I remember was when my brothers, the twins, Mars and Alex were born. But Mars is gone now, and all I’m left with is his camera. Now that I’m back here, can I find my memories of us? Can I find you? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Robie, tell us about “The In-Between” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ay güey, Well, now you’re making me cry. This is just so surreal because, um, uh, yeah, I, I wanted to go back and make this movie in 2016. I was, I was in New York working at Bloomberg at the time. Um, and I was uh, you know, in the newsroom, I was working next to the news editors while I was like editing on another show and it was just these constant sound bites about the border and how dangerous it is and how we need walls and all these things, and it just sounded so foreign to me. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I was just like, what? It’s really chill. I mean, at least the one that I know. Like it’s like. It’s really not like they were making it sound like an action movie. And I was like, “No, let me let me show you like, I’ll invite you like come with me and I’ll show you the cool parts.” You know, and that’s, that’s what the movie was, I just wanted to invite people home and show that. But at the core of it, I wanted it to be, you know, a visit to the border for everybody that hasn’t had the privilege of getting to experience it yet.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like if you look up border on IMDB and all the movies that come out with border are always like the same stories. And I looked it up. They all are like. You know, like trauma and, you know, violence and carteles and like, you know, whatever, all the same shit. And like, we, we know that, but for us that are from the border, like we know. That border frontera, I means like carne asada means cumbia means like, you know. Like the identity crisis of not being ni de aquí, ni de alla. Yeah, it’s just like, that’s the real border crisis in my mind, you know? And it’s like, and no one’s talking about that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, like I think I didn’t realize as I was a child because there were other people around me who felt this too, but there also weren’t of just like leaving the walls of your house where you speak Spanglish to like going to school where It was discouraged to speak any Spanish. Learning from a really young age to cross borders, even when you’re not physically crossing the border or when you are. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>being from like two different worlds and not really seeing that in the media around you. I think maybe Hannah Montana was like the closest like \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, duality like…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Robie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And she said the best of both worlds, which we are.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Totally. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> But this is something that I’ve been like realizing, slowly realizing and is what our mission is with this movie and like the work that we do is that there isn’t like, if you think about like, for example, New York and New Yorkers and stuff, like there’s a culture and everybody knows it. Everybody around the world knows it, like we know the accents, like we the fucking baseball hats, Like, we know, like… You know, we know all the nuances of it. And like, yet when someone makes like a movie or writes a book about New York or like a song, no one’s like, but what about the crime? Like, why isn’t, you know, like, but isn’t New York dangerous? You know what, like we do that about the border all the time!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mhmm. We’re going to take a short little break, but we’ll be back with some more Hyphenación after this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So I still get a chance to go home, maybe two to three\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">times a year and a couple of years ago, I went home for Thanksgiving and we celebrated at my primo’s ranch. He owns quite a bit of land, literally about maybe a few yards away from the Rio Grande. So we were pretty much at what you would call ground zero. And while we were there, my primo wife said, Hey, would you like a tour? Just since you haven’t seen it, we said, sure. Do you know, I saw some of the things that have been shown on TV. So saw the barbed wire, saw the dozens of national guardsmen, saw the mounds of clothing and the artifacts that have been left behind by folks making their migratory journey here into the United States. And even though I was a little bit taken aback, like, oh my God, I I wasn’t expecting to see all of this. My prima, asi como si nada, was just like saying hi to all the National Guardsmen that she sees every day and passing by all of these things that have now become, part of her day-to-day. So it does get into this notion of the normalization of what we do see on the border. And so I’m curious for you, natalia, since you do live still on the Border, what has become normalized for you of what you see? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, as you just said, it’s very normal to see barbed wire, to see construction projects constantly at the border, um, border patrollers, um, multiple like law enforcement agencies. Um, it’s normal to see people making their journeys. And all of it is very much a part of our culture here. At this point we’ve accepted the border as such a permanent strong thing as a society when in reality it’s so, it’s been a blip in our human history and we need to remember that and we need to move towards that again. Like, for example, the border walls at Friendship Park in the 70s, when the park got inaugurated by the first lady, Pat Nixon, it was just a string of barbed wire and she had her Secret Service cut it so she could greet the people on the Tijuana side. And she said, “I hope there won’t be a fence too long here.” And over the decades, it’s become a 30 foot galvanized steel double wall. Most people are just used to seeing it at this point, which is sad because it shouldn’t be that way. It’s a place where so much of the world just kind of comes together because migrants who come here are coming from all over the world, not just Latin America. And so we have a real opportunity to have kinship with people from all over the world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to focus in on this word kinship, can you tell me about the beauty of working at friendship Park?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>Yeah, I have learned so many beautiful examples of how to care radically for each other, even when we are not family, even if we’ve only known each other for a split second. The way that people who live here really care for the people on their migratory journeys is so inspiring to me and it’s something that I’ve tried to like embody more and more. When I’m driving around near the border and I see someone walking on the street, I know they’re probably on their journey and I will stop and offer them water or food. You know, it’s just something that we need to ingrain more in if you are living near the border because this is a part of that life and really practicing like treating somebody like they are your kin. I think is like the answer to so much injustice and problems around us. And it’s how we like can survive these conditions.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We also in Eagle Pass have a connection to this idea of friendship because there is an international friendship parade and day that happens in Eagle Pass where we do meet up with folks in Piedras and there’s this huge celebration and Robie I love that the in-between starts and ends with imagery that is at least to me because I know it happens for a friendship day and also for 4th of July but tell me about your reasoning for showcasing this particular moment and day. That we celebrate on the border. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean, it just like it was so funny it was the first thing I shot when I went home. It was so funny because everybody like back in New York and like this like the center of news is like freaking out about everything that’s going out on the border and like and so I’m like so like living in that for so long that I go home and I am being like, oh my God, how is everybody going to be like. I came back and they were still doing it, you know, and it’s like and they still do it now with all this shit going on. You know, like they’re still doing all the binational celebrations. Like to see the wide shot of this is like, this is what we don’t get to see, Everybody’s hanging out here under like the same beautiful sky. And like, and our river is so narrow that you can literally say hi to each other and hang out and stuff and and and it’s really beautiful. It’s just like, you know, this is our culture. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I do want to just quickly say, I do, every time I bring someone home for a visit\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">,\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I always take them during friendship week because of the Noches Mexicanas festival that you’re talking about, which interestingly enough, it’s called Noches Mexicanas on the American side.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just to further paint this picture that Robie was showing. It all takes place in a park that is beyond the border fence. So it is in this, like, weird purgatory section where it’s in between the border fence and the Rio Grande, but it has always been there. So it’s everybody with their puestecitos selling the funnel cakes, their espiropapas, the raspas, like the I was frescas. It all happens right there and it is such a beautiful reflection of community and just everything that We have. Again, this culture that we have to offer on the border, which I do want to end with this one question to each of you, which is, what is your favorite part about being from the border? I’ll say that for me, it is every time I go home, every time, I go to the border. I am allowed to remember the core of who I am and like I feel like I’ll never be able to lose that joy and pride of border identity. I want to start with you, natalia. What is your favorite part?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>natalia ventura: \u003c/b>Yeah, very similar. Just being able to go to Tijuana, get the world’s best tacos, eat some nieves, and just like really tap into those childhood memories, you know, just being a kid, visiting my family, enjoying life. There’s so much beauty and color in Tijuana and it’s hustling and bustling and I love it so much. And it’s such a privilege to be able to just go enjoy that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nice. What about your Robie?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love just like the remix that like we create, like we’re like the hybridity, the hyphenación, you know, like I like for us, like, I think that we’re, like so beautifully defined. When I was like in New York, all my Mexican friends that were there from Mexico City were like, nachos aren’t a Mexican food. And then, I was always like constantly being shamed for not being Mexican enough. But then I’m like, no, they’re fucking Frontera food and you’re welcome because they’re amazing and everybody has them. And this is what happens at the border. That’s one example of all these amazing things that happen at the border when these two beautiful cultures collide and influence each other. And from there, we have margaritas and Caesar salad and burritos and so many more things. And that’s the beauty of the fluidity and that I’m so proud of.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I feel like the the greatest takeaway is that there’s four great exports from the border each of us and the nacho. Well I want to think each of you for for joining me for this wonderful conversation about home Because at the center of it it really is about home for for all three of us and for a lot of people who are. So thank you both for joining me today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robie Flores: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you. Thank you for having us, Jorge. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I do want to let folks know if you want to look at each of their works, just go to our show notes, you will have links to natalia’s work to how you can find and watch the in between Robie’s film and how you can support them in the efforts that they do. And if you are a border person, or if you have a question for us to address on hyphenation, all you have to do is email us at hyp@kqed.org. But until next time, Take care.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Credits: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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 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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you to Maha Sanad for her audience engagement support and to podcast operations intern Alana Walker. Thanks to podcast operations manager Katie Sprenger, Video Operations manager Vivian Morales, and our chief content officer Holly Kernan. Special thanks to Megan Tan, Martina Castro, and Paulina Velasco for their development support. Okay mi gente, cuídense.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Immigrants to the U.S. have all heard about the American Dream — that in this land of opportunity, anyone can make it regardless of class. People come from all over the world to chase this dream, but it seems like the land of opportunities is not providing many of them anymore. This week on Hyphenación, host Xorje Olivares speaks with journalist and author Paola Ramos (\u003cem>Defectors\u003c/em>) and fellow journalist Brian De Los Santos to explore the questions “What do Latinos actually want from this country? And can it give it to us?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC7100365102&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Watch this episode on YouTube\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/5j6YUeqbHZw\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paola Ramos (\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/paoramos/\">Instagram, \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/741645/defectors-by-paola-ramos/\">\u003cem>Defectors\u003c/em>\u003c/a>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian De Los Santos (\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/bdelossantos1/?hl=en\">Instagram\u003c/a>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the series or have an idea to share? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:hyp@kqed.org\">hyp@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\n[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ah, the American dream. How we’ve heard of her for generations. Well, I should say versions of her, because this is the version that I grew up with. Well for starters, I’d be a homeowner. I’m thinking a spacious three-bedroom, two-bathroom in a nice neighborhood with some killer curb appeal. I’d then have that weird, not a given average of 2.3 kids, each of which would probably go to an overpriced prestigious school. Even Yeah, point three one because I love my kids equally. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And me, well, I’d be a lawyer, or a doctor, or some other career that my parents could gush about to their compadres. Oh mijo, fíjate, he’s doing really well for himself, we’re very proud of him.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, clearly I decided to emphasize the dream part of this American dream scenario, because that’s definitely not my life. I’m a longtime renter, I’m a dog parent, and even though I don’t save lives like a doctor would, I’d like to think I change lives with my podcasts. And I’m okay with that! Because I think I’m doing pretty well. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But that doesn’t really negate the fact that I was conditioned to want a lot more for myself, by my parents, by society, by the culture around me. Because to be American means to have certain expectations for yourself and for your country, when it comes to pursuing personal and professional successes. I should be able to do this. I should able to afford that. Regardless of my race, religion, gender, lo que sea. In essence, life should feel easy in this very powerful nation. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But that hasn’t always been realistic for a lot of folks, especially in the face of institutional racism and poverty. And with unemployment still high, bills mounting up and individual rights seemingly in limbo. Does any of that sound like the promise of America? I’m Xorge Olivares, and I’m asking What do we really want from America? And what is it able to give it to us? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Hyphenación, where conversation and cultura meet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, I just gave an idea about what my dream house would seem like if I was able to pursue this American dream. And I’m curious about what my guests would like to live in. And I am starting off with my first guest, Paola Ramos. She is a journalist and an author mostly of Latine experiences, the most recent being called \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Defectors\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which talks about the rise of the far right Latino community. Paola, thank you so much for joining me today. And I’m curious, what would your house look like? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I envision it in the West Village of New York City. I envision a brownstone. I envision, like, wood floors, high ceilings, like open windows. I would be okay in that setting with two bedrooms. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And maybe like I can live close to a park, forget that I’m in the city, but then when I want to, I’m the city. Like that’s the dream for sure. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m talking to you… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I might steal this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos:\u003c/b>…\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">from a\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Small apartment in Brooklyn, New York, no complaints, but one day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the West Village. Oh, I love that. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We’re also joined by Brian De Los Santos who is an LA-based journalist and a proud Angelino. So I have to ask, Brian, is your dream house in Los Angeles?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hell yeah.100%. And I would say Malibu, but you know what happened there with the fires early this year. So I gotta rethink my dream house, you know. My first instinct is the beach, the waves, some above that California marijuana. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laughter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vibes all around. I love the beach. I’m a Leo. I get I love warm days. But the second part to that answer is I have a condo that has two stories. It’s out in the desert. Unfortunately, I don’t live there, like, I don’t live there right now because I’m in LA. But it’s, yeah, I would say I was able to get a little bit of the American dream, but it’s not, I’m not there right now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you both for your answers and thank you for joining me for this conversation because I think there’s something to say about the American dream and it somehow being synonymous with this notion of upward mobility and that also kind of resonates with immigration stories, migration stories, like why most folks came to this country to begin with. And so I wanna focus there first. And I wanna start with you, Paola, if you don’t mind maybe sharing your family’s migration story and how this notion of America even first came to be for you all. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When it comes to my parents, for them, it was really around grasping here a very basic principle and freedom and right that didn’t exist where they came from, which is back then the basic principle of freedom of press and freedom of speech. So my mom is a Cuban exile, comes from a family of Cuban immigrants. My grandfather was a journalist in Cuba, first started with the revolution, started with Castro and sort of two years into Castro’s sort of rise in power, my grandfather ends up being imprisoned because he was writing articles against el Castrismo. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My father leaves Mexico at a time when Televisa, the, of course, massive Mexican media empire, at that point in his career, this is mid-’80s, they start restricting his radio pieces and his radio stories. And so he decides to leave. And so both of my parents come to the United States looking for that, looking to freely express themselves. And looking for freedom of press. My dad who then ended up becoming a news anchor for Univision, he would always tell me the biggest privilege and power you will ever have is your pen, this ability to write stories, to hold people in power accountable, the ability to ask questions. And I think that I sort of grew up with that understanding that were I ever to walk into those spaces of power, like that was my duty, my duty was that. And so I think that is the sort of environment and the conversations that I grew up in. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re now, of course, existing in a very different reality as journalists, and so this is something that I wake up with thinking about every single day. Slowly, these rights that I grew up with, they’re slowly eroding in front of us every single day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm, Brian, how did your family approach their migration to this country? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, well, I came with my parents. My dad came here first, and then I came with my mom in 1992. And I think for them, the American dream was just financial freedom, any little bit of it. They were leaving Mexico in an era where it was everyone’s financially challenged and there was no way out and they were seeing opportunities happen here in the late 80s and that’s what inspired them to come here, and so my parents are Christian pastors. And so they feel their success is tied with the religion, whether that is establishing a church of their own or that is serving in some way. So it really isn’t just about financial success or their home. FYI, my parents were undocumented when they came into this country. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They always told me you know work hard you’re gonna get something bigger in return you’re going to be successful at things and I think that impacted me so much when I was a little kid that that’s what I thought was gonna happen and I hoped that would happen. They ended up buying a house. The market crash happened in 2007, 2008. And they were impacted. And I think that’s when they realized, oh, this shit is hard. You know, this is, you can be an immigrant, you can a good immigrant, you can do everything by the book and it’ll still be, you will still fail. And I do believe millennials, no shade to anyone else… \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> [\u003c/span>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laughte\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cem>r\u003c/em>] \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> … and no shade to any other generation, but I think millennials are redefining what that American dream is. Like I am talking to my friends about like, they’re not getting pregnant, some couples are like, “I don’t care about buying a house anymore. I want to be stable and I want to go on vacations with my family.” Do I care about a home? I don’t know. So we’ll see. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I like this idea of the shifting tides of the American dream. I mean, you addressed it. I talked about it in the intro. I don’t have any of the things that I thought would be part of the American dream that I grew up with. And Paola have you had conversations either with your friends, other family members about how what you’re pursuing just doesn’t seem to be identical to what they had in mind for you? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I mean, I’m thinking of what I was thinking when I was five. And I think I think that’s the thing. This American dream sort of like corrupts your mind, you know, and it pushes you to believe that you’re supposed to meet certain certain measures. Like, I thought that by the time I was 37, which is what I am, I thought that I would be married to a man. I’m a lesbian. If I had that, I would be, you know, yes, like living in this house. And I think for many of us millennials, we’re understanding that it is extremely hard to achieve that in this country. In this country that sells you that this is a country of possibilities that sells you the message that you can do it all, which sure, we’re all trying as hard as we can, but I think what we’re coming to terms with is that at what cost, no? And that’s the question. I believe that I can achieve all these things, but I feel like I’m kind of selling my soul to the system, no?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I look around me, and I’m speaking from a point of immense privilege. But when I’m out there doing, you know, interviews and of course, more than anything, like talking to, like, mixed status families and immigrants, more often than not, I feel like I’m kind of sensing this big shift right now, where this American dream and the idea of it is dimming, because sure, we are sort of checking the measures, the economic measures. No, we’re- we’re having better opportunities than our parents, upward mobility is a real thing, but then the question of like, are we still truly respected, right? Like are our rights truly being respected? Like is dignity, you know the dignity that this country promises in that dream, like does that fully exist? You know? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So is it a myth, the American dream, or is it just evolving to a place that we can’t quite define it yet? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I low-key think it’s a myth, and I’ll let people process that by their own. As Paola was talking about her own privilege, I also need to check myself because I have DACA, which is a work permit, and sometimes like Paola, when I’m interviewing mixed-status families, I’m like, I feel the privilege that I hold in this space, whether it’s in media or whether it is just having financial stability. And so for me, it’s a myth in other theories, in other ways that we see out there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean, I think that’s like the key question that we’re wrestling with as a nation and in American politics right now is like, you know, are we truly or are we all headed towards this like multiracial, pluralistic, diverse democracy, or at our core, is it always the case that we keep going back to roots of this country, right, which is a country that was founded upon the principles of white supremacy. And it is a country that every turn, every time it can, it has oppressed and oppressed and oppressed every attempt to sort of diverge from those origins. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so I think that’s kind of what we’re wrestling with as a country. And I think not to bring it back to politics, but I think that’s why perhaps the 2024 election once again was such a shock for so many people because it was like. Here we are again, we had an opportunity to elect a black women president, and yet again, we couldn’t do it. No, here we are again, we’ve had multiple attempts at passing comprehensive immigration reform, and yeah, we don’t do it. No, Here we again, separating families. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so I think it’s almost like, at some point, we have to be real with what we’re dealing with. And if it is true, in fact, that are we or not a country of immigrants, like are we or not, you know, like all of these have for so many years, like shaped the way that we think of this country, right? Which is, yes, it’s a country full of dreams and the American dream. And perhaps, perhaps we’re not.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, we’re going to take a short little break and we’ll be right back.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Politics is cyclical, some of these stories we’ve been hearing about for generations for, you know, multiple administrations. Like, because the timeline seems like it’s repeating itself, do we think that’s why the American dream continues on? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t know. I’m kind of going through my own personal crisis in this era. I think for me also, my personal story is as an undocumented immigrant who has a work permit that could go away any second, I’m always on survival mode. Like whether I have a house or whether I own a car or not. I don’t know what’s gonna happen with my future. And the pathway to a green card to citizenship is not there for me. I have to go through different loopholes to try to get one. And even though I have an immigration lawyer and we’re trying to do what we can for my case, it’s not the easiest one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>XO: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Paola what do you think?\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, look, I think so long as this country continues to present us with opportunities, you know opportunities that are better here than those where our family’s left behind, the dream will continue to exist. However, I do think that we are in the midst of a breaking point where, at least I’m finding as I’m talking to people, people that aren’t being deported. I’m talking about people that are choosing to leave on their own terms. And I think there’s a type of empowerment and liberation that is coming from families that are kind of looking at themselves and at their journey in this country and that are saying, you know what, I can’t do it anymore. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unfortunately, I’ve been meeting a significant amount of people that are making that decision and I’ve had following them around the country. And I’ve done following them across the border. And I’m talking to you after just coming back from Panama and Columbia, where I was able to talk to, for example, like a group of 30 Venezuelans many of them were waiting along the US-Mexico border in limbo for a couple of months, and all of whom decided at some point in the last couple of weeks that they couldn’t take it anymore. That it was not worth it for them to live in a country. That would criminalize them and deport them to another country simply because of their tattoos. And so in those conversations, they chose that their dignity at this point was more worth it than living in a country that was giving them the bare minimum. But then I think I mentioned that it’s a breaking point because then what really stuck with me is that when I asked them, is this dream replaceable? They said, yes. And so what happens when you leave the dream and you sort of start looking for it elsewhere? And I think that’s kind of where we’re at.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, let’s get to the question, which is at the heart of the episode, which is what do you want from America? And what do think it can give you? Brian, what is it that you want?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, damn. You put it so deeply. Almost got me teary-eyed over it right now. The one thing that I come back to is, as an immigrant in this country, I just want to be treated like a human. I don’t want to be seen as a policy story. I don’t want to be seen as a tax ID number. I don’t want to be seen as anything else but just like, oh, he’s a dude who wants to do this and that and is talented. And I think that’s where, you know, I could see the American dream be about as a human and be treated as such, but sometimes I feel like a number in this country. So if I had a little magic wand and be like, Brian, what do you want out of this country is people respect each other and are more empathetic, even though that’s a controversial topic out there that empathy is not a thing. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I want to be treated more humanly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I like that. Paola, What would yours be? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have to agree. I mean, I think it’s, yeah, just to have this country love you back entirely. And I think the expectation was that at this time in history, you know, just talking about myself, as queer people in this diverse nation, the expectation is that we would be more loved. And I don’t think we’re necessarily, we’re definitely not there yet. And so I think I expect like a very basic level of humanity and love. And I expect that in these moments of transition, I expect this country to really truly uphold its democratic norms and institutions that allow for these dreams to be alive. You know what I’m saying? So like at a time when there’s so much uncertainty, My expectation, and I’m not a religious person, but I pray for this, is that those core democratic norms are unshakable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, you\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">witnessed part of this transition, especially as it’s documented in your book \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Defectors\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, because it’s talking about the rise or at least now folks are becoming a bit more aware of the conservative wing of the Latino community. So if you can share a little bit about maybe what they told you about their dreams and desires of what this country should give them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The story is that we believed, that as Latinos, our American dream looked a certain way. I think what we’re also understanding is that for those over 45% of Latinos that voted for Trump, I think they are showing us that. The American dream can be corrupted. Knowing that there’s a point in this journey where like individualism and capitalism and our sort of ambition to make it in this country, our ambition to assimilate, our ambition to attain power, our mission to be at the top, that can lead a lot of people, including Latinos and including immigrants and including black and brown people, that can leave you to a more corrupted darker version of the American Dream. Now that can be a brown person to find something extremely appealing in Trump’s version of the American dream, which is an American dream that is whiter, that is less threatened by diversity. And I think A, is just like sitting with that reality, but then understanding, and I think that’s kind of like the more interesting part, like posing the question to all the like Latino insurrectionists that I’ve interviewed and the Latino Proud Boys and sort of the border vigilantes that find something so appealing in Trumps like, version of the American Dream, the question that I now have for them is like, today in Trump’s America, how free are you? Did you attain that power? Did he give you anything? Do you have more now than you did back then? And I think slowly, perhaps, the answer is no, right? But I think the illusion of that dream is more powerful, of course, than the reality. And that’s what I believe, I would assume, is what many of them are coming to terms \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you think that the American dream can only exist in competition to someone else’s? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that’s how we’ve typically defined the dream. And I think if we define the dream as a dream of possibilities, then yes. But I think we define a dream as the dream is based on rights, and freedoms, and justice, and movements, then it’s different. And I that’s why when you ask this question, people are going to give you two different versions. Yes, I attained the dream of possibility. But no, I didn’t attain the dream of rights and freedoms. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But I think because we’re so used to talking about this in economic terms and in the frame of upward mobility, I think that’s where people do get threatened, because then the dream means that you’re taking something away from the other person, that you are climbing up the ladder, but not the other person. And I think, unfortunately, if we’ve learned something within American politics and within Latino politics, is that we too can be greedy, and that we, too, many times don’t want the other immigrants to climb up the ladder the same way that we did. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that is a harsh reality of where we are, you know? That in this country, we’re so used to working so hard to attain that dream and they make it so hard to do it that we then become so corrupted that we don’t want the same opportunities for that other person. And that, that is something that is, that does happen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, and I think it’s because some people will be like oh well I made it and I’m fine and why aren’t you making it. I’m like honey, we’re not the same people, you know. There was a conversation at my dinner table. Mom, I’m sorry, but I’m going to say it here. Um, she saw a video on YouTube, got her news from there. And she’s like, why are these immigrants coming in this way? They’re like invading the country. I’m like, mom, you crossed the border with me in 1992. What are you talking about? And I had to check her. I’m, like, you cannot be like talking about this news that you got from YouTube that you don’t, I don’t know what channel she got it from. With all these bad references. I’m like, you are a leader in your community. You cannot talk about immigrants this way. You are one. And so just going back to the fact that Paola brought up, some people will pull up the ladder away from the next person that’s coming in. It’s happening. And so for me, it’s just wild to see these things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Brian, you actually had a chance to do something which I haven’t had a change to do, which is ask your parents directly about this question on the American dream that, at least my parents sold me first. But how did that conversation go? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I was a little scared to ask them because I’m like, am I gonna be frazzled by their answer? But my dad kept it really real. He’s like, we know that the policies or even people have treated each other badly in this country. And he knows it hasn’t been easy. He knows that he’s had his own personal hurdles and at his church, he’s also seen other people’s hurdles. And we’ve seen people get deported, we’ve seen people. Lose themselves in this country. And so what he says, I feel like this is a place that everyone can come to, but we know it’s hard and not everyone can make it here. And, I feel like I’m still happy being here. Like he’s, he says he’s not going to bag on the US. He’s not going to talk bad about the US, but he says. He understands how people experience the life here. And he’s happy where he’s at.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nice. Paola, have you had a chance to talk to your parents about this or saving it for Thanksgiving? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, I think, look, they have, I would say, different ideas. So I think my dad is someone that fundamentally believes that the dream is alive and that it is worth sticking around to see where it ends. No, and like I said, so long as, and I think that’s how he would measure it, not so long, as his children, which is myself and my brother, have more opportunities than him. Which we did. We went to American colleges and we were able to sort of enter the English-speaking media world in a way that he has never been able to. So long as those things are real, I think my dad will always say it’s worth it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My mother left the United States two years ago, so my mom now lives in Spain. She’s in Madrid. And I think that’s given her a lot of perspective, not to be able to see the US from afar, particularly the US that we’re sort of evolving into and turning into. And I mean, she would probably say, if I were to ask her, like, would you ever come back and live here on your choice voluntarily? I would assume that she would say no. Because I think then in Spain, she has found a certain like peace. She also is a journalist. So I think kind of like leaving the crazy world of American journalism and like the newsrooms. I also think maybe that has something to do with it. No, she’s not as crazy as dude, but I think there’s a level of calmness and peace. Maybe there’s something to not living in the sort of day-to-day competitiveness, sort of like all of us hustling. And I think she’s content. And I think in her eyes, she would probably say that it’s perhaps… Attainable elsewhere, not just in the U.S. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wanna thank both of you for joining me for this. It really was an existential conversation about, like, what are we doing\u003c/span>\u003cb>.\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And so I could not have thought of two better people to have this conversation. So thank you so much for joining me today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you. This was like therapy, honestly. So I’m good for the week. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Canceling my session this week. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Paola Ramos:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Literally!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do want to remind our listeners, if you want to send us your thoughts about what the American Dream is, or what your version of the American dream is, please send us an email at HYP at kqed.org, or if you want to sent us an idea for an upcoming episode. But until then, hasta luego.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hyphenación is a KQED Studios Production. It is produced by Ana De Almeida Amaral, Alex Tran, and me, Xorje Olivares.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chris Hambrick is our editor.\u003cbr>\nMixing and mastering by Christopher Beale.\u003cbr>\nJen Chien is executive producer and KQED’s director of podcasts.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you to Maha Sanad for her audience engagement support and to podcast operations intern Alana Walker.\u003cbr>\nThanks to podcast operations manager Katie Sprenger, Video Operations manager Vivian Morales, and our chief content officer Holly Kernan.\u003cbr>\nSpecial thanks to Megan Tan, Martina Castro, and Paulina Velasco for their development support.\u003cbr>\nOkay mi gente, cuídense.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"description": "Immigrants to the U.S. have all heard about the American Dream-- that in this land of opportunity, anyone can make it regardless of class. People come from all over the world to chase this dream, but it seems like the land of opportunity is not providing many of them anymore. This week on Hyphenación, Host Xorje Olivares speaks with journalist and author Paola Ramos (Defectors) and fellow journalist Brian De Los Santos to explore the questions “What do Latinos actually want from this country? Can it give it to us?”",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Immigrants to the U.S. have all heard about the American Dream — that in this land of opportunity, anyone can make it regardless of class. People come from all over the world to chase this dream, but it seems like the land of opportunities is not providing many of them anymore. This week on Hyphenación, host Xorje Olivares speaks with journalist and author Paola Ramos (\u003cem>Defectors\u003c/em>) and fellow journalist Brian De Los Santos to explore the questions “What do Latinos actually want from this country? And can it give it to us?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC7100365102&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Watch this episode on YouTube\u003c/h2>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/5j6YUeqbHZw'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/5j6YUeqbHZw'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paola Ramos (\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/paoramos/\">Instagram, \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/741645/defectors-by-paola-ramos/\">\u003cem>Defectors\u003c/em>\u003c/a>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian De Los Santos (\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/bdelossantos1/?hl=en\">Instagram\u003c/a>)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the series or have an idea to share? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:hyp@kqed.org\">hyp@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ah, the American dream. How we’ve heard of her for generations. Well, I should say versions of her, because this is the version that I grew up with. Well for starters, I’d be a homeowner. I’m thinking a spacious three-bedroom, two-bathroom in a nice neighborhood with some killer curb appeal. I’d then have that weird, not a given average of 2.3 kids, each of which would probably go to an overpriced prestigious school. Even Yeah, point three one because I love my kids equally. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And me, well, I’d be a lawyer, or a doctor, or some other career that my parents could gush about to their compadres. Oh mijo, fíjate, he’s doing really well for himself, we’re very proud of him.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, clearly I decided to emphasize the dream part of this American dream scenario, because that’s definitely not my life. I’m a longtime renter, I’m a dog parent, and even though I don’t save lives like a doctor would, I’d like to think I change lives with my podcasts. And I’m okay with that! Because I think I’m doing pretty well. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But that doesn’t really negate the fact that I was conditioned to want a lot more for myself, by my parents, by society, by the culture around me. Because to be American means to have certain expectations for yourself and for your country, when it comes to pursuing personal and professional successes. I should be able to do this. I should able to afford that. Regardless of my race, religion, gender, lo que sea. In essence, life should feel easy in this very powerful nation. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But that hasn’t always been realistic for a lot of folks, especially in the face of institutional racism and poverty. And with unemployment still high, bills mounting up and individual rights seemingly in limbo. Does any of that sound like the promise of America? I’m Xorge Olivares, and I’m asking What do we really want from America? And what is it able to give it to us? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Hyphenación, where conversation and cultura meet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, I just gave an idea about what my dream house would seem like if I was able to pursue this American dream. And I’m curious about what my guests would like to live in. And I am starting off with my first guest, Paola Ramos. She is a journalist and an author mostly of Latine experiences, the most recent being called \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Defectors\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which talks about the rise of the far right Latino community. Paola, thank you so much for joining me today. And I’m curious, what would your house look like? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I envision it in the West Village of New York City. I envision a brownstone. I envision, like, wood floors, high ceilings, like open windows. I would be okay in that setting with two bedrooms. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And maybe like I can live close to a park, forget that I’m in the city, but then when I want to, I’m the city. Like that’s the dream for sure. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m talking to you… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I might steal this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos:\u003c/b>…\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">from a\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Small apartment in Brooklyn, New York, no complaints, but one day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the West Village. Oh, I love that. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We’re also joined by Brian De Los Santos who is an LA-based journalist and a proud Angelino. So I have to ask, Brian, is your dream house in Los Angeles?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hell yeah.100%. And I would say Malibu, but you know what happened there with the fires early this year. So I gotta rethink my dream house, you know. My first instinct is the beach, the waves, some above that California marijuana. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laughter\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">]\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vibes all around. I love the beach. I’m a Leo. I get I love warm days. But the second part to that answer is I have a condo that has two stories. It’s out in the desert. Unfortunately, I don’t live there, like, I don’t live there right now because I’m in LA. But it’s, yeah, I would say I was able to get a little bit of the American dream, but it’s not, I’m not there right now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you both for your answers and thank you for joining me for this conversation because I think there’s something to say about the American dream and it somehow being synonymous with this notion of upward mobility and that also kind of resonates with immigration stories, migration stories, like why most folks came to this country to begin with. And so I wanna focus there first. And I wanna start with you, Paola, if you don’t mind maybe sharing your family’s migration story and how this notion of America even first came to be for you all. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When it comes to my parents, for them, it was really around grasping here a very basic principle and freedom and right that didn’t exist where they came from, which is back then the basic principle of freedom of press and freedom of speech. So my mom is a Cuban exile, comes from a family of Cuban immigrants. My grandfather was a journalist in Cuba, first started with the revolution, started with Castro and sort of two years into Castro’s sort of rise in power, my grandfather ends up being imprisoned because he was writing articles against el Castrismo. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My father leaves Mexico at a time when Televisa, the, of course, massive Mexican media empire, at that point in his career, this is mid-’80s, they start restricting his radio pieces and his radio stories. And so he decides to leave. And so both of my parents come to the United States looking for that, looking to freely express themselves. And looking for freedom of press. My dad who then ended up becoming a news anchor for Univision, he would always tell me the biggest privilege and power you will ever have is your pen, this ability to write stories, to hold people in power accountable, the ability to ask questions. And I think that I sort of grew up with that understanding that were I ever to walk into those spaces of power, like that was my duty, my duty was that. And so I think that is the sort of environment and the conversations that I grew up in. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re now, of course, existing in a very different reality as journalists, and so this is something that I wake up with thinking about every single day. Slowly, these rights that I grew up with, they’re slowly eroding in front of us every single day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm, Brian, how did your family approach their migration to this country? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, well, I came with my parents. My dad came here first, and then I came with my mom in 1992. And I think for them, the American dream was just financial freedom, any little bit of it. They were leaving Mexico in an era where it was everyone’s financially challenged and there was no way out and they were seeing opportunities happen here in the late 80s and that’s what inspired them to come here, and so my parents are Christian pastors. And so they feel their success is tied with the religion, whether that is establishing a church of their own or that is serving in some way. So it really isn’t just about financial success or their home. FYI, my parents were undocumented when they came into this country. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They always told me you know work hard you’re gonna get something bigger in return you’re going to be successful at things and I think that impacted me so much when I was a little kid that that’s what I thought was gonna happen and I hoped that would happen. They ended up buying a house. The market crash happened in 2007, 2008. And they were impacted. And I think that’s when they realized, oh, this shit is hard. You know, this is, you can be an immigrant, you can a good immigrant, you can do everything by the book and it’ll still be, you will still fail. And I do believe millennials, no shade to anyone else… \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> [\u003c/span>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laughte\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cem>r\u003c/em>] \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> … and no shade to any other generation, but I think millennials are redefining what that American dream is. Like I am talking to my friends about like, they’re not getting pregnant, some couples are like, “I don’t care about buying a house anymore. I want to be stable and I want to go on vacations with my family.” Do I care about a home? I don’t know. So we’ll see. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I like this idea of the shifting tides of the American dream. I mean, you addressed it. I talked about it in the intro. I don’t have any of the things that I thought would be part of the American dream that I grew up with. And Paola have you had conversations either with your friends, other family members about how what you’re pursuing just doesn’t seem to be identical to what they had in mind for you? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I mean, I’m thinking of what I was thinking when I was five. And I think I think that’s the thing. This American dream sort of like corrupts your mind, you know, and it pushes you to believe that you’re supposed to meet certain certain measures. Like, I thought that by the time I was 37, which is what I am, I thought that I would be married to a man. I’m a lesbian. If I had that, I would be, you know, yes, like living in this house. And I think for many of us millennials, we’re understanding that it is extremely hard to achieve that in this country. In this country that sells you that this is a country of possibilities that sells you the message that you can do it all, which sure, we’re all trying as hard as we can, but I think what we’re coming to terms with is that at what cost, no? And that’s the question. I believe that I can achieve all these things, but I feel like I’m kind of selling my soul to the system, no?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I look around me, and I’m speaking from a point of immense privilege. But when I’m out there doing, you know, interviews and of course, more than anything, like talking to, like, mixed status families and immigrants, more often than not, I feel like I’m kind of sensing this big shift right now, where this American dream and the idea of it is dimming, because sure, we are sort of checking the measures, the economic measures. No, we’re- we’re having better opportunities than our parents, upward mobility is a real thing, but then the question of like, are we still truly respected, right? Like are our rights truly being respected? Like is dignity, you know the dignity that this country promises in that dream, like does that fully exist? You know? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So is it a myth, the American dream, or is it just evolving to a place that we can’t quite define it yet? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I low-key think it’s a myth, and I’ll let people process that by their own. As Paola was talking about her own privilege, I also need to check myself because I have DACA, which is a work permit, and sometimes like Paola, when I’m interviewing mixed-status families, I’m like, I feel the privilege that I hold in this space, whether it’s in media or whether it is just having financial stability. And so for me, it’s a myth in other theories, in other ways that we see out there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean, I think that’s like the key question that we’re wrestling with as a nation and in American politics right now is like, you know, are we truly or are we all headed towards this like multiracial, pluralistic, diverse democracy, or at our core, is it always the case that we keep going back to roots of this country, right, which is a country that was founded upon the principles of white supremacy. And it is a country that every turn, every time it can, it has oppressed and oppressed and oppressed every attempt to sort of diverge from those origins. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so I think that’s kind of what we’re wrestling with as a country. And I think not to bring it back to politics, but I think that’s why perhaps the 2024 election once again was such a shock for so many people because it was like. Here we are again, we had an opportunity to elect a black women president, and yet again, we couldn’t do it. No, here we are again, we’ve had multiple attempts at passing comprehensive immigration reform, and yeah, we don’t do it. No, Here we again, separating families. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so I think it’s almost like, at some point, we have to be real with what we’re dealing with. And if it is true, in fact, that are we or not a country of immigrants, like are we or not, you know, like all of these have for so many years, like shaped the way that we think of this country, right? Which is, yes, it’s a country full of dreams and the American dream. And perhaps, perhaps we’re not.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, we’re going to take a short little break and we’ll be right back.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Politics is cyclical, some of these stories we’ve been hearing about for generations for, you know, multiple administrations. Like, because the timeline seems like it’s repeating itself, do we think that’s why the American dream continues on? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t know. I’m kind of going through my own personal crisis in this era. I think for me also, my personal story is as an undocumented immigrant who has a work permit that could go away any second, I’m always on survival mode. Like whether I have a house or whether I own a car or not. I don’t know what’s gonna happen with my future. And the pathway to a green card to citizenship is not there for me. I have to go through different loopholes to try to get one. And even though I have an immigration lawyer and we’re trying to do what we can for my case, it’s not the easiest one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>XO: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Paola what do you think?\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, look, I think so long as this country continues to present us with opportunities, you know opportunities that are better here than those where our family’s left behind, the dream will continue to exist. However, I do think that we are in the midst of a breaking point where, at least I’m finding as I’m talking to people, people that aren’t being deported. I’m talking about people that are choosing to leave on their own terms. And I think there’s a type of empowerment and liberation that is coming from families that are kind of looking at themselves and at their journey in this country and that are saying, you know what, I can’t do it anymore. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unfortunately, I’ve been meeting a significant amount of people that are making that decision and I’ve had following them around the country. And I’ve done following them across the border. And I’m talking to you after just coming back from Panama and Columbia, where I was able to talk to, for example, like a group of 30 Venezuelans many of them were waiting along the US-Mexico border in limbo for a couple of months, and all of whom decided at some point in the last couple of weeks that they couldn’t take it anymore. That it was not worth it for them to live in a country. That would criminalize them and deport them to another country simply because of their tattoos. And so in those conversations, they chose that their dignity at this point was more worth it than living in a country that was giving them the bare minimum. But then I think I mentioned that it’s a breaking point because then what really stuck with me is that when I asked them, is this dream replaceable? They said, yes. And so what happens when you leave the dream and you sort of start looking for it elsewhere? And I think that’s kind of where we’re at.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, let’s get to the question, which is at the heart of the episode, which is what do you want from America? And what do think it can give you? Brian, what is it that you want?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, damn. You put it so deeply. Almost got me teary-eyed over it right now. The one thing that I come back to is, as an immigrant in this country, I just want to be treated like a human. I don’t want to be seen as a policy story. I don’t want to be seen as a tax ID number. I don’t want to be seen as anything else but just like, oh, he’s a dude who wants to do this and that and is talented. And I think that’s where, you know, I could see the American dream be about as a human and be treated as such, but sometimes I feel like a number in this country. So if I had a little magic wand and be like, Brian, what do you want out of this country is people respect each other and are more empathetic, even though that’s a controversial topic out there that empathy is not a thing. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I want to be treated more humanly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I like that. Paola, What would yours be? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have to agree. I mean, I think it’s, yeah, just to have this country love you back entirely. And I think the expectation was that at this time in history, you know, just talking about myself, as queer people in this diverse nation, the expectation is that we would be more loved. And I don’t think we’re necessarily, we’re definitely not there yet. And so I think I expect like a very basic level of humanity and love. And I expect that in these moments of transition, I expect this country to really truly uphold its democratic norms and institutions that allow for these dreams to be alive. You know what I’m saying? So like at a time when there’s so much uncertainty, My expectation, and I’m not a religious person, but I pray for this, is that those core democratic norms are unshakable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, you\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">witnessed part of this transition, especially as it’s documented in your book \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Defectors\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, because it’s talking about the rise or at least now folks are becoming a bit more aware of the conservative wing of the Latino community. So if you can share a little bit about maybe what they told you about their dreams and desires of what this country should give them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The story is that we believed, that as Latinos, our American dream looked a certain way. I think what we’re also understanding is that for those over 45% of Latinos that voted for Trump, I think they are showing us that. The American dream can be corrupted. Knowing that there’s a point in this journey where like individualism and capitalism and our sort of ambition to make it in this country, our ambition to assimilate, our ambition to attain power, our mission to be at the top, that can lead a lot of people, including Latinos and including immigrants and including black and brown people, that can leave you to a more corrupted darker version of the American Dream. Now that can be a brown person to find something extremely appealing in Trump’s version of the American dream, which is an American dream that is whiter, that is less threatened by diversity. And I think A, is just like sitting with that reality, but then understanding, and I think that’s kind of like the more interesting part, like posing the question to all the like Latino insurrectionists that I’ve interviewed and the Latino Proud Boys and sort of the border vigilantes that find something so appealing in Trumps like, version of the American Dream, the question that I now have for them is like, today in Trump’s America, how free are you? Did you attain that power? Did he give you anything? Do you have more now than you did back then? And I think slowly, perhaps, the answer is no, right? But I think the illusion of that dream is more powerful, of course, than the reality. And that’s what I believe, I would assume, is what many of them are coming to terms \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you think that the American dream can only exist in competition to someone else’s? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that’s how we’ve typically defined the dream. And I think if we define the dream as a dream of possibilities, then yes. But I think we define a dream as the dream is based on rights, and freedoms, and justice, and movements, then it’s different. And I that’s why when you ask this question, people are going to give you two different versions. Yes, I attained the dream of possibility. But no, I didn’t attain the dream of rights and freedoms. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But I think because we’re so used to talking about this in economic terms and in the frame of upward mobility, I think that’s where people do get threatened, because then the dream means that you’re taking something away from the other person, that you are climbing up the ladder, but not the other person. And I think, unfortunately, if we’ve learned something within American politics and within Latino politics, is that we too can be greedy, and that we, too, many times don’t want the other immigrants to climb up the ladder the same way that we did. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that is a harsh reality of where we are, you know? That in this country, we’re so used to working so hard to attain that dream and they make it so hard to do it that we then become so corrupted that we don’t want the same opportunities for that other person. And that, that is something that is, that does happen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, and I think it’s because some people will be like oh well I made it and I’m fine and why aren’t you making it. I’m like honey, we’re not the same people, you know. There was a conversation at my dinner table. Mom, I’m sorry, but I’m going to say it here. Um, she saw a video on YouTube, got her news from there. And she’s like, why are these immigrants coming in this way? They’re like invading the country. I’m like, mom, you crossed the border with me in 1992. What are you talking about? And I had to check her. I’m, like, you cannot be like talking about this news that you got from YouTube that you don’t, I don’t know what channel she got it from. With all these bad references. I’m like, you are a leader in your community. You cannot talk about immigrants this way. You are one. And so just going back to the fact that Paola brought up, some people will pull up the ladder away from the next person that’s coming in. It’s happening. And so for me, it’s just wild to see these things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Brian, you actually had a chance to do something which I haven’t had a change to do, which is ask your parents directly about this question on the American dream that, at least my parents sold me first. But how did that conversation go? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I was a little scared to ask them because I’m like, am I gonna be frazzled by their answer? But my dad kept it really real. He’s like, we know that the policies or even people have treated each other badly in this country. And he knows it hasn’t been easy. He knows that he’s had his own personal hurdles and at his church, he’s also seen other people’s hurdles. And we’ve seen people get deported, we’ve seen people. Lose themselves in this country. And so what he says, I feel like this is a place that everyone can come to, but we know it’s hard and not everyone can make it here. And, I feel like I’m still happy being here. Like he’s, he says he’s not going to bag on the US. He’s not going to talk bad about the US, but he says. He understands how people experience the life here. And he’s happy where he’s at.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nice. Paola, have you had a chance to talk to your parents about this or saving it for Thanksgiving? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, I think, look, they have, I would say, different ideas. So I think my dad is someone that fundamentally believes that the dream is alive and that it is worth sticking around to see where it ends. No, and like I said, so long as, and I think that’s how he would measure it, not so long, as his children, which is myself and my brother, have more opportunities than him. Which we did. We went to American colleges and we were able to sort of enter the English-speaking media world in a way that he has never been able to. So long as those things are real, I think my dad will always say it’s worth it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My mother left the United States two years ago, so my mom now lives in Spain. She’s in Madrid. And I think that’s given her a lot of perspective, not to be able to see the US from afar, particularly the US that we’re sort of evolving into and turning into. And I mean, she would probably say, if I were to ask her, like, would you ever come back and live here on your choice voluntarily? I would assume that she would say no. Because I think then in Spain, she has found a certain like peace. She also is a journalist. So I think kind of like leaving the crazy world of American journalism and like the newsrooms. I also think maybe that has something to do with it. No, she’s not as crazy as dude, but I think there’s a level of calmness and peace. Maybe there’s something to not living in the sort of day-to-day competitiveness, sort of like all of us hustling. And I think she’s content. And I think in her eyes, she would probably say that it’s perhaps… Attainable elsewhere, not just in the U.S. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wanna thank both of you for joining me for this. It really was an existential conversation about, like, what are we doing\u003c/span>\u003cb>.\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And so I could not have thought of two better people to have this conversation. So thank you so much for joining me today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paola Ramos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you. This was like therapy, honestly. So I’m good for the week. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Brian De Los Santos: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Canceling my session this week. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Paola Ramos:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Literally!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do want to remind our listeners, if you want to send us your thoughts about what the American Dream is, or what your version of the American dream is, please send us an email at HYP at kqed.org, or if you want to sent us an idea for an upcoming episode. But until then, hasta luego.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hyphenación is a KQED Studios Production. It is produced by Ana De Almeida Amaral, Alex Tran, and me, Xorje Olivares.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chris Hambrick is our editor.\u003cbr>\nMixing and mastering by Christopher Beale.\u003cbr>\nJen Chien is executive producer and KQED’s director of podcasts.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you to Maha Sanad for her audience engagement support and to podcast operations intern Alana Walker.\u003cbr>\nThanks to podcast operations manager Katie Sprenger, Video Operations manager Vivian Morales, and our chief content officer Holly Kernan.\u003cbr>\nSpecial thanks to Megan Tan, Martina Castro, and Paulina Velasco for their development support.\u003cbr>\nOkay mi gente, cuídense.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "hyphenacion-papeles-what-does-u-s-citizenship-mean-today",
"title": "Papeles: What Does U.S. Citizenship Mean Today?",
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"headTitle": "Papeles: What Does U.S. Citizenship Mean Today? | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"encore-text encore-text-body-medium\" data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">Documentation divides the Latino community in the U.S. between those whose existence in this country is permitted and those who are criminalized for their very presence. This line of legality has been drawn deeper and has changed quickly during the second Trump administration. In the face of this uncertainty, host Xorje Olivares speaks with authors Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cem>The Undocumented Americans\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">) and Javier Zamora (\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cem>Solito\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\" data-slate-fragment=\"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\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">) to ask “What does citizenship mean, today?”\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4175855502&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Watch this episode on YouTube\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/tWwcVpxmuIc\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"encore-text encore-text-body-medium\" data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cstrong>Guests\u003c/strong>\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">:\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"encore-text encore-text-body-medium\" data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"Link-sc-k8gsk-0 edjgOj sc-kpDqfm ejcycC\" href=\"https://www.instagram.com/karlarrriot/?hl=en\" data-slate-node=\"element\" data-slate-inline=\"true\" data-encore-id=\"textLink\">\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cu>Instagram\u003c/u>\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">, \u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"Link-sc-k8gsk-0 edjgOj sc-kpDqfm ejcycC\" href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/558229/the-undocumented-americans-by-karla-cornejo-villavicencio/\" data-slate-node=\"element\" data-slate-inline=\"true\" data-encore-id=\"textLink\">\u003cem>\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cu>The Undocumented Americans\u003c/u>\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">)\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"encore-text encore-text-body-medium\" data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">Javier Zamora \u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"Link-sc-k8gsk-0 edjgOj sc-kpDqfm ejcycC\" href=\"https://www.instagram.com/jzsalvipoet/?hl=en\" data-slate-node=\"element\" data-slate-inline=\"true\" data-encore-id=\"textLink\">\u003c/a>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cu>(\u003c/u>\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"Link-sc-k8gsk-0 edjgOj sc-kpDqfm ejcycC\" href=\"https://www.instagram.com/jzsalvipoet/?hl=en\" data-slate-node=\"element\" data-slate-inline=\"true\" data-encore-id=\"textLink\">\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cu>Instagram\u003c/u>\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">, \u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003cem>\u003ca class=\"Link-sc-k8gsk-0 edjgOj sc-kpDqfm ejcycC\" href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/705626/solito-a-read-with-jenna-pick-by-javier-zamora/\" data-slate-node=\"element\" data-slate-inline=\"true\" data-encore-id=\"textLink\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cu>Solito\u003c/u>\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">)\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">Want to give us feedback on the series or have an idea to share? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:hyp@kqed.org\">hyp@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares, Host\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: 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. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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 \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">10,\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> 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\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s really sweet Javier, thank you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[SPONSOR MESSAGE]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Thank you\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Credits:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Papeles: What Does U.S. Citizenship Mean Today? | KQED",
"description": "Documentation divides the Latino community in the U.S. between those whose existence in this country is permitted and those who are criminalized for their very presence. This line of legality has been drawn deeper and has changed quickly during the second Trump administration. In the face of this uncertainty, Host Xorje Olivares speaks with authors Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (The Undocumented Americans) and Javier Zamora (Solito) to ask “What does citizenship mean, today?”",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003cem>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"encore-text encore-text-body-medium\" data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">Documentation divides the Latino community in the U.S. between those whose existence in this country is permitted and those who are criminalized for their very presence. This line of legality has been drawn deeper and has changed quickly during the second Trump administration. In the face of this uncertainty, host Xorje Olivares speaks with authors Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cem>The Undocumented Americans\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">) and Javier Zamora (\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cem>Solito\u003c/em>\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\" data-slate-fragment=\"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\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">) to ask “What does citizenship mean, today?”\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4175855502&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\n\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Watch this episode on YouTube\u003c/h2>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/tWwcVpxmuIc'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/tWwcVpxmuIc'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"encore-text encore-text-body-medium\" data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cstrong>Guests\u003c/strong>\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">:\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"encore-text encore-text-body-medium\" data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"Link-sc-k8gsk-0 edjgOj sc-kpDqfm ejcycC\" href=\"https://www.instagram.com/karlarrriot/?hl=en\" data-slate-node=\"element\" data-slate-inline=\"true\" data-encore-id=\"textLink\">\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cu>Instagram\u003c/u>\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">, \u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"Link-sc-k8gsk-0 edjgOj sc-kpDqfm ejcycC\" href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/558229/the-undocumented-americans-by-karla-cornejo-villavicencio/\" data-slate-node=\"element\" data-slate-inline=\"true\" data-encore-id=\"textLink\">\u003cem>\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cu>The Undocumented Americans\u003c/u>\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">)\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"encore-text encore-text-body-medium\" data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">Javier Zamora \u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"Link-sc-k8gsk-0 edjgOj sc-kpDqfm ejcycC\" href=\"https://www.instagram.com/jzsalvipoet/?hl=en\" data-slate-node=\"element\" data-slate-inline=\"true\" data-encore-id=\"textLink\">\u003c/a>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cu>(\u003c/u>\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003ca class=\"Link-sc-k8gsk-0 edjgOj sc-kpDqfm ejcycC\" href=\"https://www.instagram.com/jzsalvipoet/?hl=en\" data-slate-node=\"element\" data-slate-inline=\"true\" data-encore-id=\"textLink\">\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cu>Instagram\u003c/u>\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">, \u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003cem>\u003ca class=\"Link-sc-k8gsk-0 edjgOj sc-kpDqfm ejcycC\" href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/705626/solito-a-read-with-jenna-pick-by-javier-zamora/\" data-slate-node=\"element\" data-slate-inline=\"true\" data-encore-id=\"textLink\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">\u003cu>Solito\u003c/u>\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003cspan data-slate-node=\"text\">\u003cspan class=\"sc-kAyceB grEoze\" data-slate-leaf=\"true\">)\u003c/span>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">Want to give us feedback on the series or have an idea to share? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:hyp@kqed.org\">hyp@kqed.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp data-encore-id=\"text\" data-slate-node=\"element\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares, Host\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">: 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. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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 \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">10,\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> 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\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s really sweet Javier, thank you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[SPONSOR MESSAGE]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Javier Zamora:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Thank you\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Credits:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>As the new administration announces policies targeting immigrants and members of the queer community, local artists are responding with an exhibition highlighting the groups’ unity. From Feb. 15–March 16, the show \u003ci>NOTHING NEW\u003c/i> will be on view at the new 465 Collective Space Gallery in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The collection of works by artists across the country will be the first event hosted at this location by the \u003ca href=\"https://48hills.org/2024/12/new-sf-arts-collective-465-introduces-itself/\">465 Collective\u003c/a>, led by BlackMaria Microcinema (Maria Judice), Alchemy Film Foundation (Madison Young), Ginger Yifan Chen, EARTH Lab SF (Beth Stephens), Lydia Daniller, and Jason Wyman / Queerly Complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13970992\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1166px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS31-e1738617554268.png\" alt=\"Brightly colored images of people in clown makeup holding signs with political messages.\" width=\"1166\" height=\"1540\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13970992\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS31-e1738617554268.png 1166w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS31-e1738617554268-800x1057.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS31-e1738617554268-1020x1347.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS31-e1738617554268-160x211.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS31-e1738617554268-768x1014.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS31-e1738617554268-1163x1536.png 1163w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1166px) 100vw, 1166px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jason Wyman, ‘Political Clowns,’ 2017-Current. \u003ccite>(Jason Wyman)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Existing as both an installation of prints and a digital catalog, the exhibition will feature the works of over 60 immigrant and queer artists. At the gallery, poetry will be displayed alongside images of sculptures, portraits of dancers and banners with political messaging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Co-curated by local artist \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/bushragill_art/\">Bushra Gill\u003c/a> and organizer \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/queerlycomplex/\">Jason Wyman\u003c/a>, the exhibition, much like the issues it’s combating, has been years in the making. When asked about the show’s origin, Wyman says, “In order to talk about that I need to go back five years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, Wyman was working with friend and artist Rupy C. Tut to create \u003ca href=\"https://www.immigrantartistnetwork.com/\">The Immigrant Artist Network\u003c/a>, a nationwide collection of artists. “We wanted to find ways to bring immigrants and their comrades together to talk about art,” says Wyman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13970990\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1020px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS51-e1738617487546.png\" alt=\"An image of a person on one foot as they leap, wearing a red garment.\" width=\"1020\" height=\"1528\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13970990\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS51-e1738617487546.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS51-e1738617487546-800x1198.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS51-e1738617487546-160x240.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS51-e1738617487546-768x1150.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nitya Narasimhan, ‘Steps Worn by Time,’ 2023. \u003ccite>(Nitya Narasimhan)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>During the pandemic-induced lockdown, immigrant artists — unable to show or in some cases produce work — had trouble retaining their visas, so the collective began throwing virtual events. Over the past five years the community has stayed in contact, periodically convening and hosting salons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, as President Trump took office, the network of artists began to discuss the national political landscape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a queer person, Wyman says they asked themself the question: “How can I work with immigrants in order to craft something that speaks to this political moment in some way, shape or form?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When they landed on the idea of exhibiting queer and immigrant artists, exhibition co-curator Gill pointed out a huge barrier artists face when submitting work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13970991\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1166px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS12-e1738617515147.png\" alt=\"An abstract indigo circular image.\" width=\"1166\" height=\"1534\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13970991\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS12-e1738617515147.png 1166w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS12-e1738617515147-800x1052.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS12-e1738617515147-1020x1342.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS12-e1738617515147-160x210.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS12-e1738617515147-768x1010.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1166px) 100vw, 1166px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bushra Gill, ‘In Plain Sight,’ 2022. \u003ccite>(Bushra Gill)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“A lot of times shows have some sort of theme to them,” says Wyman, lamenting how that practice causes artists to create new work or not submit to shows at all. “So we decided to play off this idea of ‘nothing new.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The assault on queer and immigrant folks is actually nothing new in this country,” they add. “It’s nothing new globally, as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of “nothing new” applied to the work shown, as well as the application process. Artists were asked to submit works that could be shown on an 8 1/2″ x 11″ sheet of paper, “with no new works, and no new words at all,” says Wyman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal of the exhibition is to not only show how queer folks and immigrants are coming together as an act of solidarity, but also to preserve this work for future generations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13970993\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1177px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS60-e1738617720181.png\" alt=\"A short poem written below a painted image of a body that has grown a flower where the head should be as well as one at the abdomen region.\" width=\"1177\" height=\"1517\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13970993\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS60-e1738617720181.png 1177w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS60-e1738617720181-800x1031.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS60-e1738617720181-1020x1315.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS60-e1738617720181-160x206.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS60-e1738617720181-768x990.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1177px) 100vw, 1177px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taneesh Kaur, ‘Embodying Kali-ma,’ 2024 \u003ccite>(Taneesh Kaur)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wyman has submitted every piece in the show to the Internet Archive, and they plan on submitting the project to \u003ca href=\"https://sfpl.org/locations/main-library/book-arts-special-collections/little-magazine-collection\">San Francisco’s Zine Archive\u003c/a> as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Artists are notoriously terrible at archiving their work,” says Wyman with a laugh. But as the federal government works to erase the stories of immigrants and queer people, this work is more serious than ever, they said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve been doing convening work for a real long time,” says Wyman, who has a background in peer exchanges and nonhierarchical leadership models. “My real hope is that we continue to deepen our conversation among groups of people that are under direct political attack, so that when we see each other in the streets, when those attacks get amped up, we know other people that we can talk to and reach out to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘NOTHING NEW’ is on view Feb. 15–March 16, 2025 at the 465 Collective Space Gallery (465 S. Van Ness Ave., San Francisco). \u003ca href=\"https://www.queerlycomplex.com/event-details-registration/nothing-new-opening-reception\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As the new administration announces policies targeting immigrants and members of the queer community, local artists are responding with an exhibition highlighting the groups’ unity. From Feb. 15–March 16, the show \u003ci>NOTHING NEW\u003c/i> will be on view at the new 465 Collective Space Gallery in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The collection of works by artists across the country will be the first event hosted at this location by the \u003ca href=\"https://48hills.org/2024/12/new-sf-arts-collective-465-introduces-itself/\">465 Collective\u003c/a>, led by BlackMaria Microcinema (Maria Judice), Alchemy Film Foundation (Madison Young), Ginger Yifan Chen, EARTH Lab SF (Beth Stephens), Lydia Daniller, and Jason Wyman / Queerly Complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13970992\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1166px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS31-e1738617554268.png\" alt=\"Brightly colored images of people in clown makeup holding signs with political messages.\" width=\"1166\" height=\"1540\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13970992\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS31-e1738617554268.png 1166w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS31-e1738617554268-800x1057.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS31-e1738617554268-1020x1347.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS31-e1738617554268-160x211.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS31-e1738617554268-768x1014.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS31-e1738617554268-1163x1536.png 1163w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1166px) 100vw, 1166px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jason Wyman, ‘Political Clowns,’ 2017-Current. \u003ccite>(Jason Wyman)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Existing as both an installation of prints and a digital catalog, the exhibition will feature the works of over 60 immigrant and queer artists. At the gallery, poetry will be displayed alongside images of sculptures, portraits of dancers and banners with political messaging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Co-curated by local artist \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/bushragill_art/\">Bushra Gill\u003c/a> and organizer \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/queerlycomplex/\">Jason Wyman\u003c/a>, the exhibition, much like the issues it’s combating, has been years in the making. When asked about the show’s origin, Wyman says, “In order to talk about that I need to go back five years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, Wyman was working with friend and artist Rupy C. Tut to create \u003ca href=\"https://www.immigrantartistnetwork.com/\">The Immigrant Artist Network\u003c/a>, a nationwide collection of artists. “We wanted to find ways to bring immigrants and their comrades together to talk about art,” says Wyman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13970990\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1020px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS51-e1738617487546.png\" alt=\"An image of a person on one foot as they leap, wearing a red garment.\" width=\"1020\" height=\"1528\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13970990\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS51-e1738617487546.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS51-e1738617487546-800x1198.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS51-e1738617487546-160x240.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS51-e1738617487546-768x1150.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nitya Narasimhan, ‘Steps Worn by Time,’ 2023. \u003ccite>(Nitya Narasimhan)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>During the pandemic-induced lockdown, immigrant artists — unable to show or in some cases produce work — had trouble retaining their visas, so the collective began throwing virtual events. Over the past five years the community has stayed in contact, periodically convening and hosting salons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, as President Trump took office, the network of artists began to discuss the national political landscape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a queer person, Wyman says they asked themself the question: “How can I work with immigrants in order to craft something that speaks to this political moment in some way, shape or form?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When they landed on the idea of exhibiting queer and immigrant artists, exhibition co-curator Gill pointed out a huge barrier artists face when submitting work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13970991\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1166px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS12-e1738617515147.png\" alt=\"An abstract indigo circular image.\" width=\"1166\" height=\"1534\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13970991\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS12-e1738617515147.png 1166w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS12-e1738617515147-800x1052.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS12-e1738617515147-1020x1342.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS12-e1738617515147-160x210.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS12-e1738617515147-768x1010.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1166px) 100vw, 1166px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bushra Gill, ‘In Plain Sight,’ 2022. \u003ccite>(Bushra Gill)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“A lot of times shows have some sort of theme to them,” says Wyman, lamenting how that practice causes artists to create new work or not submit to shows at all. “So we decided to play off this idea of ‘nothing new.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The assault on queer and immigrant folks is actually nothing new in this country,” they add. “It’s nothing new globally, as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of “nothing new” applied to the work shown, as well as the application process. Artists were asked to submit works that could be shown on an 8 1/2″ x 11″ sheet of paper, “with no new works, and no new words at all,” says Wyman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal of the exhibition is to not only show how queer folks and immigrants are coming together as an act of solidarity, but also to preserve this work for future generations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13970993\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1177px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS60-e1738617720181.png\" alt=\"A short poem written below a painted image of a body that has grown a flower where the head should be as well as one at the abdomen region.\" width=\"1177\" height=\"1517\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13970993\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS60-e1738617720181.png 1177w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS60-e1738617720181-800x1031.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS60-e1738617720181-1020x1315.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS60-e1738617720181-160x206.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/NOTHING-NEW-PRINTS60-e1738617720181-768x990.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1177px) 100vw, 1177px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Taneesh Kaur, ‘Embodying Kali-ma,’ 2024 \u003ccite>(Taneesh Kaur)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wyman has submitted every piece in the show to the Internet Archive, and they plan on submitting the project to \u003ca href=\"https://sfpl.org/locations/main-library/book-arts-special-collections/little-magazine-collection\">San Francisco’s Zine Archive\u003c/a> as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Artists are notoriously terrible at archiving their work,” says Wyman with a laugh. But as the federal government works to erase the stories of immigrants and queer people, this work is more serious than ever, they said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve been doing convening work for a real long time,” says Wyman, who has a background in peer exchanges and nonhierarchical leadership models. “My real hope is that we continue to deepen our conversation among groups of people that are under direct political attack, so that when we see each other in the streets, when those attacks get amped up, we know other people that we can talk to and reach out to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘NOTHING NEW’ is on view Feb. 15–March 16, 2025 at the 465 Collective Space Gallery (465 S. Van Ness Ave., San Francisco). \u003ca href=\"https://www.queerlycomplex.com/event-details-registration/nothing-new-opening-reception\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "fremont-immigrant-suburb-idealism-my-hometown",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/siliconvalleyunseen/\">Silicon Valley Unseen\u003c/a> is a series of photo essays, original reporting and underreported histories that survey the tech capital’s overlooked communities and subcultures from a local perspective.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]M[/dropcap]y pride in hailing from a sprawling suburb has always left people puzzled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fremont isn’t exactly a Bay Area centerpiece. Still, I eagerly defend it by mentioning that it’s the fourth-most populous city in the Bay Area, and that yes, indeed it \u003ci>is \u003c/i>the Bay (it’s Alameda County! We’ve always had a BART station! We have our own stinky marsh bridge!). Our food is multicultural and peerless, and our dusty hills can be transcendent when their summer brown molts to green after a few healthy rainstorms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My exuberance has been matched only by a 52-year-old man I once met at a West Berkeley homeless shelter. I noted his “Flying A’s Niles” T-shirt while I interviewed residents prior to the shelter’s closing, and he shared stories about the car club in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11789138/how-charlie-chaplin-and-silent-films-flourished-in-the-east-bay\">Fremont’s historic Niles district, made famous a century ago as a studio town for dozens of Charlie Chaplin films\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13965201\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13965201\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Author Supriya Yelimeli (right) plays with her sister and cousin in a creek at Fremont’s Central Park. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Supriya Yelimeli)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Though the man grew up in a very different Fremont than I did, we giddily swapped tales about shared haunts, and he told me — with only a hint of pride — that Lake Elizabeth is about the same size as Lake Merritt. This trivia is most interesting to someone who has enjoyed innumerable sunset walks while dodging geese droppings at both parks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We regarded the city of his youth — and of mine — as something of a sanctuary. A safe and comfortable place, frozen in time, with ducks and vintage cars and bountiful food and quality family moments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13964538']Fremont’s reputation seems to be manufactured this way, under the generous umbrella of “boring.” It benefits both immigrant families who hope to create bubbles of safety by raising children in familiar environments, and the many forces that reap the rewards of inflated real estate prices — pinned to shiny signifiers like top schools, safe neighborhoods and the entirely inexplicable (repeat!) ranking of “Happiest City in America” as \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/fremont-happiest-city-2024-18693776.php\">dubiously graded by WalletHub, a personal finance company\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this notion of Fremont’s exceptionalism is insidious. It harms all of us to silo suburbs away from the greater context of the Bay Area, especially when sweetness and safety should be easy to come by for everyone. It’s a microcosm of how Silicon Valley — of which Fremont is a part, culturally, industrially and economically — often isolates itself from the Bay, as if impervious to any ills or faults of its own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13965199\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13965199\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A quintessential Bay Area immigrant family photo in front of the San Francisco skyline. The author (center) is flanked by her sister and mom. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Supriya Yelimeli)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I remember my childhood as cozy and simple. My main preoccupation was what my older sister was doing at any given moment, then my parents, then our cat, in that order. I liked going to school, watching Bollywood films at Naz 8 (a famed local theater \u003ca href=\"https://eastbayexpress.com/bollywood-goes-hollywood-1/\">formerly run by a Pakistani immigrant who cameoed in Bollywood B-films\u003c/a>, since replaced by another Desi-centric moviehouse) and taking weekend BART trips to San Francisco to ogle sea lions with visiting cousins. I practiced riding a Ripstik around the park with my dad, who followed patiently on foot and didn’t think to tell me that skateboarding would make me a cooler teen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My parents moved to Fremont in the late ’90s because the homes were still cheaper than South Bay cities like Sunnyvale and Cupertino, which had already established themselves in Silicon Valley’s tech empire extending just beyond San Jose’s outskirts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, Fremont was on the east side of the Bay’s marshy waters, reachable only by crossing the Dumbarton Bridge or curving around the Bay’s southern shoreline past the stretches of garbage landfill in Milpitas. Geographically, it rested in slightly undefined territory — neither claimed by the East Bay nor Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13965216\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13965216\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/image000000.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1199\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/image000000.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/image000000-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/image000000-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/image000000-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/image000000-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/image000000-1536x1151.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The author plays with her late father, who immigrated to the U.S. from India in 1993, eventually making his way to Silicon Valley via Illinois, Kansas, Ohio and New Jersey. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Supriya Yelimeli)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s hard to imagine Fremont in this up-and-coming era, when my parents bought a three-bedroom home for $275,000. Sadly, they lost that home in the recession, struggling to pay the mortgage, and thereafter remained renters in the city. Being a studious Zillow-scroller (I blame the housing beat, but it’s really just nosiness), I’m never thrilled to see that it last sold in 2018 for $1.3 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I credit journalism with helping me understand Fremont and its relationship to the fractured region I grew up in. In 2011, during a high school newspaper trip, I interviewed protesters at the Occupy San Francisco camp and passersby in the Financial District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='forum_2010101906515']I stopped a platinum-haired, older woman on the street, who was wearing what my 15-year-old mind imagined to be a Chanel suit. I asked what she thought of the movement, and she told me frankly, “Well, I am the 1%.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Years later, as I covered anti-homeless actions by neighbors in San Jose, San Francisco and Berkeley, I took note of Fremont neighbors in the midst of their own attempts to block a homeless navigation center in that neighborhood made so famous by silent films, where subsidized housing (as in the rest of the city) constitutes a tiny fraction of available homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Occupying the same county as Berkeley and Oakland, where the highest percentage of our homeless neighbors live, Fremont was doing its best to replicate the behaviors of so many Silicon Valley cities that have made it clear that their doors are closed to those who are not affluent, not tech-aligned, not worthy of sharing space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13965198\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13965198\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The author sitting at her dad’s desk, surrounded by 90s and 2000s paraphernalia, along with issues of Silicon India and the San Francisco Chronicle. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Supriya Yelimeli)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They didn’t have the brash self-awareness of my interviewee in San Francisco, whose generationally wealthy peers have historically driven efforts of exclusion in the Bay. But it seemed Fremont residents had adopted this playbook for their own efforts to distance themselves from anything uncomfortable, or unfamiliar, while allowing the immigrant narrative of struggle to obscure the way we wield power in very similar ways after obtaining a home, income and stability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During a 10-hour Fremont Unified School District Board meeting in 2018, I listened as parent after parent, almost exclusively immigrants, insisted that education on sexual assault, affirmative consent, gender, puberty, abortion and intercourse would irreparably corrupt fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders. One Asian American alum of Fremont schools countered at that meeting: without education, how was a young girl supposed to cope if she got her period before middle school? The district would go without a sexual education curriculum for all elementary schoolers that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='arts_13964383']It comes at a cost to cling to comfort and familiarity for only \u003ci>our\u003c/i> communities, pretending that everything that exists outside of them — a housing crisis, a drug crisis, overlapping homelessness and mental health crises, all exacerbated by a pandemic — are not part of our lives too. That the comforts we have are due to perseverance alone, and not a system of privilege that is tenuous at best, and could easily turn on us like it has in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This particular form of clinging in Fremont, and many of our most affluent suburbs sprinkled throughout Silicon Valley’s zip codes, makes the Bay Area worse for everyone. It keeps the Bay from functioning as a cohesive unit, where people can move and live in different types of neighborhoods as their lives change and families grow. Where people can access resources away from the city, and easily find a nice big patch of green space to dodge geese droppings with a kid still finding their feet on a pair of quad skates (amid the Great Ripstik Abandonment of 2009).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13965093\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13965093\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The author (middle) rides a Fremont-line BART train. Here she is pictured with older sister (left) and older cousin. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Supriya Yelimeli)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>My mom lives in Milpitas now, and I only stop by Fremont to get treats at India Cash & Carry; make a biannual, masochistic trudge up Mission Peak; or ride the train to the (still new-to-me) Warm Springs BART station to grimly observe the rash of new condos and apartments just barely blocking my precious dusty hill view (as is my right).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A promise of “luxury right to your doorstep” glares back at me from the myriad advertisements wrapped around scaffolding. It’s a sign that — without intervention — the sweet comforts of my childhood in Fremont will become even more distant for those who want to live and flourish in my hometown.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/siliconvalleyunseen/\">Silicon Valley Unseen\u003c/a> is a series of photo essays, original reporting and underreported histories that survey the tech capital’s overlooked communities and subcultures from a local perspective.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">M\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>y pride in hailing from a sprawling suburb has always left people puzzled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fremont isn’t exactly a Bay Area centerpiece. Still, I eagerly defend it by mentioning that it’s the fourth-most populous city in the Bay Area, and that yes, indeed it \u003ci>is \u003c/i>the Bay (it’s Alameda County! We’ve always had a BART station! We have our own stinky marsh bridge!). Our food is multicultural and peerless, and our dusty hills can be transcendent when their summer brown molts to green after a few healthy rainstorms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My exuberance has been matched only by a 52-year-old man I once met at a West Berkeley homeless shelter. I noted his “Flying A’s Niles” T-shirt while I interviewed residents prior to the shelter’s closing, and he shared stories about the car club in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11789138/how-charlie-chaplin-and-silent-films-flourished-in-the-east-bay\">Fremont’s historic Niles district, made famous a century ago as a studio town for dozens of Charlie Chaplin films\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13965201\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13965201\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12320544-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Author Supriya Yelimeli (right) plays with her sister and cousin in a creek at Fremont’s Central Park. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Supriya Yelimeli)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Though the man grew up in a very different Fremont than I did, we giddily swapped tales about shared haunts, and he told me — with only a hint of pride — that Lake Elizabeth is about the same size as Lake Merritt. This trivia is most interesting to someone who has enjoyed innumerable sunset walks while dodging geese droppings at both parks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Fremont’s reputation seems to be manufactured this way, under the generous umbrella of “boring.” It benefits both immigrant families who hope to create bubbles of safety by raising children in familiar environments, and the many forces that reap the rewards of inflated real estate prices — pinned to shiny signifiers like top schools, safe neighborhoods and the entirely inexplicable (repeat!) ranking of “Happiest City in America” as \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/fremont-happiest-city-2024-18693776.php\">dubiously graded by WalletHub, a personal finance company\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this notion of Fremont’s exceptionalism is insidious. It harms all of us to silo suburbs away from the greater context of the Bay Area, especially when sweetness and safety should be easy to come by for everyone. It’s a microcosm of how Silicon Valley — of which Fremont is a part, culturally, industrially and economically — often isolates itself from the Bay, as if impervious to any ills or faults of its own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13965199\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13965199\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12163155-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A quintessential Bay Area immigrant family photo in front of the San Francisco skyline. The author (center) is flanked by her sister and mom. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Supriya Yelimeli)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I remember my childhood as cozy and simple. My main preoccupation was what my older sister was doing at any given moment, then my parents, then our cat, in that order. I liked going to school, watching Bollywood films at Naz 8 (a famed local theater \u003ca href=\"https://eastbayexpress.com/bollywood-goes-hollywood-1/\">formerly run by a Pakistani immigrant who cameoed in Bollywood B-films\u003c/a>, since replaced by another Desi-centric moviehouse) and taking weekend BART trips to San Francisco to ogle sea lions with visiting cousins. I practiced riding a Ripstik around the park with my dad, who followed patiently on foot and didn’t think to tell me that skateboarding would make me a cooler teen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My parents moved to Fremont in the late ’90s because the homes were still cheaper than South Bay cities like Sunnyvale and Cupertino, which had already established themselves in Silicon Valley’s tech empire extending just beyond San Jose’s outskirts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, Fremont was on the east side of the Bay’s marshy waters, reachable only by crossing the Dumbarton Bridge or curving around the Bay’s southern shoreline past the stretches of garbage landfill in Milpitas. Geographically, it rested in slightly undefined territory — neither claimed by the East Bay nor Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13965216\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13965216\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/image000000.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1199\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/image000000.jpg 1600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/image000000-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/image000000-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/image000000-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/image000000-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/image000000-1536x1151.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The author plays with her late father, who immigrated to the U.S. from India in 1993, eventually making his way to Silicon Valley via Illinois, Kansas, Ohio and New Jersey. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Supriya Yelimeli)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s hard to imagine Fremont in this up-and-coming era, when my parents bought a three-bedroom home for $275,000. Sadly, they lost that home in the recession, struggling to pay the mortgage, and thereafter remained renters in the city. Being a studious Zillow-scroller (I blame the housing beat, but it’s really just nosiness), I’m never thrilled to see that it last sold in 2018 for $1.3 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I credit journalism with helping me understand Fremont and its relationship to the fractured region I grew up in. In 2011, during a high school newspaper trip, I interviewed protesters at the Occupy San Francisco camp and passersby in the Financial District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>I stopped a platinum-haired, older woman on the street, who was wearing what my 15-year-old mind imagined to be a Chanel suit. I asked what she thought of the movement, and she told me frankly, “Well, I am the 1%.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Years later, as I covered anti-homeless actions by neighbors in San Jose, San Francisco and Berkeley, I took note of Fremont neighbors in the midst of their own attempts to block a homeless navigation center in that neighborhood made so famous by silent films, where subsidized housing (as in the rest of the city) constitutes a tiny fraction of available homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Occupying the same county as Berkeley and Oakland, where the highest percentage of our homeless neighbors live, Fremont was doing its best to replicate the behaviors of so many Silicon Valley cities that have made it clear that their doors are closed to those who are not affluent, not tech-aligned, not worthy of sharing space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13965198\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13965198\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12024470-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The author sitting at her dad’s desk, surrounded by 90s and 2000s paraphernalia, along with issues of Silicon India and the San Francisco Chronicle. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Supriya Yelimeli)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They didn’t have the brash self-awareness of my interviewee in San Francisco, whose generationally wealthy peers have historically driven efforts of exclusion in the Bay. But it seemed Fremont residents had adopted this playbook for their own efforts to distance themselves from anything uncomfortable, or unfamiliar, while allowing the immigrant narrative of struggle to obscure the way we wield power in very similar ways after obtaining a home, income and stability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During a 10-hour Fremont Unified School District Board meeting in 2018, I listened as parent after parent, almost exclusively immigrants, insisted that education on sexual assault, affirmative consent, gender, puberty, abortion and intercourse would irreparably corrupt fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders. One Asian American alum of Fremont schools countered at that meeting: without education, how was a young girl supposed to cope if she got her period before middle school? The district would go without a sexual education curriculum for all elementary schoolers that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>It comes at a cost to cling to comfort and familiarity for only \u003ci>our\u003c/i> communities, pretending that everything that exists outside of them — a housing crisis, a drug crisis, overlapping homelessness and mental health crises, all exacerbated by a pandemic — are not part of our lives too. That the comforts we have are due to perseverance alone, and not a system of privilege that is tenuous at best, and could easily turn on us like it has in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This particular form of clinging in Fremont, and many of our most affluent suburbs sprinkled throughout Silicon Valley’s zip codes, makes the Bay Area worse for everyone. It keeps the Bay from functioning as a cohesive unit, where people can move and live in different types of neighborhoods as their lives change and families grow. Where people can access resources away from the city, and easily find a nice big patch of green space to dodge geese droppings with a kid still finding their feet on a pair of quad skates (amid the Great Ripstik Abandonment of 2009).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13965093\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13965093\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/img20240917_12071490-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The author (middle) rides a Fremont-line BART train. Here she is pictured with older sister (left) and older cousin. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Supriya Yelimeli)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>My mom lives in Milpitas now, and I only stop by Fremont to get treats at India Cash & Carry; make a biannual, masochistic trudge up Mission Peak; or ride the train to the (still new-to-me) Warm Springs BART station to grimly observe the rash of new condos and apartments just barely blocking my precious dusty hill view (as is my right).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A promise of “luxury right to your doorstep” glares back at me from the myriad advertisements wrapped around scaffolding. It’s a sign that — without intervention — the sweet comforts of my childhood in Fremont will become even more distant for those who want to live and flourish in my hometown.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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