In the Country We Love

by Diane Guerrero

  “Hello,” I said, pretending I didn’t have any time for smooth talk. This night is for my girls, not for you. As pretty as you are and, oh God (sigh) as good as you smell, go on your way and impress some girl looking for love tonight, because I am not the one.

  “Can I get you a drink?” he continued.

  “No, that’s all right, I have a drink already. But thank you for asking.” And like that, I shut down the possibility of us getting to know each other.

  “Okay, if you change your mind, my table is over there,” he said. His ego didn’t seem hurt in the slightest. Huh, I thought. He was cuuuute! Then I shook it off and kept it moving.

  Minutes later and still sort of fuzzy from the encounter I’d just had, I rejoined my friends. And for some reason, I couldn’t stop smiling. Could it be possible that this guy had charmed the hell out of me? No! I make the calls around here! It was probably just the three whiskey neats I’d taken to the face, I was sure. I tried my best not to be affected by the situation, but alas, I made my way over to his table. “I’ll take a Jameson neat,” I told him—and I never looked back. And he also had no idea what he was in store for.

  I loved being around J. He was so debonair, but with an edge. His accent was so authentic New York. Think Goodfellas. He was the real deal with a kind of swagger some people would kill for. This was all his. He was and is an original.

  Since that evening, I’ve come to appreciate far more than J’s accent. I’ve never felt more supported, more seen, and more heard by one person. We are partners. He’s responsible and hardworking. He’s curious about the world and things that are important to me. He does his best to connect with me and gain insight into who I am. He’s what I call “fancy,” meaning that he usually knows the better bottle of wine to purchase or the best places to go. There’s no snobbery in his game, and I like that about him. He’s my little white baby.

  The truth is, if I’d connected with J only a few years earlier, I probably wouldn’t have been anywhere close to being ready for him. In those days, I was the girl who longed for someone, anyone, to fix my life, to do for me what I could only do for myself. But by the time I met J, a space had been cleared in my heart. I’d found Lorraine. I’d at last confronted the ugly, gut-wrenching experiences in my rearview mirror. I’d flown all the way to Madrid to rekindle one of the most important relationships I’ll ever have. The day you finally start dealing with your past is the day you stop dragging it into the present. I’m still dealing. I’m still facing the hard stuff. I’m still getting better and growing up. In J, I’ve found a man who’s willing to take that long road with me.

  * * *

  I am blown away by Orange’s success. I mean, c’mon: It’s Netflix’s most-watched series. Critical acclaim has poured in from every corner of the planet. Viewers send the cast hundreds of letters every month. In its first season alone, the show received twelve Emmy nominations and, hello, we won that 2015 SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. What more could a girl ask for?

  A mani-pedi, for starters. Because let me assure you that when the award show rolled around, I took great pleasure in getting dolled up. The prep process is the ultimate good time, particularly for a girly-girl like me. First, you’ve gotta choose a dress (I picked out this stunningly bright red Jill Stuart number). Then you’ve gotta get your accessories together (I chose these beautiful delicate diamond earrings with blue detail, as well as thin diamond bangles). Then you’ve gotta pick out your shoes. I always try to be as comfortable as possible but I can’t help that the shoes I’m most attracted to are the most painful ones. It’s okay—beauty is pain, right? Oh, and the red carpet. My goodness. The affair itself is as glamorous as it appears on television, and I should know, since I’ve tuned in to just about every SAG, Emmy, Golden Globe, and Oscar show that has ever aired.

  Sashaying down the crimson carpet at the SAG Awards is both exhilarating and overwhelming. Reporters are sticking microphones in your face. Bright lights and cameras are flashing all over the place. Major celebs are all strutting and posing. Just ahead of me on the walkway were Emma Stone and Meryl Streep. Some of my cast mates later met Meryl personally at an after-party. I said hello to Keira Knightley, but other than that, I kept my lips zipped. I’m notoriously nervous about going up to other actors to introduce myself, because I’m worried that, after the initial hello, I’ll have nothing more to say. I did muster the courage to walk up to a certain big actor I won’t name, and, well … let’s just say she wasn’t very receptive. She gave me this look like, Who are you and why should I care? Ha ha—those encounters always make me laugh and remind me to never be like that.

  The highlight of the evening is, of course, the show itself. I don’t care how many actors claim it’s “just a thrill to be nominated”—everyone wants to win. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t spend dozens of hours and way too much money trying to look as if we’ve just stepped effortlessly from the pages of Vogue. And when you take your seat at one of the tables, it’s not like you’re thinking, Gee, I know I’m up for this big award, but I hope someone else gets it this year. Nope. I, for one, sat there holding my breath when that magic sentence was uttered: “And the SAG goes to…” It’s hard to adequately describe that moment when Orange was announced as the winner. Surreal is the word that comes to mind. I had this mini-flashback to that moment when, as a senior at Boston Arts, the crowd applauded at the end of my final recital. There’s this incredible energy in the air, this tingling in your body, this feeling that makes you want to stand up and shout, “Yes!”

  Both of my parents have been lapping up every minute of this wild ride. A day after the SAGs, Mami called me (we’d been talking more since my visit) and yelled, “I’m so happy for you!” She’d seen the broadcast. Papi and my other family in Colombia sent me texts and WhatsApp messages, congratulating me on the win and mentioning every magazine they’d seen me in. Mami and Papi were paying close attention to every detail and seldom missed an episode of Orange. Did the show’s, um, spicy content turn their faces red? Maybe a little, but my parents are pretty open when it comes to artistic expression. If anyone is blushing, it’s me. I know it’s hard to fathom, given that I used to work as a cocktail waitress rocking a bustier, but these days I can be a little on the conservative side. I think that just goes back to my idea of what represents a good and proper lifestyle—in my mind’s eye, that has always involved a wealthy woman wearing a high-collar shirt, a double strand of pearls, and big stylish sunglasses as she makes her way to summer in Nantucket or the Hamptons. It’s like, “Oh, no—let’s not talk about sex in public. It’s not polite.” That’s also why I’ve sometimes been like, “Mami, stop being so loud! White people aren’t loud.” The hilarious thing is, I had no idea what white people did or didn’t do—or, for that matter, how anyone lived behind closed doors. And Lord knows, loud folks come in all colors. But in the world I was raised in, amid the countless media images I took in as a girl, I got this crazy notion that being white and well-heeled and educated made one inherently superior. Sadly, I thought that being brown and broke, as well as hiding out from authorities for most of my childhood, somehow made me less valuable in the eyes of others and, at moments, in my own eyes. I was dead wrong.

  I feel fortunate to be part of a series like Orange. It’s entertaining, yes, but I’d like to believe that its value goes beyond that. The stories are so real. Many viewers write to me and say, “My sister is in jail,” or they’ve spent time in a penitentiary themselves. The United States has the largest prison population of any developed country, with more than two million behind bars by some estimates. There are more jails in this country than there are colleges. It’s a privilege to be able to shine a light on a world that many people in our country seldom even think about.

  It’s also important for Latino viewers to see actors who look like them. I’m proud of the fact that both Jane the Virgin and Orange have casts that include brown girls. Not long ago, Jackie Cruz and I were wra
pping up a day on set, and a Honduran woman approached us outside our set; her daughter, a fifteen-year-old shy girl with a mouth full of braces, stood at her side.

  “Would you mind if my daughter took a photo with you?” she asked.

  “No prob,” Jackie told her.

  After we’d posed with the girl between us, she cupped her hands over her face and started to cry. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry,” her mother cut in, “she’s just nervous. You’re such an inspiration to her. We are so proud of you girls.”

  Jackie and I looked at each other like, Us? An inspiration? It was another reminder that, as an actor, I have a powerful platform; whether or not I realize it, I’m influencing people I’ve never even met. And that means I can’t just do or say whatever I want. I have a responsibility to use my stage well.

  I hope Orange and Jane the Virgin are only the beginning for me. I plan to keep pushing myself. I want to take roles that stretch me. I want to climb all the way to the top of this business, and I have no shame in making that public. Some people shy away from boldly claiming what they most wish for. Maybe they fear it’ll make them look pushy. Or greedy. Or ungrateful for what they have. But when you keep your dreams hidden away, when you hide them under a sofa cushion, they never get the light they need to grow. I’m all about that growth, which is what keeps me swinging every day. I literally cannot wait to see what’s around the corner. Imagine all I would’ve missed if, on a rooftop in Boston on a snowy December night, I’d thrown everything away.

  With my boyfriend by the sea.

  CHAPTER 17

  Into Daylight

  The United States is the kind of place where you can choose your own path. We should never forget that.

  —HENRY CEJUDO, US Olympic gold medal–winning wrestler who was born to Mexican immigrants

  Three things will always be enough to make me flip. First, receiving flowers or even a phone call from my sweetheart, J. Second, shoes—enough said. And third? Receiving an invitation, as I did in 2014, to meet the president of the United States. I’m just going to go ahead and say it; President Obama is my boo. Oh, stop! You all think he’s your boo, too. And shouldn’t we feel that way about our presidents?

  All joking aside, let me back up and tell you how I got the chance to meet the first black president of the United States, Barack Obama (or Barry, as J and I call him). In September of that year, I attended an awards ceremony sponsored by Cosmopolitan for Latinas. The mag was honoring all these great women who’ve done amazing community work. I was really inspired by one woman in particular, Grisel Ruiz. She’s an attorney for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC), a nonprofit offering resources to those facing deportation. As I listened to her speak so passionately about her work, I was like, Wow—I want to be like her. I’d been itching to get involved, to do something to help immigrant families with nowhere to turn. I loved the fact that Grisel and the ILRC were educating people about their legal options.

  A few days after the awards ceremony, I reached out to Grisel and told her I wanted to somehow use my voice. “Why don’t you write an op-ed piece?” she suggested. The ILRC had been pushing for the president to provide temporary legal protection for undocumented workers. “Sharing your experience will keep the country focused on the issue,” she told me. So for the first time—and a little apprehensive about what I might’ve just gotten myself into—I wrote about the day my parents were deported. The story ran on November 15, 2014, in the Los Angeles Times, five days before the president’s big announcement. I had no clue what response the article would get or what might happen afterward. As I write these words, I’m still astonished by what happened.

  Within twenty-four hours of its publication, the op-ed went viral. Thousands were suddenly talking, tweeting, texting, and Facebooking about my story. In the press office of the ILRC, the phone rang off the hook with media requests following a press release. NBC. ABC. The Huffington Post. NPR. Every major press outlet was requesting a comment from me. Me! Rather reluctantly (this all happened so dang fast…), I agreed to a short interview with New Day host Michaela Pereira on CNN. On the morning I went on her show, nervous as all hell, it was the first time I’d spoken publicly about my family’s ordeal except for a brief mention to a Fusion reporter a few months earlier. Even some people I’ve known for years, like former high school and college classmates, didn’t know about the deportation.

  “That seems to be every child’s worst nightmare, that your family is taken from you,” Michaela said to me with compassion in her voice. I nodded, and then told her I’d gotten to visit them in Colombia. “How is that?” she asked. That’s when I broke down.

  “It’s tough,” I said, the tears toppling out before I could squelch them. “We’ve been separated for so long I feel like sometimes we don’t know each other.… There are things about them that are new, that I don’t recognize. It just … It hurts.” And to this day, it still does.

  After that interview, the story seemed to get even bigger. Strangers were coming up to me on the street saying, “Aren’t you that girl from Orange whose parents were deported?” I cringed every time I heard that, because my family’s entire struggle had been reduced to one humiliating sound bite. With as much fervor as I’d written the op-ed, I wished I could un-write it. I’ve revealed too much, I thought. This has been a big mistake. I’d opened the floodgates for people to judge me. To say crude things about my parents. To think they knew all about me because they’d seen one article or video clip.

  And let me tell you, the hatefulness abounded. People wrote nasty letters to me, declaring that my parents should’ve been shipped back to Colombia years before they were. “In fact,” someone wrote, “they should’ve deported you along with them.” Some used racial slurs I won’t give airtime to by repeating. If I’d been criticized about, say, my work on camera, I would’ve been like, “Whatever, dude.” I’d learned how to buffer myself when my performance was critiqued or when I was rejected for a role. But this was different. I wasn’t used to others going after my family. I didn’t yet have the thick skin for it. And aside from that, I was also pretty sure my career was over. No one’s ever going to mess with me again, I thought. Maybe I’m being too political. Maybe I need to stick to the arts or talk about saving the whales. The topic of immigration is so polarizing.

  The shift came for me as I read through all the other letters I received. As crippling and toxic as negativity can be, there will always be greater power in the positive. For each of the haters, three others wrote to me with stories of recognition; in hearing me speak about what happened in my family, their private fears had been given a voice. A face. An affirmation. At last, someone understood them.

  The most heartrending notes I received were from children. “I’m so afraid this is going to happen to me,” a nine-year-old told me. “What if I lose my mommy and daddy? What will I do?” One sixteen-year-old girl stopped me in downtown Los Angeles and said, “My mother and father were deported last year. I’ve been on my own ever since.” And one woman, although she hadn’t been personally impacted by immigration, connected to the feelings of grief and abandonment I’d described. “I lost my parents when I was twelve,” she told me as she held back tears. “I know what you’re going through. It’s so hard.”

  The more I heard and read, the clearer it became that this was about something much bigger than just my family’s tragedy. Millions were living under the radar, ashamed, as I have been, to say a word about their situation. For their benefit, I needed to tell my story—and not just some of it, but the whole ugly truth of it. As I made the choice to step out rather than retreat, I got some support from so many people I respect. My cast mates, the crew, my friends. “We had no idea you’d gone through this. We think you’re brave to open up.” That really touched me. It reminded me that while it’s tough to put myself out there, I shouldn’t shy away from it. Any cause worth taking up requires courage. And you can’t wait until you’re feeling bold t
o act; if we did, most of us would never do anything. You have to step out in spite of the fact that you feel scared. And I often do.

  Shortly after my op-ed piece ran, the White House rang. Gebe Martinez, a longtime reporter and now a publicist for Mi Familia Vota (and these days my right hand gal) relayed the message to the team at the ILRC: “President Obama would like to invite you to attend his speech on immigration reform,” they told me. “He’d be honored to have you attend.” I almost choked when I heard it—that’s how stunned I was. What a huge deal. At that point, I was like, forget the hateration—I’m going to hear my idol speak! The historic address, which was to be televised during prime time, would take place at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, Nevada. I flew in with no expectations that I would meet him personally—but between you and me, I prayed I would.

  The speech was as riveting as it was important to the future of our country. The president had taken executive action to extend deportation relief to millions and lay the groundwork for the undocumented to work here legally, rather than separating families. I stood there in the audience, tears threatening to spill down onto my white dress, and I thought about my mami and papi. I thought about how the president’s new order might’ve meant the difference between their presence here with me and their immediate deportation. I thought about all the years of uncertainty they’d endured, the thousands of dollars they’d handed over to that lawyer, and the effort they’d expended just trying to do the right thing.

  After the address, a White House aide approached me. “The president would like to greet you,” she told me. OMG. About twenty of us were led to a private reception area at the back of the arena. Among the guests: Wilmer Valderrama, the talented actor who has been an outspoken advocate for immigration reform. I’ve looked up to him and been inspired by his example, so it was a thrill to stand in line with him as we waited to meet the president. “Is this your first time meeting Mr. Obama?” he asked. I told him yes. “Don’t worry,” he told me. “It’ll be great. Obama’s cool.”