In the Country We Love

by Diane Guerrero

  Even before I said word one to the president, I was a hot mess! Just as my turn came up, he looked directly at me and said, “I know you.” I began to weep. “Oh no,” he said, taking a step toward me. “Don’t cry.” I was in shock that the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, was talking to me! Unbelievable. I pulled myself together well enough to shake his hand. “I’ve heard your story and I know why you’re here,” he told me. “And I want you to know that you’re important. You matter.” (Or at least that’s how I remember it.) That brought more tears from me. Big time. I almost passed out.

  From there, the conversation went left: The president mentioned Orange. “Michelle and I can’t wait for the new season,” he told me. For real? The president and the first lady actually watch the show? “You’re feisty in those kitchen scenes,” he said with a laugh. “Don’t try anything funny in here—I’ve got security.” Hilarious. He asked a couple of questions about the upcoming season, and I was like, “No, Mr. President—I’m not giving you any spoilers.”

  A moment later, a photographer snapped an official photo of us, which was later signed and sent to me. “Diane, it was wonderful to see you,” it reads. “Thank you for getting involved. Barack Obama.” Be still, my heart. The president made his way around the room, hugging people; somehow, wink-wink, I ended up back near him.

  “Ah!” I go. “I’m here again! Sorry, I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

  “No,” he told me, “you belong here.” And that’s when he reached down to hug me. Afterward, I called Mami and screamed into the receiver, “I just met the president!” Disclaimer: I rarely get excited about seeing famous people, but when I admire someone, I act like some rookie at a 1999 NSYNC concert.

  The picture of me and the president ended up on the front page of El Tiempo in Colombia, a very reputable newspaper. My parents couldn’t believe it. The CNN clip had also gone viral, and they’d watched it multiple times. To tell you the truth, I had been concerned that I’d embarrassed my parents. I brought that up to my mother. “This is your story,” she told me. “Tell it the way you want to, and don’t be afraid. Use what we’ve been through to help others.” Papi was encouraging as well, but true to his nature, he seemed a little apprehensive. The same thing that stung me bit him—seeing our all-time worst experience summarized in a five-word headline. For others, that was so-called news. For us, it was an agonizing reminder of the trauma and separation. “Always remember that you’re in charge of your own story,” Papi told me. “You get to decide what you want to share. Don’t let others push you into talking about anything you’re uncomfortable with.”

  That advice served me well. In the weeks following the op-ed, anyone with a notepad or a mic seemed to think it was fine to play Diane Sawyer and ask me the most personal, probing questions—questions I’m sure would’ve made them squirm if they were in my position. Much of the time, I didn’t know what to say, which is why I’d come off as curt and a little bothered. But after having that conversation with Papi, I drew my line in the sand. This is my story. I own it. So if I don’t feel like talking about it during a particular interview, I make that known beforehand. I want to open up about my life, but on my terms. In my time. And with the complete context of all we survived. That’s one reason I chose to write this book.

  Putting my ordeal on paper has been gut-wrenching. I’ve felt vulnerable through every step of it. I’ve had to look back at moments I’d rather forget and stare into dark places. I’ve had to examine my choices, my motivations, and my missteps, as well as those of my loved ones. The process has been like therapy to the tenth power, and although, yes, I’ve ultimately found some healing and relief in opening up, the path to that point has been personally taxing. In fact, I nearly called my publisher and said, “Let’s just forget this. I’m not ready.” What kept me going? The gripping e-mails I still receive by the dozens. The husbands and wives who, at this very moment, are being forced to live apart from each other. The realization that, tomorrow and the next day and the one after that, a child will come home to find a home with no one in it. I’ve written the book I wish I could’ve read when I was that girl—and my hope is that, in these pages, others will find the solace I once ached for.

  * * *

  My mother is back in Colombia—at least for now—so she could be closer to my brother. I don’t know what the future will bring—Mami wants to return to America and live here with me—but she does have the option of going back to Europe. When she left Madrid, I gave her my word on something. “I will not forget about you,” I told her.

  I’m grateful that my brother has rebounded. He at last reached out to a counselor, and he’s not only feeling much better, he’s working full-time as a teacher. I’m proud of Eric. In our culture, it’s not easy to even talk about mental health, much less bravely step out and ask for help. I wish we lived in a world where more people did that—and I wish more of us would support rather than judge those who do seek help.

  During Christmas 2014, I traveled to see my parents. J came with me. I was a little anxious about taking him; I’ve never introduced my parents to anyone I was dating. But this felt right. I soon realized I had zero reason to be apprehensive, because my parents absolutely adored J. Mami was charmed by his sweet face and eyes, his cool demeanor, and how gentle he was with me. Papi appreciated his work ethic. “He’s a serious young man,” he told me. “He’s disciplined.” He’d noticed that J was usually early to bed, early to rise; he’d get up and handle his business in the mornings so he could chill with me and the family in the afternoons and evenings. My parents were so fond of J that, a couple of times, when I got hissy with him, they scolded me. “You should watch your tone with him,” Mami told me. I’ve been away from my parents for more than a decade, but one thing hasn’t changed: They’re quick to tell me when I’m being an ass.

  J and I took a side trip to Armenia—the area of Colombia where one of its finest exports, coffee, is grown. Papi came with us. J, who has become increasingly involved in building his family’s business, was particularly interested in visiting the region. We fell in love with Armenia. The area is nestled in gorgeous countryside, with coffee fields stretching as far as the eye can see and breathtaking hills and mountains in the backdrop. And of course, there’s a beautiful coffee culture there. In that city and in the surrounding towns, locals frequent the outdoor cafés and enjoy the country’s best brews.

  The visit gave me a chance to bond with my father. Dad and Diane together again! We were like peas and carrots. Although I’d visited Mami in Madrid not long before, I hadn’t seen my father since that Christmas during college when I’d flown to Colombia. We didn’t do anything big, but just spending time with him felt special. It made me recall those times, years earlier, when my father would take me to the beach or carnival. And it was cool to watch him and J get to know each other. For many years, my father had been down because of the way things turned out; but as he and J sat over coffee, talking and trading stories, he seemed more like his old self—the open, funny, and warm father I remembered from our days in Boston. And although he’ll probably always be on the shy side, he was actually a bit talkative with J. Good sign.

  One afternoon when Papi and I, just the two of us, meandered through the fields, I struck up a conversation.

  “Papi,” I asked, “if you were able to come back to America, what would you do?” In the previous year, my father had been bugging me like never before to look into his return to the States. I was curious what life he envisioned for himself there.

  He stopped for a moment, swept his palm over his forehead, and gazed out over the rows of lush greenery. “I’d do anything,” he said. “Any job would be okay.”

  “Anything?” I pressed.

  “Yes,” he said. “Maybe I could find another factory job. Doesn’t really matter.”

  “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?”

  He turned, looked directly at me, and didn’t flinch. “I just don
’t want to miss any more of your life,” he said. “I only want to go to be near you. We’ve been away from each other for too long already.” I reached over and hugged Papi, and as I did, he leaned down and pecked me on the forehead. “I love you, chibola,” he told me. “Always will.”

  I’ll be honest: Up to then, I’d been annoyed about my father’s insistence on his return to the United States. He seemed obsessed. He brought it up just about every time we talked. “When are you going to start looking into the paperwork?” he’d urge. I wanted to tell him, “Look, you’ve got to make the best of your life in Colombia.” But during that moment in the field, I got it. I understood him. My dad wasn’t looking for some grandiose life. He simply wanted to be close to his only child. And even in his early sixties, a time when many are settling into retirement, he was willing to take a lowly job just so he could be around me. That afternoon, I made a quiet choice. I would do everything in my power to bring my papi back to the United States.

  I’ll do the same for Mami. These days, she and I talk at least a couple of times a week. What a pivot after seven years of silence. My mother’s so cute: Every morning, she sends me my Cancer horoscope on WhatsApp. Or she passes along a photo, an inspirational quote, or any articles in which I’ve been featured. If a few days go by and she doesn’t hear back from me, I sense the panic in her. “Diane, where are you?” she’ll write. “Can you please answer me?” When I sense her desperation, it hurts. It makes me aware again of all the ways I shut her out. Look how many years we lost. I daydream about reclaiming some of those moments by sharing the simplest things with her. What would it be like for us to go to HomeGoods and pick out a mirror or a little chair? How would it feel to be able to say, “Hey, Mami—how would this look in the living room?” Those are the little things I miss. And when you think about it, they aren’t little things at all. They’re the experiences that, one moment at a time, make up a life.

  More than fourteen years have passed since Mami and Papi were taken, and in a way, I need them more now than I did then. Every day, I have new questions about which direction I should take, both in my career and in my personal life. I long for their guidance. I get some of that over the phone, but it’s not the same as having them in the room. Because they’re in a country where day-to-day existence is so arduous, they’re often distracted by the basics of survival.

  It’s clear that my parents will never rekindle their relationship. That’s a sorrow I’ll have to live with. And yet I do keep one fantasy alive. I imagine the day when I can bring Mami and Papi back to America, buy them a little duplex near me, and have one live upstairs, the other down. They wouldn’t even have to see each other much, and yet they’d both be within a couple of miles of my place. They could pop over for dinner, or I could linger at Mami’s table and enjoy her homemade stew. Each would have a copy of my spare house key, so I could call up and say, “Hey, I forgot the plumber was coming by today. Can you stop over and let him in?” Years from now, if I am blessed to have my own children, I envision my parents cradling their grandbabies in their laps, rocking and swaying and singing them to sleep the way they once did me.

  I wish I could tell you my story has a perfect ending; such a finale exists only in the make-believe worlds of my childhood. Even in the best of times, life is a mixed bag of disappointments and triumphs, heartaches and highs. Life hands out all of the above, and we don’t get to pick how many of each we’ll get, or in what order they’ll show up. But we do get to choose how we’ll walk through our days. Whether we’ll cower under our covers every morning, or rise up to take on the challenges. Lord knows I’ve done both. And now that I’m on this side of things, I’d recommend the latter.

  I have a lot of gratitude for what I’ve been given. I’m still breathing, still kicking up dust, and I count it as a miracle that I want to be in this world. I now have J in my life. I’ve got this incredible career, one that continues to surprise me with all its twists and turns. Nearly every day, I have an experience, be it tiny or enormous, that reminds me that something bigger is at work—that God hasn’t turned His back on me. And though I don’t have my parents in the States, I do still have them in this world and in my heart. It’d be so easy for me to dwell on their absence, and for years, I did. I have my days, even now. But a little at a time, I’m learning to cherish whatever moments I do have with my family, even if that’s across an ocean. I dream of the day when we can reunite in this country, and I believe we will. Until that happens, I’ll hold on to that hope.

  Me and POTUS.

  Call to Action

  A life not lived for others is not a life.

  —MOTHER TERESA, Roman Catholic missionary

  The afternoon I crawled under my parents’ bed, terrified and shivering, I’d been completely overlooked by our government. I still find it surprising that, from that place in the shadows, my life has carried me all the way to the set of a critically acclaimed Netflix series. Down the red carpet at the SAG Awards. And into a meeting with the US president. Along that road, I spent a lot of time trying to make sense of why I’d gone through what I have and what I was put here to do. I realized, years into my search, that one answer had been staring me in the face. I am the girl whose parents were stolen. I am also the girl who is here to make sure no other family is put through that hell.

  Our immigration system is especially hurtful to children. The Department of Homeland Security reports that in 2013 alone, more than seventy thousand parents of US-born children were deported. Kids who have at least one undocumented immigrant as a parent make up about 7 percent of K–12 students, and the vast majority of those are citizens by birthright, according to Pew Research. On any given day and without warning, these boys and girls may come home to discover they’ve been suddenly orphaned. I was fourteen when it happened to me. Can you imagine how overwhelming it would feel for a five- or eight-year-old? I can. Wherever we may stand on the issues surrounding immigration, there is no excuse for our government to abandon its children. None.

  Those whose parents are snatched away frequently end up in foster care, bounced from family to family as they deal with post-traumatic stress disorder and severe clinical depression; without the consent of their birth parents, they can be adopted by people who may further mistreat them. Those who remain in the care of a second parent or relative are often forced onto public assistance, particularly when the person deported had been the family’s main breadwinner. And what happens to the ones who, like me, aren’t contacted at all by ICE or Child Protective Services? Some slip into homelessness, or they have to beg friends to take them in, as I did. All are susceptible to sex traffickers, drug dealers, and gang leaders. The lack of due diligence by our government repeatedly leaves our youngest citizens hanging without a safety net. When immigration officers sweep in and arrest a housekeeper or factory worker without checking to see if a child will be deserted, families and communities become unstable. Both directly and indirectly and in dozens of ways, that instability affects you. Me. And every other person who lives in the United States.

  When I first shared publicly that I’d been left behind, many sympathized—but others suggested I book a one-way flight to Colombia if I wanted to be with my parents; they, of course, had wanted to stay with me here. Yet in my own family and in the families of scores of others, the solution is far more complicated than deciding who exits the country and who stays. For one thing, my status as an American citizen—and my ability to earn a living wage, which Mami and Papi cannot do—allows me to cover their basic expenses. And second, this country, one founded by those who sought the same refuge my parents came here seeking, is my home. It is the only nation I have ever lived in or known. For thousands of parents, taking the children back to their homelands would mean putting them in dire, life-threatening situations; that’s usually why these mothers and fathers have escaped to here in the first place. In Honduras, which the UN says has the world’s highest homicide rate (followed by Venezuela, Belize, El Salvador, and Guatem
ala), violence has become so widespread that locals live in terror that their little ones will be kidnapped or murdered. And they have good reason to be afraid, reported the Los Angeles Times in 2014. Hours after a teen boy stepped off his deportation flight in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, he was savagely shot and killed by gang members.

  Children who stay in the United States have no choice but to find their own way. After my parents were detained, I knew of no hotline to call. I had no idea what my rights as a citizen were. And aside from that, I’d spent my childhood underground, discouraged from ever mentioning my parents’ legal status. Although resources existed, I wasn’t aware of them—and even if I had been, taking hold of a helping hand would’ve meant overcoming enormous fear. I’d been taught to trust no one.

  That fear is still alive and well for countless children. It’s what initially led me to partner with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ilrc.org). Back when my parents were trying to become citizens, they were never told that, despite their immigration status, they still had basic rights (in prisons, agents who conduct interviews with detainees don’t have to identify themselves as ICE officials; and many of those imprisoned, like my parents, have no idea that they have the right to remain silent). Mami’s and Papi’s actions were largely based on fear and hearsay. Connecting with an advocacy group would have made a world of difference for my parents. In fact, if they had been properly guided, I might still have them here with me today.

  * * *

  Undocumented workers add millions to America’s piggy bank. Our country’s economy depends heavily on their labor. “Immigrants take jobs from Americans,” it has been said. “They’re a financial burden.” The exact opposite is true. Undocumented workers contribute well beyond what they can ever recoup. How so? For starters, they regularly buy goods and services, and in so doing, they fork over sales tax. They also pay into Social Security and Medicare (via invalid Social Security numbers and taxpayer identification numbers, the latter of which can be obtained regardless of one’s legal status). The money these workers cannot recover is passed on to citizens. Stephen Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration (SSA), has reported that undocumented workers are investing nearly $15 billion a year into Social Security. Without these deposits, estimates Goss, we’d be 10 percent deeper in our funding hole for this program. It’s in our best financial interest to give immigrants a path to citizenship. Without their labor, our economic train would screech to a halt.