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of a tree falling in a forest. You know, is anyone listening? Does it really exist? So here's the thing. This is the People's Voice Award, So you get to vote. It would mean so much if you'd go to vote dot Webby Awards dot com and cast your vote for Family Secrets. Thank you so much for hearing me out. I love you guys. Now on with today's episode, I'm Danny Shapiro and this is Family Secrets, the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others,

and the secrets we keep from ourselves. My guest today is Emma Ramos, actress, comedian, and writer. Emma has an important story to tell, and her telling of it is brave. After all, she was told that if she ever spoke of it, she could be risking her life and the lives of her loved ones. But secrets only accumulate power when they stay silent and dormant. Here's Emma. I grew up in Cula, Cancinaloa, Mexican that's in the northwest of Mexico. That city. Unfortunately, I'm a really bad rep You could

see it briefly in the collateral with Tom Cruise. It's well known for its nargo culture. To me, it was really well known for its beautiful contexts. Uh. This is one of the cities of Metago that actually is awarded for its beautiful sunsets. So I grew up in middle class and uh, I would say in the nineties in this town there was this striving draw cartel that was out around the families who grew up there for generations, very conservative, staunch Catholics, very proud people that had their

honorable jobs. But this political and corrupted system was happening around. And I grew up in the middle of all of that. What did that feel like? And was there is a sense that there was danger that you were in danger. I mean, how did how did that play out in your family? I would say that parents from my community. Um needs a million awards from middle classes because it's a constant like distracting your kids and trying to make

it as if nothing is happening. I say that women from my hometown, because women are in charge of, you know, taking care of of the kids and men go to work. It's very, very nineteen Still, they would distract us and they would you know, filled our afternoons with toys and school would be very I would say normal, but for example, in the middle of class there would could be a

gun shooting. I learned the word as from school. Our teachers taught us to go to the ground whenever there was a gun shooting happening outside, and I learned how to distract myself, well, danger, what's happening, because it's kind of a second nature. You built this muscle of being completely out of your control. So I would kind of like look to my friends while I was laying on the floor and make them laugh while, you know, just

to distract ourselves while it happened. And then we would go back to school, you know, like there was no discussion I would say, like that could happen. Also, you could be at church and there could be a squeeze of a gun shooting between a Hallelujah and an amen. But then the math would keep going and we would have And the economy of being part of that community is that conversations outside while that was happening, had nothing

to do with that world. Women were preoccupied with, you know, beauty pageants or what were they wearing, or let you know, when was the next keen Stays or the girls or the first communion, and everything was very much connected to being good with God and being a a good girl. That was kind of how you made your parents and your grandparents proud. You know, good grades and being a good girl meant that you would be leaning into those

feminine things. And if you were a boy, well you need to be brave because you are going to be someone who's going to take care of women. In the world of Emma's childhood, there was a strict delineation between the roles of boys and men and the roles of girls and women. An undercurrent of danger ran through their daily lives, such a part of the fabric of their

community that it went without saying it just was. So is it fair to say that the men and the boys were the ones who were more sort of hyper aware of the dangers and of protecting the girls and the women from those dangers. Yes, now, looking back, I have a lot more compassion really for for men, because it was inherent that they would have to take that responsibility, whether they wanted or not. It was part of being

a man. They would be part of those conversations. They would be the ones who, you know, if there was any need to defend their work, and I would say, defend their work because um, in this system, whatever kind of job you had, you would have to negotiate with you know, that other corrupted system. Example, you would have to pay a certain amount of your income to these people just for them to leave you alone. And if not, if you would try to be if you were that guy.

I have a friend whose brother tried to, you know, to just defy that reality and with murders, so that would be kind of the process, right. But because women were meant to stay at home, that was the way that men would protect them. Tell me about your parents. Tell me about your mother first. My mother is someone that I hear these stories since I was a baby. That she wanted to study literature when she was a kid,

but she couldn't. She couldn't go to Mexico City to study literature because she had to decide and start a family. She started her family when she was twenty one. She was very young. She's um, the second of six kids, and she grew up very quickly because of the same. She became a mom at a young age, and she couldn't continue studying, and her entire life and happiness was about making her home as beautiful as possible, as perfect

as possible. She takes a lot of pride in not talking about violence and not talking about the ugly stuff how she called it. She is also very very proud of the way she coped with life. In fact, before this conversation, Danny, I would just wanted to double check things with her, just to see if my memory was right. And uh, she has this thing where she purposely forgets. She tells me that she doesn't remember the things that she doesn't want to remember, and that's the way she

just chooses to be happy. Every day she chooses to be happy. And that's why certain moments in certain pictures go to the trash and we act like it didn't happen,

and that's the way I respect her life. Yeah. Yeah, that's so interesting, Emma, because really one of the predominant themes in this podcast is that what you just describe your mother doing, it's actually impossible, Like you can't just decide not to remember something, or secrets go into corners or things that we don't remember that we choose not to remember. They kind of stay there in a way, they never completely disappear. So it's just it's so interesting.

I mean, can completely understand someone doing that. I mean, especially in circumstances where the way you're describing it, it sounds like your family and your home community were so surrounded by, you know, things that were really frightening and encroaching and threatening. Yes, And I'd say that there's something

strange about sharing this with you. There's a there's a thing about language also that I have to be aware that I feel like, because I'm sharing this in English, i am short of protecting them because if I would say it in Spanish, and if they would understand what I'm saying, they would be very annoyed. They would feel that I am kind of ill mannered. By just exposing

something that's not good about where I was from. Right, there is a misunderstanding of being grateful, and they've built this quilt of emotions, And that's why I feel sometimes hesitant to even share realities. But I I find certain anecdotes so telling. For example, I remember this during Christmas. She was the one in charge of buying all the presents because my dad would make the money and she

would do the house things which involved being Santa. So there was this particular Christmas she went to the supermarket, had all the gifts in her car, and then two kidnappers approach her with guns, you know, like pointing out her head. They would just kind of like wanted to kidnap her and like like steal the car and steal the gifts, and god knows what they were going to do with her. So she rans outside, she tried like to negotiate with them, screaming, and just she ran back

to the supermarket. So these guys just stole the car with with the toys. But when she talks about it, what I find fascinating is that what she remembers the most is that when she was hiding behind the counter, filled with fear, she would look at the supermarket floor she noticed that it was dirty. So she's like that flow was so dirty, and I was distracted by like all the dirtiness and all the hair that was on the floor, and that was happening, while like the cashier said,

we need to call her husband. So now the superhero and the Savior King which is Dad, right, which is another human being who gets a call that his wife, you know, just dealt with that, and he has to come and save her, and we as kids receiving I know the story now as an adult, but back then I couldn't. I didn't know what happened. I just I just remember seeing Mom coming back from who knows where

and just shutting down and not telling us anything. And then you know that, I believe that Christmas we they organized somehow getting our toys, but I find that detail for some reason. So telling of the women from my city, well, yeah, I mean, you're describing this amazing coping mechanism. It's not that different from the way you described telling jokes and making making people laugh during school when you had to what was the word when you had to go down

on the floor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean you're down there and and making people laugh and sort of doing what you can do to not be thinking about what is actually happening. And your mother in the supermarket is looking at the floor and the dirt and the grime, and it's sort of what she can do to not be completely freaking out about what just had happened to her. We don't decide what are coping mechanisms will be. We

don't get to choose. Oh, I'll be the funny one, or I'll focus on the small detail to avoid seeing the big picture. Some coping mechanisms are healthy and others are self destructive. Whatever they are, they're an attempt to control an uncontrollable environment. And when it comes to Emma's father, all he wants to do is keep his family safe in an unsafe place, and he has a lot of very strong ideas about the way his kids Emma is one of three, should live their lives. Tell me about

your father. My father is a beautiful man, a very sensitive human being that was never allowed to explore his feminine side. He works in the agricultural business. He inherits his land that was like from you know, many generations before him, so kind of also his story was written for him before he could say anything. I saw that that was only for women, but I think, you know, I think for men too. My father's also very proud to share like the same values that my mom has

to prioritize family. So just you know, his biggest moment of happiness is to be with his kids. I think he imagined that, you know, working and giving us everything they steele cafe sustain. So he would say, like you know that he would take care of our clothing, our house needs, and our education education with something huge. But I'm from that generation that the Internet happened, so I don't think they could plan that I was going to have access to so much information when they invested on

the best education they could. So I think that Dad.

I clearly remember graduating from college having all these dreams where I would see finally that we had in Mexico at the time, only one female senator, and I remember meeting her more than being so connected to her thinking and reading and understanding that there was a way in which women could also vent their truth and would be paid for it, and coming back home and telling Dad that I would want to pursue that, and him being extremely confused and afraid that that meant that I would

not learn how to cook, because I've never learned how to cook. I can't cook anything. But his advice would be, you should start to learn how to cook, because that's what's next. You know, like you have the best education, therefore you are connected to this group of people. Thank god, I did everything that you could be safe while growing up. And please don't be a disappointment, and you give me more hard at tags while you're still how side in

the world without being protected from and via man. So I think that that where our relationships started having a lot of conflicting conversations based on his idea of how should I continue in my life and my impetus of just responding to a call, which was to keep exploring and asking questions and and make money for myself. It's so interesting the way that the Internet really does play a role in so many of these stories that you

ended up being exposed to. Your aperture was open so much wider to the possibilities that were available to as a young woman then they might have been without the advent of the Internet when you were growing up. Yeah, we'll be right back, So Emma hustles, she has big dreams. She goes to college, graduates early. She's smart, talented, well liked, and ends up with a good job in public relations in Mexico City. She works during the day and it's

even studying for a master's degree at night. Tell me what happened about fifteen years ago one evening when you were on your way from work to your classes. So now knowing that that was not happy about me continuing and pushing to be the next senator in machial but even if we fight, he loved me, so he allowed for me to work on this job in Mexico City. One of those things where I got away with pursuing

my career. But obviously I had to call Dad every Saturday and like all of his mechanics around having him at ease that this little girl was, you know, doing the right thing and just working and balancing the fact that I wanted to be this superwoman to simplify as

that term. So while I was doing that, being a superwoman at that time, and I'm twenty one at the time, I was truly truly young to have this position at the company as a director and also studying my first master's kind of my mind was in that, you know, drinking that juice, that there was a possibility of young women being part of politics and doing something for themselves other than just being there because they were women, they

were pretty, or whatever. Men thought that we were. Men from my generation would say that I got that far in my profession because I was pretty, and I would be so livid. So with that thrive and anger, that's why I was like, I will keep studying, and my focus was like first as masters, then the PhD, and Mexico City. This was the time where Fox was president, and I just mentioned him because when we say in Mexico is a dangerous country, it's just so general. It's not.

It's really it's like any other country. It really depends on the moment in politics. If we had a precedent for the first time from a different party. Mexico is a country who had seventy one years free was governing, which would be the equivalent of the Republicans, and then we had folks for the first time, so the political temperature and violence of the city was different. That's why

there were certain things called express kidnaps. An express kidnap has nothing to do with being the daughter of a mogul or an ambassador. It's a method of abduction in which a victim is targeted, abducted, often violently, and held captive for a quick, small ransom, either from the victims family, employer,

or most often a T M machines. I usually could go to school, would take a site taxi to be cautious, but that day I believe I had an exam or something, and the traffic wasn't like imp posible, so I took a cab from the street, which you shouldn't, but my focus was in becoming the next senator, so so I

had to go. I had to go to class. Um. So as soon as I got into the car, I'm giving you these details just to paint the picture of how distracted and focused I was, so kind of like how my mind delayed a lot of the things that happened. Kind of I was absorbed them in a delay because I was on the phone, still dealing with my job, and I had in my hands um paperwork from school. So I was kind of focusing and trying for the

cab to just get me to school. And as soon as I cop on a inside the cab, two men stepped in, and it kind of because I was still on the phone and I couldn't I couldn't understand. I felt that they were they were pointing at me, and there was a cook halpen me of a lot of fear. I would say in these guys voices, they were screaming commands and they were screaming things. Because I wasn't moving,

I couldn't understand what was happening. So I would say that after two minutes of understanding what was happening, then I looked down and I see that there were guns pointing um at my ribs. They were touching my ribs from both sides. I looked at the cab driver, and the cab driver acted after if he was a victim. But they are part of the whole thing. So then I understood what was happening. And then kind of there's a moment where I felt that I was out of

my body because all of this. The next moves happened so quickly. The guy on my left took my necklace. The guy in my right opened my bag and took my phone and took all of my I D and everything I had inside my bag. So I remember her that he was addressing me by my name and he would say my address. And unfortunately, the way I d S work in Mexico, you will always I will always

have This is another caveat of patriarchy. I will always have my parents address on my I D until I get married, then I will have the address or whoever I marry, whatever home I moved to. So the fact that they were saying out loud my parents address and my name, and they start saying that if I moved that I was going to be murdered. And they would be like, this is how it's going to go down.

They start explaining to you, um that they're gonna stop at different a T M S. You have to give them the nip uh and they would take the largest amount of money. And if you cry, they will kill you if you if you scream, you would try to do anything. So they start attacking you with all these words. So you become so small and your fear, you know, inhabits you of any emotion. And I remember I started praying. I started praying, praying and praying and praying Holy Father

and Spanish like a mantra. I could not stop praying. I couldn't believe what was happening. They stopped at three different A T M. S. I stupidly had three cards with me, something that you shouldn't do. As this is going, I would say that this is happening with Mexico traffic. It's like the next two hours, right, it takes more or less two hours, and they're driving around and they remember being inside the cab and all of a sudden, right next to us there was a you know, a

police officer, and we had to act. I remember having one of the guy's arm holding me, and I have to act as if we were, you know, just three friends driving somewhere. It's terrifying and claustrophobic. Even listen sending to this, can you imagine what it must have been like inside that car. He's violent, out of control, dangerous men have Emma's name, her family's address, and guns in her ribs. She can't signal a police officer. She's completely

utterly trapped. But then her coping mechanisms begin to kick in at that point. I don't know how, but thankfully, being two hours with these two individuals, three individuals if I count the cab driver, but I was focusing on the guys with a gun. I started clocking their energy and their frequency, if that makes sense. It's just like I would say, like they're one was a little kinder than the other. And I start to myself, I have to convince them of not raping me. I just have

to convince them. I am going to convince them of not to rape me. So I already talking to what I called the good one, the good guy, which is the guy on my left. The guy on my right, which was the bad guy, would go outside and get the money from the A t M. And the guy on my left. I started just engaging and looking at his eyes. And every time the guy on my right would pop outside and get the money, I would talk to him and I would look straight to his eyes and be like, I know you have a sister. I

know you have a mother. There's someone, a girlfriend, someone in your life looks like me. Look at my eyes. Put her in my eyes, look at my eyes. Threw her in my eyes. You don't like, it's okay, You've raised enough women. It's okay. It's just going to be this one. I stray to God with this one that you let go. So I started kind of trying to make him see me as someone he liked, he loves, he would have compassion towards And I don't know if this makes sense to you, but and this is very physical.

I think that this is very easical because I would feel the guns the way it just pushed my it for the guy in the left, the metal or whatever it was made with started having a little bit more ease, so I would I would say something, said, Okay, so at least this guy maybe is going to help me out when the time comes. Because the nature of this is once they take all the money, then they moved to a different place, which is they go outside the

city and that's where it happens. So with the last guy, he got upset because he couldn't take money from the last a t M. So he starts yelling, he starts healing, and he starts getting really annoyed and saying really horrible things. That's what he was going to do to me. And I don't know where I found this strength, but I just fought him back with the same level of my voice, and I just screamed back at him and I said,

do not be an idiot. This is my nip. Just press it correctly, Just press it again and this is my nip right it. So I just thought back and kind of gained his respect for just fining back. So Emma screams and fights, which is amazing enough that she's operating on such an intuitive level that she knows what to do in the midst of a life threatening situation. But then she takes it to the next level. Remember the way as a kid she used to make the other kids laugh when they were down on the floor

dodging bullets. Emma deploys humor. She isn't a trained comedian, not yet, but she's funny and she uses it. So then at the time came of moving outside, Um, I made this guy laugh by you know, continuing this rhetoric. I knew that wherever in Mexico, whatever social class you come from, the one thing we have Mexicans in common

is our belief in God. The Catholic system has done really horrible things and some great things, which is we all believe there when we die, we're going to go somewhere and we can be forgiven and we in the next life will be better. So with that story, I just told him and I was like, listen to me, my mom, and this is true. My mom is very religious, she's very connected with a bath Vatican. I'm going to if you don't rape me, this is what I'm gonna do.

And I started just talking about how I was gonna negotiate a past, a past for him to you know, to have a little just like just like a Nintendo game, just to cavil a mushroom or when you are playing Mario or whatever. I was like, I'm gonna give you a point if you if you let this one go. Um. So once he laughed, and he basically said, listen, I've never ever encounter anybody that has first talked back to me secondly made me laugh. So I'm just gonna give

you a chance. So they let me go. They said, Okay, we're gonna let you go, but remember we have your address and your your parents address. Um, if you look back, we're gonna still point a gun at you. So you're gonna walk. You gotta have to count to eleven. If you report, they give you all these instructions. Um, we will come and murder you. So don't play funny da da da, and don't forget Tona goes you don't forget my point in the sky. So so I walked, and I tell me, I think I counted to a thousand.

My body because of the past three hours of just like holding this play for that, you know, like holding this story for them, holding some sort of like fake strength was so so so tight that finally I don't know where I was. Obviously I didn't have anything. I had to have a bag and I have a phone.

I don't know what neighborhood I was in. Um I started bawling, and a guy in the corner just saw me crying in the corner and just if he wanted to help, and also that for me kind of I was still in shock, so I couldn't trust anyone, and I couldn't put you know, words together, because everything that I did not feel for the past three hours, it came like it just hit my body. So I couldn't couldn't stop crying and just feeling so so so afraid.

I would say the next twenty minutes, any I don't, I kind of There are images that comment back and forth of what actually happened. The only thing I remember is that somehow there was a woman, an older woman, that she could put things together. What I was saying while crying so she put me in a cab. She paid this cab driver to take me to my apartment in Mexico City, and that drive back home was when I had to make a choice. If I called my parents and tell them what happened, I would have to

go back to my hometown. I would have to say goodbye to my grad school, to my life as a working woman in Mexico, to all of these things. I would have to say goodbye. I would have to go back home and my father, you know, I would have to ask for forgiveness. Basically on top of this, because I was in Mexico City doing what I was doing

because I said I could, and this happened. So at that moment, the only thing I could do was rely on my roommates at the time and deal with my PTSD for my like, by myself and just stay quiet. How do you deal with your PTSD on your own with no help? For the next week, I asked my roommates if I could sleep with him. I couldn't sleep

by myself. I would wake up just just in shock. Um. I had a boyfriend at the time who was obviously furious and feeling so he had no power to do anything, because in these these cases you couldn't report it to the police. The police was cluded on this and and that would have given another layer of danger if I would report it. And also he knew that if I told my parents, that would be the end of me seeing him. Also, so I would say that I we would watch movies. That was the first time that I

got was obsessed with philispo Mo Hofman. I think I watched every single Philistiner Hofman movie. I watched The Band of Brothers for the first time. Anything that was like far away from my reality. I got. I was so into science field. I need like I was engaging in stories that were outside Mexico and my situations that were funny and different. And I kept working. I went back

to work. I went back to work. I think I I missed work for the next three days, but I went back to work, and I would just I mean, obviously this pdo became, you know, like there were like three months after a friend, uh was coming behind me and just say hey, am and just I just couldn't. I just started screaming, UM. So I had radical reactions for the next months or so. But that's how I dealt with it, and I think that that I became extremely resilient and that what doesn't kill me make you

funnier than he didn't. I just it just make me. It just makes me want to push more for faciness and creating spaces or women to be free and to be safe to do what they want to do. Really, we'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. When it comes to telling her family, Emma is in an impossible position. To tell means that she might be putting them in danger. To tell also means that she'll

be curtailing her own life. Her protective father, who hadn't wanted her to work and live in Mexico City, will force her to come home and learn how to cook and run a household. So she lives with her PTSD and just pushes through deals with it. Her life thus far has taught her to pay attention and do whatever it takes to get ahead. She hasn't considered whether she loves what she's doing. She's just trying to move forward.

I think I've had delayed reactions all over my life because of this way of growing up and comedy and acting came as a delayed reaction because the propeller, the Senator and me was and that was the only thing I knew back then that would give voice to my questions and my observations about injustice in the place where I lived, and the propeller and the path was set. That happened, and I kept going because that was the way to be involved. That was keeping me in the conversation.

I was not benched. I was still in the game. I remember that another job I had right before I decided to move to New York and become a community actress um I had another big job for the government in Mexico. And there was a delayed reaction to all of this because in one of these trips to New York work trip to New York, I had at the time the money that none of my friends had because I start I worked from a very early age, because that was what my plan. My independence and my freedom

was a priority for me. So I I was economically solvent. And I looked at myself in the mirror, knowing that a lot of my male friends also envied my position, and yet I saw so much emptiness because I had

to adjust my truth to be seen. And by adjusting my truth was this suit I had this Louis Baton bag and these like you know, the stiletto that all of these things I carried, and I was like walking back and forth to the New York Stock Exchange and like, you know, all of this exterior persona that they taught me that that's how women are independent and that's how we have a voice. I could never say how I

really felt. I also have worked my muscle of being invisible when I had to be invisible in order to keep a job. I knew that I got so far in the game because I knew how to play it, and the way how to play it is to navig it around whose empower and whose empower is these men at the time that have this need to accumulate wealth no matter what and to see women as traught. So the decision to do what I do now truly truly came as a need to have fun. I said to myself,

I've done so much. Can I have recess now? I always say like I had a childhood of an adult, and now as an adult, I'm living like a child because I worked so hard for that. So many of us who become artists, writers, creatives of all kinds come to this kind of crossroads, especially women, How do we become authentic, do what we love, find our own voices. Emma realized that empowerment didn't come in the form of expensive handbags and stiletto heels. True empowerment came in learning

to fully inhabit her own self. I would never forget the first time I was walking to a play and I was like dancing in the morning and rehearsing and singing and sitting outside. This was that Soho rep and so you know, you know we're Sovilo reppis in New York City. It's not it's it's not the risk, Carlton. You know, it's a very small theater where raps probably are going to appear in whate your shows. What the previous Civilo rep not not the one that is now.

But I would feel this joy, the secrecy of like I cannot believe that I have the privilege to enjoy myself and to just express these words where I feel them, and I felt while living all of this. It came again as as an afterthought, as a delayed reaction of all of this, understanding that this privilege that I called, it's called coming from a patriarchical society and never having a chance to just be Yeah, I love that. It makes so much sense. And I can think of little

that's more expressive than comedy. Really, that ability to speak some sort of like truth so deep that it's funny or to make people laugh, which is actually a through line in your whole in your whole story. And mean, you talk about that from the time that you're in grade school, and then it saves you when you're in the car with the kidnappers. That just makes a lot of sense. You were twenty one when this attack happened, is kidnapping. How old were you when you made the

move to New York? How old are you today? Seven this year? So for all these intervening years, Emma heeds the kidnappers warning. She never tells her family. She never tells her parents. But then during the COVID ninet in pandemic, Emma returns to Mexico to quarantine with her family. Her father is ill and she's there to take care of him. And the thing about secrets is they have their own energy. Even if it's years, decades, lifetimes, centuries, Eventually they come out.

I'm there as an adult trying to help my parents business in March. We knew even less that we know now. The only thing that we were certain was that this was attacking the elders. And I was there thinking, I'm here to do the groceries, to do all of things for my parents because I'm the young person. So this day I grabbed the car keys and I'm just asking my mom my dad, what else do we need? Do we need apples? Do we need that? And my dad, my dad looks at me. I be He's like, where

do you think you're going. I'm gonna do a grocery today. He goes, You're not going with those shorts. You're not you can't go with those short shorts. I'm like, yeah, it's it's very shocked. This is Queercon, it's March, and it's really hot. So I am going with I'm not putting pants and yes, don't know. That was the beginning of this fight where he would say, you're not going, I'm gonna go, and I said, Dad, I'm here for

this same reason. Let me go. I can't believe if you don't change your clothing and you're you, you're not gonna you don't understand you now the thing. You're American and you go to all these women marches, and but here is Mexico, here is different. And he starts getting very agitated, and I get very agitated too, because I can't believe that he can't trust is grown a daughter

to do the groceries with with shorts on. So I said to him, I was like, Dad, do you understand that I negotiated my way out of a rape and you think that I cannot handle going outside with short shorts to bring you drawing? A pandemic apples there. It is the secret tumbling out and as so often happens during an argument, at the worst possible moment. It was a disaster because for both of us there was a lot of things to combat. First of all, it wasn't right.

It was not the right time for me to just, you know, shelve that it came out of just picking the most radical thing. For for him to hear what he was saying, that it made me furious that I still don't have independence in his eyes, And for him, he starts crying um after saying that that I'm very ill mannered and that he can believe that I don't respect my elders and all that, and after it, while he was trying what you have to imagine, this is a very proud Mexican dad, so I barely see him cry.

So that was shocking too. So with tears in his eyes, he says to me, if something happens to you at the supermarket, if you get kidnapped, I don't know what how I could handle, you know, being a dad and being a husband. Again, we stayed in that conversation for a long time, and you know, he said things like this pandemic is getting all guys corny because they can't go out. And I was like, what the women do? I'm like women do and he doesn't want to hear that.

I mean, from that extreme to to just coming together to agree on disagreeing, no matter, if I dealt with that, no matter if he still thinks that I was very lucky to get that was protected from God. This has not This had nothing to do the fact that I wasn't raped, the fact that I'm still alive. I had to do with God protecting me. It had nothing to do with what I did. And I have to honor that I have because I don't know. I mean, that's what I mean. I told you, I prayed. I prayed

a lot inside that cab. So I feel like for the next twenty years, that's what I'm still gabbling with, all this like mysticism and believe in God, and like what is you and what is God? Really? In terms of protection, Emma and her dad are likely never to see completely eye to eye about what happened in Mexico City and the reasons why the kidnappers let her go.

He believes God protected her, and she may believe this too, but she also knows as she handled herself in a way that got her out of that car, both and not either or during the years where you obeyed the command of the kidnappers to never tell, was that difficult for you to not tell? How did that sit with you? And then how does it sit with you now that you that you did ultimately tell your parents what had happened.

It's not easy, really, it's really not easy to be open about a secret when your parents are still alive. I would feel very, very responsible. It's so funny because they've protected me for so long, and I think there's a moment in my life that I was it was okay to to be mad at how things are and to point fingers and to some sometimes feel like a

victim and sometimes feel you know, rage. But to be completely honest, now that I'm at a different moment in my live and that they're older, it would really hurt me if I took years from their life by now knowing now, I don't think that's true. I think that that is just something I've learned somewhere, that these truths sometimes it's very difficult to carry them. I'm no longer that kid that just wants yearning for an applause and

you know, for to bring them a plus grade. I know that, but that girl is true in me, that girls are still in need. I want, I want them to be happy. Right now, I don't know when this is when this is gonna go out. You know that when this story is going to come out, you know, I'm still kind of like, because I coming from a world that goes from generations behind, that this is something you don't do. You do not tell these stories, you do not share secrets, because that's the way you protect legacy,

that's the way you keep things going moving forward. And so this day, Danny, this is so naive of me, But I still think that these guys live there and that they still have my I d because this is the way I grew up. I have tons of anecdotes of growing up this way. I remember being pulled out of a beauty paget contest like a small town the good fighting content, because my dad received a call. And this is a world where it is a town where there were kids. If anarcha would like the girl, they

would kidnap her and disappear. There were families who moved somewhere else. They would move to San Diego. They would love to the state to hide from them if a guy liked a girl. So this is not kind of like oh cute, you know, and funny for an end of a horror story, like these are stories that I live. I would love to say that it makes me feel like I took a weight off of me, but I don't. I don't feel that way. I don't feel that way

because we are not in a different world. My sister still lived there, I have nieces, and I have a lot of friends that live there. I'm the only one that lives outside. I'm the immigrant. I'm not first generation. I am the immigrant. This world is still part of my everyday calls, so I would feel so bad if I do anything to disrupt their peace. Does that makes sense? I hear this so often from guests on this podcast.

One of the most profound reasons to have a secret, to keep a secret, is that we don't want to hurt one another, especially in families. But you know where I'm going with this. And yet, and yet, after all the years of silence and the complexities of life in the city where Emma's family still lives, even though Emma's father may not be able to fully process what happened, it brings them closer together. He said things to you.

I mean, you saw him cry. And the words that crossed my mind when you were describing that was you saw your father as vulnerable, yes, and his love for you making him vulnerable, which is what being a parent does. Somebody once described it as, you know, walking around with your heart outside your body once you have children. And that's what I heard. It took my truth of what

happened and what I dealt. And I don't think he validated it because he couldn't because the reality of his life and his perspective is still so it's his truth. It's definitely his truth, and I just felt a lot of some passion for the macho culture that I've disliked for so many years. I would never see that other side before. Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Media. Dylan Fagin and Bethan Macaluso are the executive producers. Andrew

Howard is our audio editor. If you have a secret you'd like to share, leave us a voicemail and your story could appear on an upcoming bonus episode. Our number is one secret zero, that's secret and then the number zero. You can also find us on Instagram at Danny Writer, Facebook at facebook dot com, slash Family Secrets Pod, and Twitter at fami Secret Spot. And if you want to know about my family's secret that inspired this podcast, check

out my New York Times bestselling memoir Inheritance. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.