A New Hope

Rodriguez is a complete opposite. She was calm, observant, and ambitious, constantly dreaming of a life that she wanted. And all of that isn't one photo with Patty smiling bigger than anyone may have ever smiled in a row of mostly frowning co workers, and Eric smirking on his knees, flipping off the camera with both hands. Eric and Patty grew up in neighboring cities of southeast Los Angeles, but they didn't meet until they worked together selling Women Choose at J. C.

Penny and Down. But just like all the stories in this podcast, Erica played a special role in their lives. It's actually the reason they met. I'm Patty Rodriguez and I'm Uric Glendo. And this is out of the shadows. Children of eighty six. Immigrants and their children have long lived in the shadows of America. Their destinies aren't just shaped by where they come from, but by their particular

place in history. In the lives of millions of immigrants and their children were changed by one lucky stroke of a pen by an unlikely ally, President Ronald Regan. This podcast will examine the ripple effects the bill had on first generation kids of immigrants, who are navigating intergenerational mobility and transforming the cultural landscape. This is an untold story of luck, timing, triumph, opportunity, survival, and of course hope. Father.

A few years ago, I was feeling fortunate and started to think about how I got here. I started to ask myself all those questions, how did I come to this position? How did I get to be part of a hit national radio show, a publisher of children's books. Well, as it turns out, it had to do with this one bill Urka, And this was history that we didn't

even know. You know, six wasn't that long ago. You think that a thirty year old piece of legislation that changed so many migrant lives would be treated as a historic landmark. URCA was in part responsible for creating the Latino middle class. We're more essential than ever. It's why j Loo and Shakira are headlining the Super Bowl. It's

why we have big Hollywood productions like Coco. It's why I started my own company, Little Liberos, because I want my kids to grow up proud of being themselves, of being Latino. If I had grown up with fear constantly on my mind thinking my parents wouldn't come home. Like little Marzella Sanchez who wrote the letter to Reagan, I don't think it would have been possible. And don't get this wrong. URCA wasn't a hand out. It's not like they gave our parents a million dollars and said go

be American. But as Sonya Santos puts it, it's just tradmission to leave. If Sonia's family was for worse to live in the shadows, her son Barney wouldn't have started his own business. If my parents or Eric's parents hadn't gotten Irka, we probably wouldn't have met, let alone got into the work as storytellers. We are so passionate about Irka created a generation of immigrants who were fearless, created a generation of children of immigrants who dare to be

themselves unapologetically. The course of my life, Barney's life, and Eric's life were all changed by a stack of papers. And that's American history. That's our history. There's a reason we start every episode of this podcast, what the Photo from Our Past, to show the ways that our history is still breathing. It's real and experienced by real people. It's not as far removed as it so often seems.

So we created a sonic photo album, infusing life into still images, giving you a glimpse of that history through the eyes of the people who lived it. In nine six, even though Orca was meant to stop the flow of immigration, the numbers went way up. Immediately after it passed. The immigrant population went from about four million to about three times as many, to eleven million. Border patrol enforcement also

went way up. The government spent close to a billion dollars on immigration enforcement at the time of Orca's passing in six By two thousand and twelve it ballooned up to twelve billion. That's the thing about history, It isn't always about triumph. And after Urka, immigration policy completely changed and not for the better. Out of the shadows. Will be right back now back to the show to catch you up on the immigration policy that has happened since Urka.

We brought along our resident historian and lead writer, Caesar Hernandez. After six there were a series of immigration policies, So I'm gonna go through a few of them to bring us, as Doc Brown would say, back to the future. Okay. So four years after Ka, George H. W. Bush built on it with the Immigration Act, allowing spouses and children of emnacy recipients to apply for permission to stay in

the US and receive work permits. It increased the cap to seven thousand, and granted Temporary Protected Status a k TPS to immigrants fleeing violence from countries and armed conflicts and natural disasters. The takeaway here is that immigration was still bipartisan effort and passed in Congress by a majority, but three events in the nineties solidified anti immigration sentiments.

The first was the bombing of the World Trade Center in The domestic terrorist attack was traced to Islamic fundamentalists as a backlash to American foreign policy and involvement in the Middle East. A number of innocent people lost their lives, hundreds were injured, and thousands were struck with fear in their hearts when an explosion rock debasement of the World

Trade Center. A year after that, Prop one seven in California pass a piece of anti immigration legislation that tried to limit undocumented folks is access to social services like public education and healthcare. Governor Pete Wilson ran on a reelection platform of anti immigration and one they keep coming two million illegal immigrants in California. The federal government won't stop them at the border, yet requires us to pay billions to take care of them. Though these sentiments wouldn't

last very long. The courts ruled it unconstitutional. It heightened tensions and made immigration policy even more contentious. Then the Oklahoma City bombing happened. The bombing in Oklahoma City was an attack on innocent children and defenseless citizens. It was an act of cowardice, and it was evil. The United States will not tolerate it, and I will not allow the people of this country to be intimidated by evil cowards.

According to the Valie Times, these two attacks happening only a few years apart, quote heightened concerns about the nation's vulnerability two enemies here and abroad. All of that served as the context for passing Immigration Act. One of the consequences of IRKA was this backlash against immigration and immigrants. That's immigration and tension lawyer Arrifer Rasa. So you see this xenophobic and sometimes racist backlash towards immigrant communities, which

ultimately lead to more restrictionist policies within immigration. So you know, ten years later from IRKA being passed, you have an Immigration Act of which basically expanded who could be detained, so mandatory detention, and expanded what constituted deportable crimes. So all that is to say, IRKA was great in the sense that it provided legalization, but it created this cultural

back ash. By the dawn of the twenty one century, terrorism had replaced communism as America's national anxiety fever dream, and in many people's eyes, the line between immigrants and terrorists was blurry and basically defined by skin color. After nine eleven, two acts passed in two thousand two, one that increased border security budgets, staff, and power, and the Homeland Security Act which created the powerful, multi pronged Department

of Homeland Security. In two thousand six, Congress passed the Secure Fence Act, which, as a name states expanded existing border walls, fences, and surveillance sound familiar. Listed together, these policies read like the Greatest Hits album three decades a whole generation's worth of congressional immigration policies. The umbrella of anti terror put a big damper on seeing immigrants with humanity.

I believe a lot of that has been fueled by the politics of race um so that as the country's demography has changed UH, people on the anti immigrants side of the spectrum have become even um more hardened in their views. That's Charles Kamasaki, who wrote a book about URKA called Immigration Reform The Corps that Will Not Die. There were pro immigrants Democrats and anti immigrant Democrats, and pro immigrant Republicans and anti immigrant Republicans. That's largely gone.

From that point on, immigration remained of partisan issue, and reforms reached a congressional stalemate. Even when things started to move, they moved slowly and are basically dead on arrival, and

Kamasaki says a lot of that is by design. This really began in the gang At era, where instead of letting committees kind of work out what their bills would be like increasingly in the Gingrich era and under every speaker of the House since, and the same as happened on the Senate side, decisions increasingly were made by the leadership in both houses. No congressional legislation on immigration has made it through since, only executive orders offering temporary solutions

and further division on the issue. Had a chance to talk to these six young people, or the young dreamers all across the country who wouldn't find it in their heart to say, these kids are American, dislike us, and they belong here, and we want to do right by them, and so often in this immigration debate it's an abstraction.

In two thousand twelve, Obama issues an executive order known as DHAKA, or that the Eard Action for Childhood Arrivals, that differs deportation and gave temporary work permits to undocumented immigrants who were here since two thousand seven. He expanded that order with DAPPA, which extended those protections to the parents of naturalized immigrants or permanent residents. For me, DOCTA is it was a temporary effects. It was not resolving

the issue. Messilea Verta was one of those doctor recipients which is bigger than that, which is like a path to citizenship, to humanization, to shoot our people like human beings, because every two years we have to justify who we are. And I think myself as a present, I am bigger than a piece of paper, a piece of plastic. Growing up undocumented created an identity crisis for Messy, So I think for a minute, I forgot of what my identity was. As as when you come to the US, there's this

idea of like you need to assimilate. You won't need to speak English, you need to be surrounded by this certain type of folks so you can get better access to certain things. Right, I lost who I was when I was a child and a teenager. The worst of it came when he went to college and joined the tennis team. But once I got to college, I experienced something that I thought I never experienced, which was my tennis coach questioning my status for being land Next, I

was like, why are you questioning who I am? Right? And he started questioning a lot of students and we were very, very scared and not leave me to get very, very involved with the movement and realize who I am as I'm talking a bit a bit, and do join today. My saye works with doctor students and reminds them of their humanity every day, and I think myself as a president, I am bigger than a piece of paper, a piece of plastic, and that's what I remind my students every

single day. The irony surrounding Doctor is that Obama's praise for the executive order, but his administration was notorious for deportation. Here's Professor Regina Langott from UC Santa Cruz. It's important that we remember that Obama deported more people from the interior of the US than anyone before him. Even as we are a nation of immigrants, were also a nation of laws. Undocumented workers broke our immigration laws, and I believe that they must be held accountable, especially those who

may be dangerous. Do you hear that? Right there? Obama was following in a line of presidents, almost echoing verbatim. We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. We're a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws. We're also a nation of immigrants. So even though immigration was increasingly partisan, the talking points and policies started to bleed into each other. But there was one motherfucker who was particularly evil. When Mexico sends

his people, they're not sending you is kidding. We're not going to play that stupid as food on here. The man ran on a platform of anti immigration and racism, demonizing most non white people, and promising a law if he was elected. The Trump administration worked to undue the progress of Urica and previous policies. Early in his tenure, he tried to ban Muslims from entering the country, regressing to the era of is homophobia reminiscent of the days

after not eleven. But one of his most notorious immigration policies was zero tolerance at the borders. As early as seventeen, there are reports that Trump administration officials were separating young children from their families. The following year, kids were putting shelters where they were putting metal cages. Many of those children came from Central America. In the following years, reports from media outlets estimate that over five thousand families were

ripped apart. Fast forward, the Biden administration started a task force addressing immigration issues. After Trump's presidency, They've worked to reunite some of the families, but there's still thousands who have yet to be That doesn't even get into the psychological scars and physical trauma these kids endured. Earlier this year, the National Immigrant Justice Center reported that families are still being separated and their claims for financial restitution are being dismissed.

This is what Professor Langott has to say on the subject forced family separation and deportation. That's the context that we're looking under and that we need to to hold on to and remember. So in terms of the families, we know that when people are deported from the interior of the US, it's mostly men who are deported, and that this has pretty negative effects on children, be those physical, psychological, or academic. So we're back to the future. Thanks for

breaking that down for a caesar. After the break, I'm going to talk to one of the few people in this country with the same kind of power former Senator Alan Ka Simpson had when he helped get Erica passed in I'm gonna ask current United States Senator Alex Baia, who's been fighting in one way or another to get comprehensive immigration reform passed his entire career. Where we are today, out of the shadows, will be right back now, back to the show. Alright, alright, can you hear me? Okay?

You do look like that's me talking to another son of immigrants, another Mexican American l a kid who grew up taking full advantage of his parents obtaining green cards to build a better life, not just for himself and his family, but for many others in this country. Senator Alex Babia and I spoke over Zoom on the tenure anniversary of daca's passage and just a few days after California voters sent him to a full term in the U. S. Senate, And the very first bill I introduced that I chose

to introduce was my Citizenship for Essential Workers Act. Like I've been a vocal advocate for immigration reform protections for dreamers and farm workers and others for many years, so I was very cognizant that I wasn't the first to introduce an immigration reform built in recent years. Been part of advocating for some of the more comprehensive bills that had passed in recent years. One House or the other,

but not quite making it to the President's desk. And so when I came in and figured, how can I to this conversation and to the strategy, And I was inspired frankly by the experience we've all had through the COVID nineteen pandemic. You know, it was a tough, brutal

couple of years and it's still lingering. We saw the early days of the pandemic, with the case rates and the deaths frankly disproportionately impacting communities of color and immigrant communities, frontline workers, people without the option of zooming it in from home right, people who work in the fields, people who work in meat processing plants, people who work in

construction and transportation, and obviously in the healthcare industry. And to learn that more than five million federally recognized essential workers are not just immigrants, they're undocumented immigrants. And to watch how they sacrifice and expose themselves, risk their health, out of their families to try to protect the rest of us and keep the economy moving. I mean, in my opinion, they earned a pathway that citizenship long before

the COVID nineteen pandemic, but especially during the pandemic. They've earned it, and that's what my bills ought to do. Recognize them as one big group and legalize their status and put them on the pathway to citizenship because they have absolutely earned it. Well, what is the status of

that bill now? So the status of the bill is uh, you know, we're still stuck in the In the Senate, the House of Representatives has passed a number of immigration reform bills, sort of piecemeal Dreamers and Promise Acts, so that addresses DOCTA, other dreamers and TPS holders. Uh, there's a separate form Workforce Modernization Act that's also been acted upon. But we're trying to grind through the reality of the

United States Senate. But we're also dealing with literally a fifty fifty split Senate, so doing anything is hard right now. It's been a good chunk of it last year trying to find common ground or trying to convince frankly, a lot of my Republican colleagues, because we don't just need fifty one votes, we need six votes to get things

done in the Senate. You know, earlier this year we started reaching back out, not just by myself, with my colleagues in the Senate Center, Menendez Center, Cortes, Masto, Louhan, and others to implore the White House President Biden to use his executive authorities to maybe strengthen docuted, even expand DOCTA protections among other things. That's expand the number of

countries that can benefit from TPS protections, etcetera. And we're still pushing them, but more recently, I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but I've have renewed hope in the lettuce d of process. You know, among the committees I sit on is the Judiciary Committee, and I chair the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, and we had a hearing a couple of months ago on a specific category of documented dreamers. And in this hearing, I started hearing from

my Republican colleagues, well, this is a no brainer. We got to fix this. We should be able to agree to that. And so that sort of reopened the door to conversation Asians and negotiations about some of these will OVERDOE UH provisions to update and modernize our I innovation laws they keep wanting pointing back to. But President has to get the border under control first. So you know, it's used as a text way too often as an excuse to to not get to yes. But we're trying

to work through it. Well, what do you what do you think is like the the ideal scenario, Like what what would be the best outcome for the country and also for the dreamers, for the doctor recipients, for TPS recipients. I mean, there's just so many subcategories at this point that it's it's hard to really to keep track of.

But I'm wondering, like as a as a person who's who's fought for this for so long, and a person who is, you know, writing the laws of this country, Like, what is the the ideal scenario that you would hope for? This is personal for me, right, I'm a proud son of immigrants from Mexico. My father came from the state of Jalisco. My mom came from the state of Chihuahua.

In the nineteen sixties, they met, they fell in love, they decided to get married, and they applied for green cards in that order, and uh, you know, we were one of the lucky ones. Back then. It wasn't as uh as as random luck of the draw as it is today. You know, at a later and as we say in Spanish. They settled into the San Fernando Valley and started a family, and I have an older sister

and a younger brother. And for my parents, who worked hard to provide us better opportunity, right, they didn't get a really a chance to get a good education in Mexico. They didn't. They just didn't have that chance. My dad worked for forty years as a short order cook, clipped a lot of pancakes and scrambled a lot of eggs in his life. Uh And at the same forty years my mom were cleaning houses. So because of their experience, they insisted that my brother and my sister and I

do well in school and get a college education. So I know how blessed importunate I am. I believe every hard working family, immigrant family in pursuit of their American dream deserves the same chance. So that's why I'm finding so hard, you know, to answer your question, what's the ideal way forward? Will they deal way forward to this

comprehensive reform that we know that we need. It's been passed recently in Congress, you know, as recently as two an thirteen, the United States passed on an overwhelming by partisan vote at the time, the House of Representatives didn't take it up. There's been other measures that have passed the House but have been tougher to pass in the Senate as the majority swings from Republican to Democrat. I mean,

and and sadly, what's the consequences. Millions of young people, millions and millions of families across the country are left in this limbo. And and it's not just like the moral imperative. Uh, you know, every economist, every business leader is saying that we have work force shortage in America today. Well, surprise, surprise you. Immigration is way down because of the prior administration. Now we're not doing much to help. You know, people who are here working, pay taxes, you know, come out

of the shadows to do a legalized status. So we're doing it to ourselves. So trying to make the case to my Republican colleagues to do the right thing by policy and the economy, you know, even if your your your moral heartstrings aren't convincing you. And so the other option is what can we negotiate at least some piecemeal wins here. I think we can't be smarter about you know, border safety I think we do need to certainly modernize

our asylum seeking process. I remind everybody it's people coming to the southern border, individuals or whole families seeking asylum in the United States. That is a legal right based on our federal law and international law. But it needs to be better. It needs to be more efficient, needs to be more humane. Um. And but we can't let that hold the stuff from doing right by the millions and millions of immigrants that have been here for years

helping make our country strong. I mean, sometimes, you know, we talked a lot of people. Some of them feel very helpless, some of them feel hopeful. I'm just wondering where you land on that. Uh No, Look, I hear the frustration, I hear the fear. I feel it in my very own community, amongst the friends and extended family. Um. But we've got to keep hope alive. I mean, if the day we lose hope, the day we give up, then for sure it's not gonna happen. Man, talking to

Senator Babia is low key mind blowing. There's a Mexican kid from l A in the US Senate. I almost teared up talking to him because, yeah, I'm biased. I'm rooting for him to do big things, especially on immigration. And even though it may seem like we haven't progressed much further than Irka, people like Badia are proof that we are making inroads. It is well known that Latinos are a large population in the United States, fast growing

by latest census. Starr Marlino Rolsco the child of eighty six who gave her dad her cap and gown when she graduated from Stanford. But what is left well known is that Latinos are also starting businesses at a faster rate than all other demographic groups, and the last ten years alone, the number of Latino business owners has grown forty four percent, compared to just three percent for all others. Marline is now Associate director of the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative.

Our initiative exists to research these trends, and in relation to that, we also have an executive education program that supports Latino entrepreneurs in the scaling of their business. There are over eight hundred alumni of this program and together they generate a combined gross annual revenue of five billion dollars. So this is a formidable group of Latino entrepreneurs and leaders across the country. You know those tropes and Latino movies about the kid that goes to college. It's usually

a triumphant climax about overcoming adversity. Well, it's probably the result of Urka, which means that it's also probably the result of Reagan, which still blows my mind. They're coming out of the shadows benefited their Life's a lot that spring Bean, whose team conducted a study on legalization immigrant mixed status families. We did some comparisons. The children of the Woods who had legalized, whose parents had been able

to come out of the shadows, did very well. Their kids graduated from high school went on to college at rates that were similar to the general population. The Woods, whose parents had not been able to did much worse. The lack of societal membership in that legal sort of sins was the major impediment for the lives of the migrants and their children. Thinking about history as progress is a nice idea, but it's not the truth. The truth is that immigration and the status of those immigrants is

still uncertain. Out of the shadows will be right back now, back to the show. Like we said in the beginning of this podcast. The way you see IRKA depends on your reality. The lingering question is was IRKA success? Well, Allen Simpson doesn't seem to think so it was a failure. Well, of course it was. I never worked, would be doing

something today. You see. For Simpson, IRKA was a failure because they removed the aspect of secure work or identification, and it didn't work to stop the flow of immigration. But for us and our reality, our parents were able to come out of the shadows. Even though he doesn't think it worked, he says he's so proud that three million immigrants found a path to legal status. Sure it

did that. I was very proud of that. There were about three million people that came out of the darkness under the program where we said that they came here before this certain date and went through the legalization process, not an amnesty, and then went into a temporary program and then then into a green car and then the citizenship.

And he's not the only one who believes RKA felt Short Education advocate el Mertldan thinks it was only a surface level solution, so a lot more is owed to us than the band aid solutions like these amnesties that are lauded as like great solutions that have been given to immigrants, but in reality, those just band aids that are thrown out there to silence any critics who refused to see the truth that America is not only responsible for the conditions that they've created, but we deserve to

receive the reparations for the conflicts that they've not only instigated, but have benefited from. Irka isn't perfect, but it was a result of compromise that gave a glimpse of hope. I am hopeful that the fever that we're going through as a country will break, not only on the issue of immigration, but on so many other fronts and the things that are pulling us away from each other. Latino civil rights advocate Clarissa Martinez is one of those hopeful people.

We come together building on their very real notion that we have more in common, including our aspirations. Aren's in our dreams. The idea of compromise today seems impossible. Even Simpson things, there's no chance in hell it would pass today. Are you kidding? In this atmosphere? So what do I see every day? You must be joking? They don't They don't they identify each other as a dirty, rotten right wing Republicans are filthy progressive lafts and what the hell?

What's the what's the progress there? I'd be embarrassed to be in the US Senate today. When you're an advocate, hope has to be part of your DNA. Otherwise you couldn't do this job. But for Clarissa, Hope is one of the most important parts of her work. I am hopeful for a number of reasons. UM. I remember, as an immigrant, I didn't necessarily know the full history of the ebbs and flow of how this country has variance

immigrants and immigration. And I remember my my the first time I had the chance to go to Ellis Island and walking through there and see newspaper headlines and comments about immigrants that were the same ones I was hearing at the time, but they were from a century before. And so one of the things that I see is that our country has a very torture relationship with our immigration history, legacy and d m a UM, I think we have hold what immigrants contribute and mean to our country.

California State Representative when the Carrillo Who in a previous episode told us about her family's journey from El Salvador also hangs onto hope and for her. It comes from one of America's founding fathers, and it's a love letter between John Adams and and Abigail Adams. John Adams at the time was in France raising funds for the Revolutionary War.

He had not become president yet, and he's in France, and he writes this letter to his wife and he says, you know, the gardens of Versailles are beautiful, and I wish that I have the time to explain them to you, but I can't because I have to get back to work, and I must go study politics and war so that our sons have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, so that their children have a right to study art

and music. And every time I share that like, I get goose bumps, because I believe that that is the promise of this nation, that no matter where you come from, what you look like, what language you speak, or what your legal status is, this nation belongs to all of us, not just a few. One of us has to study war in politics, one has the opportunity to study something different, and so on and so forth. And every generation makes a different contribution. The sacrifices of my parents have allowed

for me to move in a different direction. It has allowed my sisters to move in a different direction, and it would allow for generations after us to move in a different direction and to hopefully create a nation where our future is brighter than our past. Imagine if we recognize the people who helped build this country into what we see now. Urga was in a solution because immigrants don't need to be solved, but it was a glimpse of potential in its legacy lives on in the children

of immigrants. Hi. My name is Maria Perez. I was born in n Here in the United States. My parents, Ignacio and Maria Lopez, came to this country from Mexico

as undocumented immigrants in the seventies. The legacy of that law pass has a second every member of our family, for my sister Alejandre and I being a college graduate working in the public sector, my sister Christina being a successful banker, my brother Nacio being a small business owner, and grandchildren Alex graduating UC Berkeley and Caitlin attending New Simer said, my parents can probably say that the American dream was obtained thanks to the Amnesty Act of nineteen six.

Clarissa Rodriguez from Belle, California of um born in ninety six. I am my final semester of Bradco Road and my master and social work and my fashion and stork with children and families, and I'm glad that I have my experience, and I'm glad that I have my American roots. Hi, my name is Jacqueline Erres. I feel that that gave me the opportunity to have a better educate Asian, for my parents to have a job that they were legal,

and it brought the American dreams to their fingertips. My name is Laura um and my mom's saying a damna. We've been in the state since nineteen seventy nine. My name is Celia Ramos, and I greatly contribute my success to my family being able to be granted that amnesty and raising us in the best of their ability during that time. Hi, my name is Maria, and what the Amnesty program did for my mother was basically give her an opportunity to stay in this country and to continue

to raise us. This is Sadie Rodrigue. Is my family story. Begins with my mother, who came from a Salvador in the seventies. The bisit of the amnesty in eighties six obviously changed our entire family, UM, allowing them the opportunity to be able to go to school, get a job. This is Sylvia Guentz from Aurora, Colorado. My mom specifically, UM was able to take advantage of UM that amnesty bill, and she came from as Salvador fleeing the war and UM, so I guess grateful, but also very cognizant of the

reason why UM that opportunity was extended to them. My career has turned into something that's has been very rewarding. Since I got this this gift from the US become a citizen, I've actually give back not too small businesses and I help them grow and I provide financing, educate them on on how to buy their own buildings, how to buy their own equipment, how to grow their companies.

It is incredible to hear all the voicemails we got to read, all the messages from people who are the backbone of this country, which brings us back to that photo at the top of the show. Everything you and I, Patty have done has been influenced by, as you said, a stack of fucking papers, recognizing, if only for a moment, that our parents deserved more. Our parents paid that forward to us, and it was life changing, because I don't think you and I would have ever met if it

weren't from my dad. I was on a bad path in high school. I was more concerned with doing a legal ship than I was with going to school. My dad told me to get my ship together. He said he asked a friend for a favor, and he got me a job at the Stone One Mall and Downey. I was an intern working for free at the radio station, so right after high school to make some extra cash, I started working at the mall. I was still aimless,

trying to navigate adulthood and figure myself out. In the year comes his red head and want to be thug. My first day there was awful. My mind was stuck on trying to be a gangster, running around doing gangster ship. When I first saw him, I thought he was this little cholito. He wore baggy clothes and baseball caps. He was a product of his environment, and we didn't really get along. He acted like he was too good to be there selling shoes with me. This was until we

found out that we were both from the hood. I felt like recognizing someone you knew in a past life. And even though we were stuck in retail hell and I still didn't really know what to do with my life. I had dreams Eric and I would walk into in and out across the street and talk about our plans to take over the world. It really felt like we balanced each other out. Sharing life with Eric no longer felt lonely. So then there's this photo of you being this mothers and I think that I love it because

it captures how far we've come. It's when we went to t G I fried Is with the entire J. C. Penny crew. Do you remember that Eric, I thought it was a cheesecake factory. It doesn't matter. The point is it was a memorable night. Eric was still stuck in his gangster ways, so he gets into an argument with the waiter about pasta, or maybe it was about cheesecake. Anyway, it starts to escalate and the staff ends up asking us to leave. So we're all gathered outside and someone

suggests we take a picture. We all huddled together to commemorate the night. I love how most of the people we work with in this photo are frowning, probably pissed because I ruined their night. But off to the right, it's Patty with a bright smile like she just heard a hilarious joke and is trying her best to contain her laughter. And right in the middle doing my best Tupac impression is me with two arms stretched flipping off the camera. This photo is funny because it shows how

different our energies are, almost like opposites. Eric is serious, like he's saying fuck you to the camera for asking him to smile. But my big smile is one of a person who just got her braces removed and wanted to show the world her straight teeth, like a proud student getting an A in her report card. It's those two disparate energies that are combining to force, and that is what we are now, a force. You're an award winning writer, director, producer, and you're a mom, the founder

of a multimillion dollar children's book company, a philanthropist. The city of l A named the day in your honor. I know, it's so freaking crazy. This podcast started with the phone call that whether we like it or not, our lives were impacted by Reagan. It was a wild theory then, but now I believe that it's true. The wild part is that if my dad didn't get his green card through URKA, he probably would have never got that factory job. He definitely wouldn't have moved us to Downing.

I'd probably still be on a very destructive path, and I probably wouldn't have met Patty. And if I didn't meet Patty, you wouldn't be listening to this right now. So we have Irka to thank for bringing us together. And that's just a taste of the postile abilities that the bill created. It created a generation of Latinos like Patty and I, and it's probably the reason we're even friends.

We were two kids from similar areas and different backgrounds, and we had the space to be who we are, to screw up, to be proud, to dream of a life our parents couldn't, and all that came from as a result of our parents legal status. Imagine how many more lives could be improved, how much more we could

contribute to the economy. So I want you out there listening, especially to all the politicians and leaders who have reached out to us throughout the course of the podcast, dropping to think of this entire show, all these stories behind the photos, our story as our plea for another comprehensive immigration reform. Just like Wendy and Clarissa, Patty and I believe in promise of this country, and we are a proof of the hope that Urka inspired. I want to

tell you one more story. My grandfather was Rato who came to pick vegetables when the men in this country were at war. He'd picked tomatoes all day in the scorching heat. He didn't get paid a salary or hourly rate. No, they paid him for each box of tomatoes he filled, and he was only paid ten cents per box. Ten fucking sets. Today, Little leave it Os is a multimillion dollar company. A large portion of that money came from small community investor sments, most of which were Latinos and

first time investors. So when I say that a green card, a two inch piece of plastic means all the difference, I don't say that lightly. Maya Well, Papa Miguel got paid a fraction of a fraction for his work, but not anymore. If you want this box of tomatoes. I'll tell you one thing, it costs a lot fucking more than ten cents. Uh's come in. If you love this podcast, please help us get the word out by following, rating, reviewing, and sharing it with your friends. Out of the Shadows

is written by Caesar Hernandez. It's also written, edited, hosted, an executive produced by Patti Rodriguez and Eric Galindo. It's produced by Betticrdanas, Karen Lopez and Gabby Watts. It's sound design, mixed and mastered by Jesse nice Longer. Our studio engineer is Clay Hillenburg. Karen Garcia That's Me is our announcer. Out of the Shadows is the production of Seeing Me, Other Productions and School of Humans in partnership with I

Hearts Michael Tura Podcast Network. The podcast is also executive produced by Giselle Vancees, Virginian Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Chad Krowll. Our marketing and our team is led by Jazzine Mehia. Original music by a Arenas and if you loved his cover of Los Caminos La Viva this podcast theme song, you can listen to it on all music platforms. Historical audio for Out of The Shadows comes from the Reagan

Presidential Library and the National Archives. Special thanks to Ian Vargas, Alex and Ali, Caitlin Becker, gob Chabran, Daisy Church, Angel Lopez Glendo, Julianna Gamiz, Ryan Gordon, Brian Matheson, Claudia Marty ConA, Oscar Ramidez, John Rodriguez, Juan Rodriguez, Joshua Sandoval, Eric Sclar, Tony Sorrentino, and Megan tan So what do you think, Eric? Do you believe me? Now? Yeah, let's putch it to

marble perfect. I already wrote A Hamilton's Susan. How do three million immigrant mohasels, sons and daughters of others frosting Grande hiding in trunk, sleeping in bunks under the sun, saying good bun,