Episode description

This week Latino USA shares an episode from the podcast "Imperfect Paradise: Return to Mexico," from LAist. 

In 2011, Daniel Zamora took a road trip that shattered the course of his life. Lulled to sleep by the drive, he awoke to find that his boyfriend had taken a detour, curious to look at the border wall, and that they were surrounded by Border Patrol. 

Imperfect Paradise: Return to Mexico tells the story of Daniel Zamora who remade his life after being deported from the U.S. to Mexico. Daniel’s friend and series reporter Lorena Ríos explores Daniel’s journey, from the time he spent as a young teenager without his parents in Río Blanco, to his coming-of-age in Los Angeles and Iowa, to his current life in Ciudad Juárez as a retornado, or returnee. 

Through an intimate conversation, the series interrogates narratives around deportation as failure, the porous reality of people with lives on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border and the alternate lives immigrants leave behind and construct anew. 

You can listen to the podcast here.