Speaker 1: Hi listeners, just a quick heads up out of the shadows,
Speaker 1: tell stories of people fleeing and living in sometimes violent environments.
Speaker 1: If there's one thing to know about Eric Allimo, it's
Speaker 1: that he's mellowed out since the wild days of his youth.
Speaker 1: Back then he was more interested in being a gangster
Speaker 1: than he was being a writer storyteller. He's always been smart,
Speaker 1: a hellic studious person, but contained the angst and anger
Speaker 1: of a young star aggressively emitting a gaseous light. Patty
Speaker 1: Rodriguez is a complete opposite. She was calm, observant, and ambitious,
Speaker 1: constantly dreaming of a life that she wanted. And all
Speaker 1: of that isn't one photo with Patty smiling bigger than
Speaker 1: anyone may have ever smiled in a row of mostly
Speaker 1: frowning co workers, and Eric smirking on his knees, flipping
Speaker 1: off the camera with both hands. Eric and Patty grew
Speaker 1: up in neighboring cities of southeast Los Angeles, but they
Speaker 1: didn't meet until they worked together selling Women Choose at J. C.
Speaker 1: Penny and Down. But just like all the stories in
Speaker 1: this podcast, Erica played a special role in their lives.
Speaker 1: It's actually the reason they met. I'm Patty Rodriguez and
Speaker 1: I'm Uric Glendo. And this is out of the shadows.
Speaker 1: Children of eighty six. Immigrants and their children have long
Speaker 1: lived in the shadows of America. Their destinies aren't just
Speaker 1: shaped by where they come from, but by their particular
Speaker 1: place in history. In the lives of millions of immigrants
Speaker 1: and their children were changed by one lucky stroke of
Speaker 1: a pen by an unlikely ally, President Ronald Regan. This
Speaker 1: podcast will examine the ripple effects the bill had on
Speaker 1: first generation kids of immigrants, who are navigating intergenerational mobility
Speaker 1: and transforming the cultural landscape. This is an untold story
Speaker 1: of luck, timing, triumph, opportunity, survival, and of course hope. Father.
Speaker 1: A few years ago, I was feeling fortunate and started
Speaker 1: to think about how I got here. I started to
Speaker 1: ask myself all those questions, how did I come to
Speaker 1: this position? How did I get to be part of
Speaker 1: a hit national radio show, a publisher of children's books. Well,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, it had to do with this
Speaker 1: one bill Urka, And this was history that we didn't
Speaker 1: even know. You know, six wasn't that long ago. You
Speaker 1: think that a thirty year old piece of legislation that
Speaker 1: changed so many migrant lives would be treated as a
Speaker 1: historic landmark. URCA was in part responsible for creating the
Speaker 1: Latino middle class. We're more essential than ever. It's why
Speaker 1: j Loo and Shakira are headlining the Super Bowl. It's
Speaker 1: why we have big Hollywood productions like Coco. It's why
Speaker 1: I started my own company, Little Liberos, because I want
Speaker 1: my kids to grow up proud of being themselves, of
Speaker 1: being Latino. If I had grown up with fear constantly
Speaker 1: on my mind thinking my parents wouldn't come home. Like
Speaker 1: little Marzella Sanchez who wrote the letter to Reagan, I
Speaker 1: don't think it would have been possible. And don't get
Speaker 1: this wrong. URCA wasn't a hand out. It's not like
Speaker 1: they gave our parents a million dollars and said go
Speaker 1: be American. But as Sonya Santos puts it, it's just
Speaker 1: tradmission to leave. If Sonia's family was for worse to
Speaker 1: live in the shadows, her son Barney wouldn't have started
Speaker 1: his own business. If my parents or Eric's parents hadn't
Speaker 1: gotten Irka, we probably wouldn't have met, let alone got
Speaker 1: into the work as storytellers. We are so passionate about
Speaker 1: Irka created a generation of immigrants who were fearless, created
Speaker 1: a generation of children of immigrants who dare to be
Speaker 1: themselves unapologetically. The course of my life, Barney's life, and
Speaker 1: Eric's life were all changed by a stack of papers.
Speaker 1: And that's American history. That's our history. There's a reason
Speaker 1: we start every episode of this podcast, what the Photo
Speaker 1: from Our Past, to show the ways that our history
Speaker 1: is still breathing. It's real and experienced by real people.
Speaker 1: It's not as far removed as it so often seems.
Speaker 1: So we created a sonic photo album, infusing life into
Speaker 1: still images, giving you a glimpse of that history through
Speaker 1: the eyes of the people who lived it. In nine six,
Speaker 1: even though Orca was meant to stop the flow of immigration,
Speaker 1: the numbers went way up. Immediately after it passed. The
Speaker 1: immigrant population went from about four million to about three
Speaker 1: times as many, to eleven million. Border patrol enforcement also
Speaker 1: went way up. The government spent close to a billion
Speaker 1: dollars on immigration enforcement at the time of Orca's passing
Speaker 1: in six By two thousand and twelve it ballooned up
Speaker 1: to twelve billion. That's the thing about history, It isn't
Speaker 1: always about triumph. And after Urka, immigration policy completely changed
Speaker 1: and not for the better. Out of the shadows. Will
Speaker 1: be right back now back to the show to catch
Speaker 1: you up on the immigration policy that has happened since Urka.
Speaker 1: We brought along our resident historian and lead writer, Caesar Hernandez.
Speaker 1: After six there were a series of immigration policies, So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go through a few of them to bring us,
Speaker 1: as Doc Brown would say, back to the future. Okay.
Speaker 1: So four years after Ka, George H. W. Bush built
Speaker 1: on it with the Immigration Act, allowing spouses and children
Speaker 1: of emnacy recipients to apply for permission to stay in
Speaker 1: the US and receive work permits. It increased the cap
Speaker 1: to seven thousand, and granted Temporary Protected Status a k
Speaker 1: TPS to immigrants fleeing violence from countries and armed conflicts
Speaker 1: and natural disasters. The takeaway here is that immigration was
Speaker 1: still bipartisan effort and passed in Congress by a majority,
Speaker 1: but three events in the nineties solidified anti immigration sentiments.
Speaker 1: The first was the bombing of the World Trade Center
Speaker 1: in The domestic terrorist attack was traced to Islamic fundamentalists
Speaker 1: as a backlash to American foreign policy and involvement in
Speaker 1: the Middle East. A number of innocent people lost their lives,
Speaker 1: hundreds were injured, and thousands were struck with fear in
Speaker 1: their hearts when an explosion rock debasement of the World
Speaker 1: Trade Center. A year after that, Prop one seven in
Speaker 1: California pass a piece of anti immigration legislation that tried
Speaker 1: to limit undocumented folks is access to social services like
Speaker 1: public education and healthcare. Governor Pete Wilson ran on a
Speaker 1: reelection platform of anti immigration and one they keep coming
Speaker 1: two million illegal immigrants in California. The federal government won't
Speaker 1: stop them at the border, yet requires us to pay
Speaker 1: billions to take care of them. Though these sentiments wouldn't
Speaker 1: last very long. The courts ruled it unconstitutional. It heightened
Speaker 1: tensions and made immigration policy even more contentious. Then the
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City bombing happened. The bombing in Oklahoma City was
Speaker 1: an attack on innocent children and defenseless citizens. It was
Speaker 1: an act of cowardice, and it was evil. The United
Speaker 1: States will not tolerate it, and I will not allow
Speaker 1: the people of this country to be intimidated by evil cowards.
Speaker 1: According to the Valie Times, these two attacks happening only
Speaker 1: a few years apart, quote heightened concerns about the nation's
Speaker 1: vulnerability two enemies here and abroad. All of that served
Speaker 1: as the context for passing Immigration Act. One of the
Speaker 1: consequences of IRKA was this backlash against immigration and immigrants.
Speaker 1: That's immigration and tension lawyer Arrifer Rasa. So you see
Speaker 1: this xenophobic and sometimes racist backlash towards immigrant communities, which
Speaker 1: ultimately lead to more restrictionist policies within immigration. So you know,
Speaker 1: ten years later from IRKA being passed, you have an
Speaker 1: Immigration Act of which basically expanded who could be detained,
Speaker 1: so mandatory detention, and expanded what constituted deportable crimes. So
Speaker 1: all that is to say, IRKA was great in the
Speaker 1: sense that it provided legalization, but it created this cultural
Speaker 1: back ash. By the dawn of the twenty one century,
Speaker 1: terrorism had replaced communism as America's national anxiety fever dream,
Speaker 1: and in many people's eyes, the line between immigrants and
Speaker 1: terrorists was blurry and basically defined by skin color. After
Speaker 1: nine eleven, two acts passed in two thousand two, one
Speaker 1: that increased border security budgets, staff, and power, and the
Speaker 1: Homeland Security Act which created the powerful, multi pronged Department
Speaker 1: of Homeland Security. In two thousand six, Congress passed the
Speaker 1: Secure Fence Act, which, as a name states expanded existing
Speaker 1: border walls, fences, and surveillance sound familiar. Listed together, these
Speaker 1: policies read like the Greatest Hits album three decades a
Speaker 1: whole generation's worth of congressional immigration policies. The umbrella of
Speaker 1: anti terror put a big damper on seeing immigrants with humanity.
Speaker 1: I believe a lot of that has been fueled by
Speaker 1: the politics of race um so that as the country's
Speaker 1: demography has changed UH, people on the anti immigrants side
Speaker 1: of the spectrum have become even um more hardened in
Speaker 1: their views. That's Charles Kamasaki, who wrote a book about
Speaker 1: URKA called Immigration Reform The Corps that Will Not Die.
Speaker 1: There were pro immigrants Democrats and anti immigrant Democrats, and
Speaker 1: pro immigrant Republicans and anti immigrant Republicans. That's largely gone.
Speaker 1: From that point on, immigration remained of partisan issue, and
Speaker 1: reforms reached a congressional stalemate. Even when things started to move,
Speaker 1: they moved slowly and are basically dead on arrival, and
Speaker 1: Kamasaki says a lot of that is by design. This
Speaker 1: really began in the gang At era, where instead of
Speaker 1: letting committees kind of work out what their bills would
Speaker 1: be like increasingly in the Gingrich era and under every
Speaker 1: speaker of the House since, and the same as happened
Speaker 1: on the Senate side, decisions increasingly were made by the
Speaker 1: leadership in both houses. No congressional legislation on immigration has
Speaker 1: made it through since, only executive orders offering temporary solutions
Speaker 1: and further division on the issue. Had a chance to
Speaker 1: talk to these six young people, or the young dreamers
Speaker 1: all across the country who wouldn't find it in their
Speaker 1: heart to say, these kids are American, dislike us, and
Speaker 1: they belong here, and we want to do right by them,
Speaker 1: and so often in this immigration debate it's an abstraction.
Speaker 1: In two thousand twelve, Obama issues an executive order known
Speaker 1: as DHAKA, or that the Eard Action for Childhood Arrivals,
Speaker 1: that differs deportation and gave temporary work permits to undocumented
Speaker 1: immigrants who were here since two thousand seven. He expanded
Speaker 1: that order with DAPPA, which extended those protections to the
Speaker 1: parents of naturalized immigrants or permanent residents. For me, DOCTA
Speaker 1: is it was a temporary effects. It was not resolving
Speaker 1: the issue. Messilea Verta was one of those doctor recipients
Speaker 1: which is bigger than that, which is like a path
Speaker 1: to citizenship, to humanization, to shoot our people like human beings,
Speaker 1: because every two years we have to justify who we are.
Speaker 1: And I think myself as a present, I am bigger
Speaker 1: than a piece of paper, a piece of plastic. Growing
Speaker 1: up undocumented created an identity crisis for Messy, So I
Speaker 1: think for a minute, I forgot of what my identity was.
Speaker 1: As as when you come to the US, there's this
Speaker 1: idea of like you need to assimilate. You won't need
Speaker 1: to speak English, you need to be surrounded by this
Speaker 1: certain type of folks so you can get better access
Speaker 1: to certain things. Right, I lost who I was when
Speaker 1: I was a child and a teenager. The worst of
Speaker 1: it came when he went to college and joined the
Speaker 1: tennis team. But once I got to college, I experienced
Speaker 1: something that I thought I never experienced, which was my
Speaker 1: tennis coach questioning my status for being land Next, I
Speaker 1: was like, why are you questioning who I am? Right?
Speaker 1: And he started questioning a lot of students and we
Speaker 1: were very, very scared and not leave me to get very,
Speaker 1: very involved with the movement and realize who I am
Speaker 1: as I'm talking a bit a bit, and do join today.
Speaker 1: My saye works with doctor students and reminds them of
Speaker 1: their humanity every day, and I think myself as a president,
Speaker 1: I am bigger than a piece of paper, a piece
Speaker 1: of plastic, and that's what I remind my students every
Speaker 1: single day. The irony surrounding Doctor is that Obama's praise
Speaker 1: for the executive order, but his administration was notorious for deportation.
Speaker 1: Here's Professor Regina Langott from UC Santa Cruz. It's important
Speaker 1: that we remember that Obama deported more people from the
Speaker 1: interior of the US than anyone before him. Even as
Speaker 1: we are a nation of immigrants, were also a nation
Speaker 1: of laws. Undocumented workers broke our immigration laws, and I
Speaker 1: believe that they must be held accountable, especially those who
Speaker 1: may be dangerous. Do you hear that? Right there? Obama
Speaker 1: was following in a line of presidents, almost echoing verbatim.
Speaker 1: We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also
Speaker 1: a nation of laws. We're a nation of laws, and
Speaker 1: we must enforce our laws. We're also a nation of immigrants.
Speaker 1: So even though immigration was increasingly partisan, the talking points
Speaker 1: and policies started to bleed into each other. But there
Speaker 1: was one motherfucker who was particularly evil. When Mexico sends
Speaker 1: his people, they're not sending you is kidding. We're not
Speaker 1: going to play that stupid as food on here. The
Speaker 1: man ran on a platform of anti immigration and racism,
Speaker 1: demonizing most non white people, and promising a law if
Speaker 1: he was elected. The Trump administration worked to undue the
Speaker 1: progress of Urica and previous policies. Early in his tenure,
Speaker 1: he tried to ban Muslims from entering the country, regressing
Speaker 1: to the era of is homophobia reminiscent of the days
Speaker 1: after not eleven. But one of his most notorious immigration
Speaker 1: policies was zero tolerance at the borders. As early as seventeen,
Speaker 1: there are reports that Trump administration officials were separating young
Speaker 1: children from their families. The following year, kids were putting
Speaker 1: shelters where they were putting metal cages. Many of those
Speaker 1: children came from Central America. In the following years, reports
Speaker 1: from media outlets estimate that over five thousand families were
Speaker 1: ripped apart. Fast forward, the Biden administration started a task
Speaker 1: force addressing immigration issues. After Trump's presidency, They've worked to
Speaker 1: reunite some of the families, but there's still thousands who
Speaker 1: have yet to be That doesn't even get into the
Speaker 1: psychological scars and physical trauma these kids endured. Earlier this year,
Speaker 1: the National Immigrant Justice Center reported that families are still
Speaker 1: being separated and their claims for financial restitution are being dismissed.
Speaker 1: This is what Professor Langott has to say on the
Speaker 1: subject forced family separation and deportation. That's the context that
Speaker 1: we're looking under and that we need to to hold
Speaker 1: on to and remember. So in terms of the families,
Speaker 1: we know that when people are deported from the interior
Speaker 1: of the US, it's mostly men who are deported, and
Speaker 1: that this has pretty negative effects on children, be those physical, psychological,
Speaker 1: or academic. So we're back to the future. Thanks for
Speaker 1: breaking that down for a caesar. After the break, I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk to one of the few people in
Speaker 1: this country with the same kind of power former Senator
Speaker 1: Alan Ka Simpson had when he helped get Erica passed
Speaker 1: in I'm gonna ask current United States Senator Alex Baia,
Speaker 1: who's been fighting in one way or another to get
Speaker 1: comprehensive immigration reform passed his entire career. Where we are today,
Speaker 1: out of the shadows, will be right back now, back
Speaker 1: to the show. Alright, alright, can you hear me? Okay?
Speaker 1: You do look like that's me talking to another son
Speaker 1: of immigrants, another Mexican American l a kid who grew
Speaker 1: up taking full advantage of his parents obtaining green cards
Speaker 1: to build a better life, not just for himself and
Speaker 1: his family, but for many others in this country. Senator
Speaker 1: Alex Babia and I spoke over Zoom on the tenure
Speaker 1: anniversary of daca's passage and just a few days after
Speaker 1: California voters sent him to a full term in the U. S. Senate,
Speaker 1: And the very first bill I introduced that I chose
Speaker 1: to introduce was my Citizenship for Essential Workers Act. Like
Speaker 1: I've been a vocal advocate for immigration reform protections for
Speaker 1: dreamers and farm workers and others for many years, so
Speaker 1: I was very cognizant that I wasn't the first to
Speaker 1: introduce an immigration reform built in recent years. Been part
Speaker 1: of advocating for some of the more comprehensive bills that
Speaker 1: had passed in recent years. One House or the other,
Speaker 1: but not quite making it to the President's desk. And
Speaker 1: so when I came in and figured, how can I
Speaker 1: to this conversation and to the strategy, And I was
Speaker 1: inspired frankly by the experience we've all had through the
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen pandemic. You know, it was a tough, brutal
Speaker 1: couple of years and it's still lingering. We saw the
Speaker 1: early days of the pandemic, with the case rates and
Speaker 1: the deaths frankly disproportionately impacting communities of color and immigrant communities,
Speaker 1: frontline workers, people without the option of zooming it in
Speaker 1: from home right, people who work in the fields, people
Speaker 1: who work in meat processing plants, people who work in
Speaker 1: construction and transportation, and obviously in the healthcare industry. And
Speaker 1: to learn that more than five million federally recognized essential
Speaker 1: workers are not just immigrants, they're undocumented immigrants. And to
Speaker 1: watch how they sacrifice and expose themselves, risk their health,
Speaker 1: out of their families to try to protect the rest
Speaker 1: of us and keep the economy moving. I mean, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, they earned a pathway that citizenship long before
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen pandemic, but especially during the pandemic. They've
Speaker 1: earned it, and that's what my bills ought to do.
Speaker 1: Recognize them as one big group and legalize their status
Speaker 1: and put them on the pathway to citizenship because they
Speaker 1: have absolutely earned it. Well, what is the status of
Speaker 1: that bill now? So the status of the bill is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're still stuck in the In the Senate,
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives has passed a number of immigration
Speaker 1: reform bills, sort of piecemeal Dreamers and Promise Acts, so
Speaker 1: that addresses DOCTA, other dreamers and TPS holders. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: a separate form Workforce Modernization Act that's also been acted upon.
Speaker 1: But we're trying to grind through the reality of the
Speaker 1: United States Senate. But we're also dealing with literally a
Speaker 1: fifty fifty split Senate, so doing anything is hard right now.
Speaker 1: It's been a good chunk of it last year trying
Speaker 1: to find common ground or trying to convince frankly, a
Speaker 1: lot of my Republican colleagues, because we don't just need
Speaker 1: fifty one votes, we need six votes to get things
Speaker 1: done in the Senate. You know, earlier this year we
Speaker 1: started reaching back out, not just by myself, with my
Speaker 1: colleagues in the Senate Center, Menendez Center, Cortes, Masto, Louhan,
Speaker 1: and others to implore the White House President Biden to
Speaker 1: use his executive authorities to maybe strengthen docuted, even expand
Speaker 1: DOCTA protections among other things. That's expand the number of
Speaker 1: countries that can benefit from TPS protections, etcetera. And we're
Speaker 1: still pushing them, but more recently, I'm not saying it's
Speaker 1: going to be easy, but I've have renewed hope in
Speaker 1: the lettuce d of process. You know, among the committees
Speaker 1: I sit on is the Judiciary Committee, and I chair
Speaker 1: the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, and we had a hearing
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago on a specific category of
Speaker 1: documented dreamers. And in this hearing, I started hearing from
Speaker 1: my Republican colleagues, well, this is a no brainer. We
Speaker 1: got to fix this. We should be able to agree
Speaker 1: to that. And so that sort of reopened the door
Speaker 1: to conversation Asians and negotiations about some of these will
Speaker 1: OVERDOE UH provisions to update and modernize our I innovation
Speaker 1: laws they keep wanting pointing back to. But President has
Speaker 1: to get the border under control first. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's used as a text way too often as an
Speaker 1: excuse to to not get to yes. But we're trying
Speaker 1: to work through it. Well, what do you what do
Speaker 1: you think is like the the ideal scenario, Like what
Speaker 1: what would be the best outcome for the country and
Speaker 1: also for the dreamers, for the doctor recipients, for TPS recipients.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just so many subcategories at this point
Speaker 1: that it's it's hard to really to keep track of.
Speaker 1: But I'm wondering, like as a as a person who's
Speaker 1: who's fought for this for so long, and a person
Speaker 1: who is, you know, writing the laws of this country, Like,
Speaker 1: what is the the ideal scenario that you would hope for?
Speaker 1: This is personal for me, right, I'm a proud son
Speaker 1: of immigrants from Mexico. My father came from the state
Speaker 1: of Jalisco. My mom came from the state of Chihuahua.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen sixties, they met, they fell in love,
Speaker 1: they decided to get married, and they applied for green
Speaker 1: cards in that order, and uh, you know, we were
Speaker 1: one of the lucky ones. Back then. It wasn't as
Speaker 1: uh as as random luck of the draw as it
Speaker 1: is today. You know, at a later and as we
Speaker 1: say in Spanish. They settled into the San Fernando Valley
Speaker 1: and started a family, and I have an older sister
Speaker 1: and a younger brother. And for my parents, who worked
Speaker 1: hard to provide us better opportunity, right, they didn't get
Speaker 1: a really a chance to get a good education in Mexico.
Speaker 1: They didn't. They just didn't have that chance. My dad
Speaker 1: worked for forty years as a short order cook, clipped
Speaker 1: a lot of pancakes and scrambled a lot of eggs
Speaker 1: in his life. Uh And at the same forty years
Speaker 1: my mom were cleaning houses. So because of their experience,
Speaker 1: they insisted that my brother and my sister and I
Speaker 1: do well in school and get a college education. So
Speaker 1: I know how blessed importunate I am. I believe every
Speaker 1: hard working family, immigrant family in pursuit of their American
Speaker 1: dream deserves the same chance. So that's why I'm finding
Speaker 1: so hard, you know, to answer your question, what's the
Speaker 1: ideal way forward? Will they deal way forward to this
Speaker 1: comprehensive reform that we know that we need. It's been
Speaker 1: passed recently in Congress, you know, as recently as two
Speaker 1: an thirteen, the United States passed on an overwhelming by
Speaker 1: partisan vote at the time, the House of Representatives didn't
Speaker 1: take it up. There's been other measures that have passed
Speaker 1: the House but have been tougher to pass in the
Speaker 1: Senate as the majority swings from Republican to Democrat. I mean,
Speaker 1: and and sadly, what's the consequences. Millions of young people,
Speaker 1: millions and millions of families across the country are left
Speaker 1: in this limbo. And and it's not just like the
Speaker 1: moral imperative. Uh, you know, every economist, every business leader
Speaker 1: is saying that we have work force shortage in America today. Well, surprise,
Speaker 1: surprise you. Immigration is way down because of the prior administration.
Speaker 1: Now we're not doing much to help. You know, people
Speaker 1: who are here working, pay taxes, you know, come out
Speaker 1: of the shadows to do a legalized status. So we're
Speaker 1: doing it to ourselves. So trying to make the case
Speaker 1: to my Republican colleagues to do the right thing by
Speaker 1: policy and the economy, you know, even if your your
Speaker 1: your moral heartstrings aren't convincing you. And so the other
Speaker 1: option is what can we negotiate at least some piecemeal
Speaker 1: wins here. I think we can't be smarter about you know,
Speaker 1: border safety I think we do need to certainly modernize
Speaker 1: our asylum seeking process. I remind everybody it's people coming
Speaker 1: to the southern border, individuals or whole families seeking asylum
Speaker 1: in the United States. That is a legal right based
Speaker 1: on our federal law and international law. But it needs
Speaker 1: to be better. It needs to be more efficient, needs
Speaker 1: to be more humane. Um. And but we can't let
Speaker 1: that hold the stuff from doing right by the millions
Speaker 1: and millions of immigrants that have been here for years
Speaker 1: helping make our country strong. I mean, sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: we talked a lot of people. Some of them feel
Speaker 1: very helpless, some of them feel hopeful. I'm just wondering
Speaker 1: where you land on that. Uh No, Look, I hear
Speaker 1: the frustration, I hear the fear. I feel it in
Speaker 1: my very own community, amongst the friends and extended family. Um.
Speaker 1: But we've got to keep hope alive. I mean, if
Speaker 1: the day we lose hope, the day we give up,
Speaker 1: then for sure it's not gonna happen. Man, talking to
Speaker 1: Senator Babia is low key mind blowing. There's a Mexican
Speaker 1: kid from l A in the US Senate. I almost
Speaker 1: teared up talking to him because, yeah, I'm biased. I'm
Speaker 1: rooting for him to do big things, especially on immigration.
Speaker 1: And even though it may seem like we haven't progressed
Speaker 1: much further than Irka, people like Badia are proof that
Speaker 1: we are making inroads. It is well known that Latinos
Speaker 1: are a large population in the United States, fast growing
Speaker 1: by latest census. Starr Marlino Rolsco the child of eighty
Speaker 1: six who gave her dad her cap and gown when
Speaker 1: she graduated from Stanford. But what is left well known
Speaker 1: is that Latinos are also starting businesses at a faster
Speaker 1: rate than all other demographic groups, and the last ten
Speaker 1: years alone, the number of Latino business owners has grown
Speaker 1: forty four percent, compared to just three percent for all others.
Speaker 1: Marline is now Associate director of the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative.
Speaker 1: Our initiative exists to research these trends, and in relation
Speaker 1: to that, we also have an executive education program that
Speaker 1: supports Latino entrepreneurs in the scaling of their business. There
Speaker 1: are over eight hundred alumni of this program and together
Speaker 1: they generate a combined gross annual revenue of five billion dollars.
Speaker 1: So this is a formidable group of Latino entrepreneurs and
Speaker 1: leaders across the country. You know those tropes and Latino
Speaker 1: movies about the kid that goes to college. It's usually
Speaker 1: a triumphant climax about overcoming adversity. Well, it's probably the
Speaker 1: result of Urka, which means that it's also probably the
Speaker 1: result of Reagan, which still blows my mind. They're coming
Speaker 1: out of the shadows benefited their Life's a lot that
Speaker 1: spring Bean, whose team conducted a study on legalization immigrant
Speaker 1: mixed status families. We did some comparisons. The children of
Speaker 1: the Woods who had legalized, whose parents had been able
Speaker 1: to come out of the shadows, did very well. Their
Speaker 1: kids graduated from high school went on to college at
Speaker 1: rates that were similar to the general population. The Woods,
Speaker 1: whose parents had not been able to did much worse.
Speaker 1: The lack of societal membership in that legal sort of
Speaker 1: sins was the major impediment for the lives of the
Speaker 1: migrants and their children. Thinking about history as progress is
Speaker 1: a nice idea, but it's not the truth. The truth
Speaker 1: is that immigration and the status of those immigrants is
Speaker 1: still uncertain. Out of the shadows will be right back now,
Speaker 1: back to the show. Like we said in the beginning
Speaker 1: of this podcast. The way you see IRKA depends on
Speaker 1: your reality. The lingering question is was IRKA success? Well,
Speaker 1: Allen Simpson doesn't seem to think so it was a failure. Well,
Speaker 1: of course it was. I never worked, would be doing
Speaker 1: something today. You see. For Simpson, IRKA was a failure
Speaker 1: because they removed the aspect of secure work or identification,
Speaker 1: and it didn't work to stop the flow of immigration.
Speaker 1: But for us and our reality, our parents were able
Speaker 1: to come out of the shadows. Even though he doesn't
Speaker 1: think it worked, he says he's so proud that three
Speaker 1: million immigrants found a path to legal status. Sure it
Speaker 1: did that. I was very proud of that. There were
Speaker 1: about three million people that came out of the darkness
Speaker 1: under the program where we said that they came here
Speaker 1: before this certain date and went through the legalization process,
Speaker 1: not an amnesty, and then went into a temporary program
Speaker 1: and then then into a green car and then the citizenship.
Speaker 1: And he's not the only one who believes RKA felt
Speaker 1: Short Education advocate el Mertldan thinks it was only a
Speaker 1: surface level solution, so a lot more is owed to
Speaker 1: us than the band aid solutions like these amnesties that
Speaker 1: are lauded as like great solutions that have been given
Speaker 1: to immigrants, but in reality, those just band aids that
Speaker 1: are thrown out there to silence any critics who refused
Speaker 1: to see the truth that America is not only responsible
Speaker 1: for the conditions that they've created, but we deserve to
Speaker 1: receive the reparations for the conflicts that they've not only instigated,
Speaker 1: but have benefited from. Irka isn't perfect, but it was
Speaker 1: a result of compromise that gave a glimpse of hope.
Speaker 1: I am hopeful that the fever that we're going through
Speaker 1: as a country will break, not only on the issue
Speaker 1: of immigration, but on so many other fronts and the
Speaker 1: things that are pulling us away from each other. Latino
Speaker 1: civil rights advocate Clarissa Martinez is one of those hopeful people.
Speaker 1: We come together building on their very real notion that
Speaker 1: we have more in common, including our aspirations. Aren's in
Speaker 1: our dreams. The idea of compromise today seems impossible. Even
Speaker 1: Simpson things, there's no chance in hell it would pass today.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding? In this atmosphere? So what do I
Speaker 1: see every day? You must be joking? They don't They
Speaker 1: don't they identify each other as a dirty, rotten right
Speaker 1: wing Republicans are filthy progressive lafts and what the hell?
Speaker 1: What's the what's the progress there? I'd be embarrassed to
Speaker 1: be in the US Senate today. When you're an advocate,
Speaker 1: hope has to be part of your DNA. Otherwise you
Speaker 1: couldn't do this job. But for Clarissa, Hope is one
Speaker 1: of the most important parts of her work. I am
Speaker 1: hopeful for a number of reasons. UM. I remember, as
Speaker 1: an immigrant, I didn't necessarily know the full history of
Speaker 1: the ebbs and flow of how this country has variance
Speaker 1: immigrants and immigration. And I remember my my the first
Speaker 1: time I had the chance to go to Ellis Island
Speaker 1: and walking through there and see newspaper headlines and comments
Speaker 1: about immigrants that were the same ones I was hearing
Speaker 1: at the time, but they were from a century before.
Speaker 1: And so one of the things that I see is
Speaker 1: that our country has a very torture relationship with our
Speaker 1: immigration history, legacy and d m a UM, I think
Speaker 1: we have hold what immigrants contribute and mean to our country.
Speaker 1: California State Representative when the Carrillo Who in a previous
Speaker 1: episode told us about her family's journey from El Salvador
Speaker 1: also hangs onto hope and for her. It comes from
Speaker 1: one of America's founding fathers, and it's a love letter
Speaker 1: between John Adams and and Abigail Adams. John Adams at
Speaker 1: the time was in France raising funds for the Revolutionary War.
Speaker 1: He had not become president yet, and he's in France,
Speaker 1: and he writes this letter to his wife and he says,
Speaker 1: you know, the gardens of Versailles are beautiful, and I
Speaker 1: wish that I have the time to explain them to you,
Speaker 1: but I can't because I have to get back to work,
Speaker 1: and I must go study politics and war so that
Speaker 1: our sons have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy,
Speaker 1: so that their children have a right to study art
Speaker 1: and music. And every time I share that like, I
Speaker 1: get goose bumps, because I believe that that is the
Speaker 1: promise of this nation, that no matter where you come from,
Speaker 1: what you look like, what language you speak, or what
Speaker 1: your legal status is, this nation belongs to all of us,
Speaker 1: not just a few. One of us has to study
Speaker 1: war in politics, one has the opportunity to study something different,
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. And every generation makes
Speaker 1: a different contribution. The sacrifices of my parents have allowed
Speaker 1: for me to move in a different direction. It has
Speaker 1: allowed my sisters to move in a different direction, and
Speaker 1: it would allow for generations after us to move in
Speaker 1: a different direction and to hopefully create a nation where
Speaker 1: our future is brighter than our past. Imagine if we
Speaker 1: recognize the people who helped build this country into what
Speaker 1: we see now. Urga was in a solution because immigrants
Speaker 1: don't need to be solved, but it was a glimpse
Speaker 1: of potential in its legacy lives on in the children
Speaker 1: of immigrants. Hi. My name is Maria Perez. I was
Speaker 1: born in n Here in the United States. My parents,
Speaker 1: Ignacio and Maria Lopez, came to this country from Mexico
Speaker 1: as undocumented immigrants in the seventies. The legacy of that
Speaker 1: law pass has a second every member of our family,
Speaker 1: for my sister Alejandre and I being a college graduate
Speaker 1: working in the public sector, my sister Christina being a
Speaker 1: successful banker, my brother Nacio being a small business owner,
Speaker 1: and grandchildren Alex graduating UC Berkeley and Caitlin attending New
Speaker 1: Simer said, my parents can probably say that the American
Speaker 1: dream was obtained thanks to the Amnesty Act of nineteen six.
Speaker 1: Clarissa Rodriguez from Belle, California of um born in ninety six.
Speaker 1: I am my final semester of Bradco Road and my
Speaker 1: master and social work and my fashion and stork with
Speaker 1: children and families, and I'm glad that I have my experience,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that I have my American roots. Hi,
Speaker 1: my name is Jacqueline Erres. I feel that that gave
Speaker 1: me the opportunity to have a better educate Asian, for
Speaker 1: my parents to have a job that they were legal,
Speaker 1: and it brought the American dreams to their fingertips. My
Speaker 1: name is Laura um and my mom's saying a damna.
Speaker 1: We've been in the state since nineteen seventy nine. My
Speaker 1: name is Celia Ramos, and I greatly contribute my success
Speaker 1: to my family being able to be granted that amnesty
Speaker 1: and raising us in the best of their ability during
Speaker 1: that time. Hi, my name is Maria, and what the
Speaker 1: Amnesty program did for my mother was basically give her
Speaker 1: an opportunity to stay in this country and to continue
Speaker 1: to raise us. This is Sadie Rodrigue. Is my family story.
Speaker 1: Begins with my mother, who came from a Salvador in
Speaker 1: the seventies. The bisit of the amnesty in eighties six
Speaker 1: obviously changed our entire family, UM, allowing them the opportunity
Speaker 1: to be able to go to school, get a job.
Speaker 1: This is Sylvia Guentz from Aurora, Colorado. My mom specifically,
Speaker 1: UM was able to take advantage of UM that amnesty bill,
Speaker 1: and she came from as Salvador fleeing the war and UM,
Speaker 1: so I guess grateful, but also very cognizant of the
Speaker 1: reason why UM that opportunity was extended to them. My
Speaker 1: career has turned into something that's has been very rewarding.
Speaker 1: Since I got this this gift from the US become
Speaker 1: a citizen, I've actually give back not too small businesses
Speaker 1: and I help them grow and I provide financing, educate
Speaker 1: them on on how to buy their own buildings, how
Speaker 1: to buy their own equipment, how to grow their companies.
Speaker 1: It is incredible to hear all the voicemails we got
Speaker 1: to read, all the messages from people who are the
Speaker 1: backbone of this country, which brings us back to that
Speaker 1: photo at the top of the show. Everything you and I,
Speaker 1: Patty have done has been influenced by, as you said,
Speaker 1: a stack of fucking papers, recognizing, if only for a moment,
Speaker 1: that our parents deserved more. Our parents paid that forward
Speaker 1: to us, and it was life changing, because I don't
Speaker 1: think you and I would have ever met if it
Speaker 1: weren't from my dad. I was on a bad path
Speaker 1: in high school. I was more concerned with doing a
Speaker 1: legal ship than I was with going to school. My
Speaker 1: dad told me to get my ship together. He said
Speaker 1: he asked a friend for a favor, and he got
Speaker 1: me a job at the Stone One Mall and Downey.
Speaker 1: I was an intern working for free at the radio station,
Speaker 1: so right after high school to make some extra cash,
Speaker 1: I started working at the mall. I was still aimless,
Speaker 1: trying to navigate adulthood and figure myself out. In the
Speaker 1: year comes his red head and want to be thug.
Speaker 1: My first day there was awful. My mind was stuck
Speaker 1: on trying to be a gangster, running around doing gangster ship.
Speaker 1: When I first saw him, I thought he was this
Speaker 1: little cholito. He wore baggy clothes and baseball caps. He
Speaker 1: was a product of his environment, and we didn't really
Speaker 1: get along. He acted like he was too good to
Speaker 1: be there selling shoes with me. This was until we
Speaker 1: found out that we were both from the hood. I
Speaker 1: felt like recognizing someone you knew in a past life.
Speaker 1: And even though we were stuck in retail hell and
Speaker 1: I still didn't really know what to do with my life.
Speaker 1: I had dreams Eric and I would walk into in
Speaker 1: and out across the street and talk about our plans
Speaker 1: to take over the world. It really felt like we
Speaker 1: balanced each other out. Sharing life with Eric no longer
Speaker 1: felt lonely. So then there's this photo of you being
Speaker 1: this mothers and I think that I love it because
Speaker 1: it captures how far we've come. It's when we went
Speaker 1: to t G I fried Is with the entire J. C.
Speaker 1: Penny crew. Do you remember that Eric, I thought it
Speaker 1: was a cheesecake factory. It doesn't matter. The point is
Speaker 1: it was a memorable night. Eric was still stuck in
Speaker 1: his gangster ways, so he gets into an argument with
Speaker 1: the waiter about pasta, or maybe it was about cheesecake. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it starts to escalate and the staff ends up asking
Speaker 1: us to leave. So we're all gathered outside and someone
Speaker 1: suggests we take a picture. We all huddled together to
Speaker 1: commemorate the night. I love how most of the people
Speaker 1: we work with in this photo are frowning, probably pissed
Speaker 1: because I ruined their night. But off to the right,
Speaker 1: it's Patty with a bright smile like she just heard
Speaker 1: a hilarious joke and is trying her best to contain
Speaker 1: her laughter. And right in the middle doing my best
Speaker 1: Tupac impression is me with two arms stretched flipping off
Speaker 1: the camera. This photo is funny because it shows how
Speaker 1: different our energies are, almost like opposites. Eric is serious,
Speaker 1: like he's saying fuck you to the camera for asking
Speaker 1: him to smile. But my big smile is one of
Speaker 1: a person who just got her braces removed and wanted
Speaker 1: to show the world her straight teeth, like a proud
Speaker 1: student getting an A in her report card. It's those
Speaker 1: two disparate energies that are combining to force, and that
Speaker 1: is what we are now, a force. You're an award
Speaker 1: winning writer, director, producer, and you're a mom, the founder
Speaker 1: of a multimillion dollar children's book company, a philanthropist. The
Speaker 1: city of l A named the day in your honor.
Speaker 1: I know, it's so freaking crazy. This podcast started with
Speaker 1: the phone call that whether we like it or not,
Speaker 1: our lives were impacted by Reagan. It was a wild
Speaker 1: theory then, but now I believe that it's true. The
Speaker 1: wild part is that if my dad didn't get his
Speaker 1: green card through URKA, he probably would have never got
Speaker 1: that factory job. He definitely wouldn't have moved us to Downing.
Speaker 1: I'd probably still be on a very destructive path, and
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't have met Patty. And if I didn't
Speaker 1: meet Patty, you wouldn't be listening to this right now.
Speaker 1: So we have Irka to thank for bringing us together.
Speaker 1: And that's just a taste of the postile abilities that
Speaker 1: the bill created. It created a generation of Latinos like
Speaker 1: Patty and I, and it's probably the reason we're even friends.
Speaker 1: We were two kids from similar areas and different backgrounds,
Speaker 1: and we had the space to be who we are,
Speaker 1: to screw up, to be proud, to dream of a
Speaker 1: life our parents couldn't, and all that came from as
Speaker 1: a result of our parents legal status. Imagine how many
Speaker 1: more lives could be improved, how much more we could
Speaker 1: contribute to the economy. So I want you out there listening,
Speaker 1: especially to all the politicians and leaders who have reached
Speaker 1: out to us throughout the course of the podcast, dropping
Speaker 1: to think of this entire show, all these stories behind
Speaker 1: the photos, our story as our plea for another comprehensive
Speaker 1: immigration reform. Just like Wendy and Clarissa, Patty and I
Speaker 1: believe in promise of this country, and we are a
Speaker 1: proof of the hope that Urka inspired. I want to
Speaker 1: tell you one more story. My grandfather was Rato who
Speaker 1: came to pick vegetables when the men in this country
Speaker 1: were at war. He'd picked tomatoes all day in the
Speaker 1: scorching heat. He didn't get paid a salary or hourly rate. No,
Speaker 1: they paid him for each box of tomatoes he filled,
Speaker 1: and he was only paid ten cents per box. Ten
Speaker 1: fucking sets. Today, Little leave it Os is a multimillion
Speaker 1: dollar company. A large portion of that money came from
Speaker 1: small community investor sments, most of which were Latinos and
Speaker 1: first time investors. So when I say that a green card,
Speaker 1: a two inch piece of plastic means all the difference,
Speaker 1: I don't say that lightly. Maya Well, Papa Miguel got
Speaker 1: paid a fraction of a fraction for his work, but
Speaker 1: not anymore. If you want this box of tomatoes. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you one thing, it costs a lot fucking more
Speaker 1: than ten cents. Uh's come in. If you love this podcast,
Speaker 1: please help us get the word out by following, rating, reviewing,
Speaker 1: and sharing it with your friends. Out of the Shadows
Speaker 1: is written by Caesar Hernandez. It's also written, edited, hosted,
Speaker 1: an executive produced by Patti Rodriguez and Eric Galindo. It's
Speaker 1: produced by Betticrdanas, Karen Lopez and Gabby Watts. It's sound design,
Speaker 1: mixed and mastered by Jesse nice Longer. Our studio engineer
Speaker 1: is Clay Hillenburg. Karen Garcia That's Me is our announcer.
Speaker 1: Out of the Shadows is the production of Seeing Me,
Speaker 1: Other Productions and School of Humans in partnership with I
Speaker 1: Hearts Michael Tura Podcast Network. The podcast is also executive
Speaker 1: produced by Giselle Vancees, Virginian Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Chad Krowll.
Speaker 1: Our marketing and our team is led by Jazzine Mehia.
Speaker 1: Original music by a Arenas and if you loved his
Speaker 1: cover of Los Caminos La Viva this podcast theme song,
Speaker 1: you can listen to it on all music platforms. Historical
Speaker 1: audio for Out of The Shadows comes from the Reagan
Speaker 1: Presidential Library and the National Archives. Special thanks to Ian Vargas,
Speaker 1: Alex and Ali, Caitlin Becker, gob Chabran, Daisy Church, Angel
Speaker 1: Lopez Glendo, Julianna Gamiz, Ryan Gordon, Brian Matheson, Claudia Marty ConA,
Speaker 1: Oscar Ramidez, John Rodriguez, Juan Rodriguez, Joshua Sandoval, Eric Sclar,
Speaker 1: Tony Sorrentino, and Megan tan So what do you think, Eric?
Speaker 1: Do you believe me? Now? Yeah, let's putch it to
Speaker 1: marble perfect. I already wrote A Hamilton's Susan. How do
Speaker 1: three million immigrant mohasels, sons and daughters of others frosting
Speaker 1: Grande hiding in trunk, sleeping in bunks under the sun,
Speaker 1: saying good bun,