Speaker 1: Pushkin. I know how to act in a way. I
Speaker 1: know to grow up, and I know how to make
Speaker 1: myself small so these individuals won't think of me as
Speaker 1: an a knowing little kid, and so that they would
Speaker 1: love me and take care of me, like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: please please love me, and please like me, and please
Speaker 1: take care of me, because if you don't, then I
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm going to have to do. That's
Speaker 1: Javier Zamora, who at age nine, left his childhood home
Speaker 1: and I'll Salvador to reunite with his parents in the US.
Speaker 1: Javier is describing his approach to winning over the other
Speaker 1: immigrants who were also on this dangerous three thousand mile
Speaker 1: journey to the US border. It's been more than twenty
Speaker 1: years since that experience, and Javier has finally decided to
Speaker 1: revisit his childhood in a memoir called Salito. In reflecting
Speaker 1: on his past, Javier realized he needed to update his
Speaker 1: understanding of his nine year old self. In looking at
Speaker 1: this kid, I also realized that I was treating him
Speaker 1: how the politicians and the news outlets treat immigrants. He
Speaker 1: had committed a crime. He is somebody that doesn't belong
Speaker 1: into society. He is an outsider, and slowly I was like, no,
Speaker 1: hold up, this kid is a g He's a gangster.
Speaker 1: He really knew how to survive. Rarely, rarely have I
Speaker 1: heard that term survivor be attached to himmigrants. On today's show,
Speaker 1: Javier Zamora looks back on his harrowing immigration journey. I'm
Speaker 1: maya shunker and this is a slight change of plans,
Speaker 1: a show about who we are and who we become
Speaker 1: in the face of a big change. In his memoir,
Speaker 1: Javier writes from the perspective of his nine year old self.
Speaker 1: For our conversation today, I was eager to hear how
Speaker 1: thirty two year old Javier reflects back on his experiences
Speaker 1: as a young child. In particular, I was curious about
Speaker 1: his relationship with loneliness and how it ebbed and flowed
Speaker 1: as he made his way to the US. But first
Speaker 1: I asked Javier to share a summary of his immigration
Speaker 1: story to help us better understand what made his journey
Speaker 1: so treacherous and his survival extraordinary. I was born in
Speaker 1: a small fishing village, and I sat by load in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety in the middle of a civil war, and
Speaker 1: my dad fled that war in nineteen ninety one when
Speaker 1: I was still one years old, and my mom left
Speaker 1: when I was five in nineteen ninety five, and they
Speaker 1: left me at the care of my grandparents and my aunts.
Speaker 1: And at first my parents promised that they were going
Speaker 1: to come back, but then around the time when I
Speaker 1: turned seven, I started hearing the word trip a lot,
Speaker 1: and it became clear that I would be trying to
Speaker 1: get to the US as well in order to be
Speaker 1: reunited with them, And so they decided to use the
Speaker 1: same coyote to help my mom get to the United
Speaker 1: States in nineteen ninety five. And the coyote is like
Speaker 1: a smuggler, and he was with my mom every single
Speaker 1: step of the way, and her trip was relatively safe
Speaker 1: and fast. It took two weeks. So at age nine,
Speaker 1: I leave my hometown with my grandpa to go and
Speaker 1: meet the coyote who has six other people that is
Speaker 1: also bringing along with me, and we make it safely
Speaker 1: from or to a town in Guatemala where we stay
Speaker 1: for two weeks. After the two weeks, my grandpa has
Speaker 1: to leave, and so now truly for the first time
Speaker 1: alone or solito, and from that bordertown. We got to
Speaker 1: another bordertown in Guatemala on the coast, and we get
Speaker 1: on a boat and we take a twenty two hour
Speaker 1: boat ride to somewhere and the Mexican coastline. Fast forward.
Speaker 1: From there, we take multiple bus ride warehouses that we're
Speaker 1: locked in. There are bribes, and we get pulled out
Speaker 1: of buses by Mexican immigration cops. After five weeks, we
Speaker 1: make it to the US Mexican border, so that's an
Speaker 1: Oran desert, and it is there that we make three
Speaker 1: attempts to make it across the border. And during these attempts,
Speaker 1: I get apprehended by border patrol agents twice, we get
Speaker 1: chased by helicopters twice. I'm in a detention cell and
Speaker 1: I literally almost died during each of my attempts, and
Speaker 1: I have guns pointed at me multiple times. And it's
Speaker 1: not until weeks later that I make it across the
Speaker 1: border successfully and I'm finally reunited with my parents. Thank
Speaker 1: you for sharing that, so, Javier, I would love to
Speaker 1: start off by talking about your experience as a five
Speaker 1: year old in El Salvador. Your mom fled to the US,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, at this very formative time in your development,
Speaker 1: and she left you under the care of your grandparents
Speaker 1: and your aunts. And I'm curious to know what this
Speaker 1: transition was like for you, what impact it had on you. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, one of my first memories is my third birthday.
Speaker 1: And in my third birthday, I remember being this loud,
Speaker 1: very extroverted child, and I think it was because of
Speaker 1: my mom. My mom made sure that I would be
Speaker 1: the kid the volunteers for everything at school. She would
Speaker 1: take me with her every time. That in the morning
Speaker 1: where she went to them at gallo or the local market,
Speaker 1: and in the afternoons, and there was this popular song.
Speaker 1: There was this dance called sasas Apple, and everybody in
Speaker 1: town when I was two and three would ask me.
Speaker 1: All the vendors would ask me to dance and that,
Speaker 1: and that carried over into preschool and kindergarting, and so
Speaker 1: for every Mother's Day and Father's Day celebration, every assembly,
Speaker 1: I would be the kid who performs in front of people. Yea,
Speaker 1: And so I was very ex reverted and everybody knew me.
Speaker 1: I knew everybody. And then she leaves when I'm five,
Speaker 1: in the middle of first grade, and from then on,
Speaker 1: I'm no longer on this stage. I never volunteer for
Speaker 1: a talent show again, and I'm very quiet, and I
Speaker 1: rarely raised my hand to answer a question, and so
Speaker 1: my personality truly changed. And she also leaves during a
Speaker 1: very formative year for me that she was potty training me,
Speaker 1: and she leaves in the middle of it. I never
Speaker 1: graduate onto the adults toilet. It's like something that I
Speaker 1: refused to learn. And I think I refused to learn
Speaker 1: not because I wasn't intelligent, but because I think it
Speaker 1: reminded me of my mom. Do you think that also
Speaker 1: explains the shift from extroversion to introversion, because what I'm
Speaker 1: hearing you say is that being extroverted was inextricably linked
Speaker 1: to your mom. She was the one who brought you
Speaker 1: to the markets, she was the one who made sure
Speaker 1: you were volunteering. And so in part, do you feel
Speaker 1: like you retreated from that way of being because it
Speaker 1: was too sad to be reminded of those memories? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Why just flashed in my mind was my mom. She
Speaker 1: would choreograph these dances as I would like sing along
Speaker 1: or pretend to sing along. It was lip singing, but
Speaker 1: she would teach me. We would make a cost him together,
Speaker 1: and then she would teach me a dance and so
Speaker 1: all those things. Yes, you're absolutely correct. It was too
Speaker 1: hurtful to do the things that I would do with
Speaker 1: my mom because it would mean that I would acknowledge
Speaker 1: that she was no longer next to me and that
Speaker 1: she was no longer with me. Wow. Okay. When you
Speaker 1: left for your trip to the US, and of course
Speaker 1: it's uncertain how long this trip will be and what
Speaker 1: it will look like. As you mentioned, your grandfather traveled
Speaker 1: with you as far as he could go before he
Speaker 1: had to return to El Salvador, and then you were
Speaker 1: truly left alone with a group of strangers who would
Speaker 1: be accompanying you on the rest of your journey. And
Speaker 1: this group included a woman named Patricia and her daughter Carla,
Speaker 1: and also a man named Chino in your nine Javier,
Speaker 1: So I want to know how did you respond to
Speaker 1: suddenly being in a group of just strangers. I think,
Speaker 1: going back to when I was five, I learned to
Speaker 1: grow up, I learned to be an adult. Like my
Speaker 1: dad was gone, I never missed them because he was
Speaker 1: never there to begin with. Who I did miss was
Speaker 1: my mom, and once she left, part of me becoming
Speaker 1: introverted also got coupled with trying to behave and be
Speaker 1: a good kid so the adults around me wouldn't leave
Speaker 1: me ever again. And as a little kid, I remember
Speaker 1: always trying to do my best to fold my clothes,
Speaker 1: to wash the dishes, to eat everything on the plate,
Speaker 1: just so I wouldn't disappoint them. And so my training
Speaker 1: for this trip didn't start weeks before. I think it
Speaker 1: started the moment that my mom left, because I'd behaved
Speaker 1: so well that I didn't want to bother my grandma
Speaker 1: and my aunts, who are my dominant caretakers. And acting
Speaker 1: like this helped me once my grandpa was gone, but
Speaker 1: he leaves me with these strangers. I know how to
Speaker 1: act in a way, I know to grow up, and
Speaker 1: I know how to make myself all so these individuals
Speaker 1: will won't think of me as an a knowing little kid,
Speaker 1: and so that they would love me and take care
Speaker 1: of me. And so it was like, oh my God,
Speaker 1: please please love me and please like me, and please
Speaker 1: take care of me, because if you don't, then I
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm going to have to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that was the constant every day life for me.
Speaker 1: On this trip. I want to unpack the conclusion you
Speaker 1: drew as a five year old about how you needed
Speaker 1: to be in order for people to stay with you
Speaker 1: to not leave you, which was, I have to be
Speaker 1: this good kid. I can't misbehave, I cannot do anything bad.
Speaker 1: I need to be an adult. Did you feel that
Speaker 1: your mom had left you because you were not a
Speaker 1: sufficiently good kid? I mean, how had it ever been
Speaker 1: explained to you why she was leaving. Well, I'm just
Speaker 1: beginning to unpack that now. Wow, okay, but yes, the
Speaker 1: short answer is yes, I internalized her leaving and I
Speaker 1: made it my fault. As a little kid, I thought
Speaker 1: that I had done something wrong for her to leave.
Speaker 1: And then I heard about this other individual, my dad,
Speaker 1: who I only talk to on the phone, and as
Speaker 1: a little kid, i like kids do, my whole world
Speaker 1: was just me and the people around me. And so
Speaker 1: all these people must see something in me that I
Speaker 1: don't see, and I am the reason why they keep leaving.
Speaker 1: And that just saying that out loud has taken me years.
Speaker 1: And so this is like a self almost hatred that
Speaker 1: was planted in me from that age, caused by my
Speaker 1: mom's departure. Because why why are these people leaving? Why
Speaker 1: is the person that's supposed to take care of me
Speaker 1: and love me, my mother? Why is she gone? As
Speaker 1: a little kid, I have no context for a war, poverty,
Speaker 1: all these push factors, the violence that was increasing, so
Speaker 1: at no context for that. The only context that I
Speaker 1: have is my mother's love. I see. So let's return
Speaker 1: to your trip, Javier. You're alone with this group of strangers,
Speaker 1: and you're being extremely careful to be as well behaved
Speaker 1: as possible. But some of the men in the group,
Speaker 1: they decide to play a joke on you, and this
Speaker 1: results in a turning point in your journey emotionally. And
Speaker 1: it begins when the men send you on a fool's
Speaker 1: errand they tell you to fetch pattered gasoline from a
Speaker 1: nearby store, which is not actually an item that exists,
Speaker 1: and a local shopkeeper ends up laughing in your face
Speaker 1: when you make this request, and you're very embarrassed. I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if you can tell us what happens next. So
Speaker 1: this was the fourth shop that I enter in this
Speaker 1: small coastal village, and nobody everybody just pretended went along
Speaker 1: with it until this shop owner and her laughter just
Speaker 1: felt like an arrow right at my heart and my
Speaker 1: head because on top of being this well behaved kid,
Speaker 1: I tried to be liked by being really good at school,
Speaker 1: and I prided myself in being the most intelligent. I
Speaker 1: was the valedictorian. I want first place every single year,
Speaker 1: and so here was the valedictorian of this Salvadoran town
Speaker 1: in fourth grade being tricked by the adults. So it
Speaker 1: reduced my ego. And this is like three days into
Speaker 1: being truly by myself. And I didn't allow myself to
Speaker 1: cry because that's what little annoying kids do. I'm not
Speaker 1: a little annoying kid, an adult, and if I cry,
Speaker 1: people are not gonna like me. So it just broke
Speaker 1: me down and I just started crying. And I run
Speaker 1: back to my room that I share with Patricia, the
Speaker 1: mom and her daughter, and I tell her what happened.
Speaker 1: And Patricia, being Patricia, a small, self adorned woman who
Speaker 1: is a fighter, she just grabs me by my hand
Speaker 1: and takes me to the men who are still smoking.
Speaker 1: They always they were constantly smoking, and she screams at
Speaker 1: them and tells them why did you do this? Like
Speaker 1: why are you picking on this kid? Like you know,
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, no, no, it's a joke. Calm down,
Speaker 1: calm down. And eventually, after she stopped screaming and they apologize,
Speaker 1: she makes them apologize to me, and then they asked
Speaker 1: me to stay behind and she looks at me and
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's okay. And then she goes back to
Speaker 1: the room and it is there with the men that
Speaker 1: they explained to me that it's the writer of passage,
Speaker 1: that somebody has done it to them, and they tell me, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a grown up. Now, you're an adult. And as
Speaker 1: they're saying this, they offer me a cigarette and it
Speaker 1: is the first time that I have a cigarette, and
Speaker 1: I just start coughing. And so all of that being
Speaker 1: lied to being broken down, Patricia helping me and standing
Speaker 1: up for me, and then being inducted into the man's club.
Speaker 1: What that situation did for me is it weirdly made
Speaker 1: me more comfortable around the man and it made me
Speaker 1: closer to them, and it made me feel that I
Speaker 1: was actually an adult and that I could undertake anything
Speaker 1: that was going to happen on this trip because I
Speaker 1: wasn't a normal nine year old kid. How did Patricia
Speaker 1: coming to your defense change your relationship with her and
Speaker 1: how you saw her and how you saw yourself, because
Speaker 1: you know she is a mom. She's a mom in
Speaker 1: your environment. When she stood up for me, I knew
Speaker 1: that she liked me. I wouldn't go as far as
Speaker 1: saying that she loved me, but I knew that she
Speaker 1: liked me more than any of the other strangers. And
Speaker 1: what that did for me is that I began to
Speaker 1: trust her more and more, and I knew that I
Speaker 1: could count on her. I knew that when we were
Speaker 1: walking in town that I could walk next to her.
Speaker 1: I didn't have to walk by myself or behind everybody,
Speaker 1: or walk next to the coyote, but I walk next
Speaker 1: to her, And internally, I think that I began to
Speaker 1: see her as a mom. And it's weird that she
Speaker 1: had the exact same name as my mom, Patricia as
Speaker 1: my real mom, and her temperament was very similar to
Speaker 1: my mom's as well, And I think in hindsight, those
Speaker 1: two things subconsciously made me gravitate towards her. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I slowly also won her over, and she won me
Speaker 1: over as well. You said you noticed that you were
Speaker 1: starting to trust her, which is a very big deal.
Speaker 1: In the life of young Javier and your constant fear
Speaker 1: of abandonment, I think speaks to that. Did this episode
Speaker 1: with Patricia and that growing trust lead you to come
Speaker 1: out of your shell a bit more and maybe tap
Speaker 1: into some of the extra version you had shown as
Speaker 1: a young child, but had hit away because it was
Speaker 1: just too painful a little bit. I don't think I
Speaker 1: allowed myself to go back to the extra version. It
Speaker 1: was too risky. It was too risky. The closest I
Speaker 1: came to that was induced by Patricia tell me about that.
Speaker 1: We're in another room and she starts farting in front
Speaker 1: of me, and then I'm like, oh my god, and
Speaker 1: adult farted in front of me. That takes a lot
Speaker 1: of trust. And that is something that I never did
Speaker 1: with my mom, but something that I had done with
Speaker 1: my aunt, and it took us years to get to
Speaker 1: that trust level. And here is this stranger, Patricia, who
Speaker 1: I'm getting closer in culture with us the days go on.
Speaker 1: She just lets it rip and then I let it
Speaker 1: rip and we have this beautiful, stinky moment. And that
Speaker 1: takes trust. Yeah, And so that is the epitome of
Speaker 1: my extraversion. But that's it. I'm still very afraid that
Speaker 1: if I act out, even she will leave, because my
Speaker 1: mom has left, you know, so anybody kills you, we'll
Speaker 1: be back in a moment. The slight change of plans.
Speaker 1: From what I read in your memoir, it seems like
Speaker 1: the trust between you and others in your group really
Speaker 1: did ebb and flow over the course of your nine
Speaker 1: week journey. You know, you would take a few steps forward,
Speaker 1: then many steps back, and then more steps forward and
Speaker 1: many steps back. Do you remember any defining moments in
Speaker 1: which you became more trusting of the people in your group,
Speaker 1: Any other stories or scenes you can paint for us.
Speaker 1: So I think the cigarette scene was when I learned
Speaker 1: to trust Patricia, when I learned to trust the person
Speaker 1: that I trusted the second most, or at times the most,
Speaker 1: became this individual named Chino, the man. All they did
Speaker 1: was chain smoke and drink and watch TV. And Cino
Speaker 1: was the youngest of the three. Chino was around nineteen
Speaker 1: or twenty, and I learned that he liked me, and
Speaker 1: I learned that I could trust him. On this boat,
Speaker 1: so we're in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and
Speaker 1: it's completely dark, and it's already night. We got on
Speaker 1: the boat at dawn around five am, and this must
Speaker 1: have been around like ten pm eleven pm. And it's very,
Speaker 1: very cold, and all I have is this little thin
Speaker 1: jacket and I'm shivering, and Patricia has a jacket, and
Speaker 1: her daughter also has a thin jacket, but she puts
Speaker 1: her daughter inside, and then she also try to put
Speaker 1: me on top of her daughter. All three of us
Speaker 1: hurdled together and it's not working. The zippers not sipping up,
Speaker 1: so the wind is still coming at me, and it
Speaker 1: feels like I'm in like the Arctic ocean. And Chino
Speaker 1: is sitting across from us and he sees this, and
Speaker 1: everybody is seeing this woman struggle, but nobody offers to help,
Speaker 1: not even the older man in the group. But Gino
Speaker 1: is like, hey, how ye do you want to come
Speaker 1: over here? Like I can cover you with his jacket
Speaker 1: with his jacket, and I kind of look up at Patricia,
Speaker 1: who I trust. We have this bond now, and she
Speaker 1: gives me the okay, and I'm like okay, and I
Speaker 1: walk across the boat. Gino opens his jacket and I
Speaker 1: put my arms where his arms go and its leaves
Speaker 1: and he SIPs it up and he's just hugging me
Speaker 1: and trying to warm me up because we're both extremely cold.
Speaker 1: And from then on I learned that he cares. But
Speaker 1: again our relationship that has some flows. I knew that
Speaker 1: he changed when he was only with the adults. He
Speaker 1: was probably trying to be a man or trying to
Speaker 1: impress these older men. So in him trying to impress
Speaker 1: the man, he forgot about me, and he wouldn't really
Speaker 1: talk to me. He would be different. So when he
Speaker 1: tried to embody this more manly role, it came at
Speaker 1: the extense of a trusting relationship with you. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I don't know, in a very patriarchal my chief the way,
Speaker 1: like a man is not supposed to take care of
Speaker 1: a little kid, and yet this young man was. And
Speaker 1: the older men would tease him too, They were like, oh,
Speaker 1: why are you this kid's mom? And that is, like
Speaker 1: I guess, not a thing that men should do. And
Speaker 1: yet Chino China would and did. There's also this moment
Speaker 1: when you are both in a detention center where Chino
Speaker 1: really steps up as this surrogate father figure and helps
Speaker 1: you use the restroom. You know, using the bathroom on
Speaker 1: this trip was the biggest fear that I had my
Speaker 1: grandpa in what the malan those two weeks. He took
Speaker 1: it upon himself to really teach me to trust that
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to get flushed out into the ocean
Speaker 1: if I flushed the toilet, So you were worried it
Speaker 1: would suck you in. Yeah, that was a complete fear.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know how to swim, so I was like,
Speaker 1: if I'm flushed down the toilet and I'm in the ocean,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna die. And then once my grandpa leaves, I
Speaker 1: could do that privately. But peeing in warehouses and eventually
Speaker 1: peeing in a detention cell in front of all these
Speaker 1: other adult men with adult size penises became this fearful thing.
Speaker 1: And I learned to like keep my pee inside as
Speaker 1: long as possible. And I was in attention for forty
Speaker 1: eight hours, so at one point I had to pee. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it is Cino who steps up. He pretty much
Speaker 1: becomes the curtain so all the other people won't see
Speaker 1: me pe and he does this repeatedly. I think it's
Speaker 1: it's telling that it's that it's him, the pseudo father
Speaker 1: who's really taken care of me. There's this very stirring
Speaker 1: moment that you just drive in your book, in which,
Speaker 1: after these three attempts, you successfully make it across the
Speaker 1: US Mexico border, and there's this feeling where trust is
Speaker 1: at an all time high. There's such unbridled joy and
Speaker 1: happiness actually finally making it to your destination. But then
Speaker 1: it's accompanied by a massive heartbreak because you realize that
Speaker 1: all these people you've grown close to over the last
Speaker 1: nine weeks are going to be living on the opposite
Speaker 1: side of the US from you. And as you're forced
Speaker 1: to say goodbye to Patricia, Carla, and Chino, you realize
Speaker 1: for the first time just how much your relationship has
Speaker 1: shifted with them over the last nine weeks. The moment
Speaker 1: that I have to say goodbye to them, you know
Speaker 1: we have already made it. We're somewhere in a warehousing Tucson,
Speaker 1: and we are not alone. The four of us are
Speaker 1: part of this group of thirty immigrants who have just
Speaker 1: successfully crossed the border. And not only that, more and
Speaker 1: more vans keep coming. So at one point, this two
Speaker 1: bedroom apartment in Tucson is filled with I want to say,
Speaker 1: over a hundred people, and it smells bad. And in
Speaker 1: this whole commotion of people coming and going, we Padresiacchino
Speaker 1: and Kardilla have to say goodbye, and it didn't click
Speaker 1: to me or in my brain that we Like. I
Speaker 1: knew that the US was big geographically. I thought that
Speaker 1: we were gonna at least be like an hour away
Speaker 1: from each other. But they're in DC and I'm going
Speaker 1: to San Francisco, and then describing that they still have
Speaker 1: like a three day car ride left, I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, you're going really far. This goodbye is the
Speaker 1: goodbye that still makes me break down whenever I think
Speaker 1: about it, because I still remember huddling in this dirty
Speaker 1: carpet in the middle of all these strangers and all
Speaker 1: of us crying because they were going to say goodbye
Speaker 1: to this kid, and I was gonna say goodbye to
Speaker 1: these family members. You know, they started as strangers and
Speaker 1: they became family. In that goodbye in that warehouse, I realized,
Speaker 1: because they were family, that I loved them, and I
Speaker 1: knew that they loved me too, and I knew that
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to see them as much, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know that it was going to be forever, and
Speaker 1: so I haven't seen them since then, and I think
Speaker 1: every time I didn't allow myself to remember that, and
Speaker 1: whenever I do remember it, I get teary eyed, because
Speaker 1: this was it, This was the goodbye. And they are
Speaker 1: the only people that know exactly every little thing that occurred,
Speaker 1: even the unimaginable things that you would think I am
Speaker 1: making up. They are the only ones that know that
Speaker 1: that truly happened, and they witnessed it with me, and
Speaker 1: they were there every single step of the way, even
Speaker 1: when we almost died in the desert, when we didn't
Speaker 1: have water, and even when this Arizona rancher pointed a
Speaker 1: shotgun at all of us, they were there and they
Speaker 1: know it all. I think that's why it hurt, and
Speaker 1: that's why it hurts to you and remember that. And
Speaker 1: I think what kept me from writing this memoir for
Speaker 1: twenty years was that these individuals that I had learned
Speaker 1: to trust and that I had learned to love, and
Speaker 1: that loved me in the worst of conditions were gone.
Speaker 1: And I think that five year old came back. And
Speaker 1: by that I mean that I probably blamed myself. I
Speaker 1: blamed myself that I was the reason why they didn't
Speaker 1: stay in touch, and that I was the reason why
Speaker 1: they were gone. And of course I don't know what
Speaker 1: their life was like. I don't know what they were
Speaker 1: coming to here, but I do know that after two
Speaker 1: weeks we stayed in touch for not two weeks, like
Speaker 1: like a few weeks, but then they stopped calling, and
Speaker 1: as a nine year old, I blamed myself again. So
Speaker 1: I don't know. And when you tried to call them,
Speaker 1: you were not successful. They changed their number and but
Speaker 1: we didn't change ours. Yeah, yeah, so you felt abandoned again.
Speaker 1: I felt abandoned again, even though when it mattered, they
Speaker 1: never abandoned me. Ye. Yeah, from what I understand, trying
Speaker 1: to get back in touch with Patricia Carlncino was a
Speaker 1: huge motivation for you to write this memoir in the
Speaker 1: first place, to revisit your traumatic past in so much
Speaker 1: detail after pushing it away for so many years, and
Speaker 1: curious to know if you are given the chance through
Speaker 1: this book to reconnect with them, what would you want
Speaker 1: to share with them in that conversation That I still
Speaker 1: love them and that here is the nine year old
Speaker 1: stranger kid they didn't know me, that they helped and
Speaker 1: they chose to help, they didn't have to, and that
Speaker 1: that kid has grown up, and this is the one
Speaker 1: way that I know to thank them. You know, the
Speaker 1: book is dedicated to them for a reason. I am
Speaker 1: indebted to them for life and for my life, and
Speaker 1: I just want them to know that I am very
Speaker 1: very very very very grateful and yeah, that I still
Speaker 1: love them and thank you. Yeah. Yeah. How would you
Speaker 1: explain why it is you kept these memories buried for
Speaker 1: so long? What were you running away from? I was
Speaker 1: running away from myself, meaning that if I looked at
Speaker 1: this nine year old kid, it explains a lot of
Speaker 1: how I act now as an adult. And so if
Speaker 1: I look at him, I would be looking at myself,
Speaker 1: and that is too much. What's striking me in this conversation, Javier,
Speaker 1: is that we were left alone so many times in
Speaker 1: your childhood. But what we know from the science of
Speaker 1: loneliness is that it's actually establishing a strong and loving
Speaker 1: relationship with yourself that is a prerequisite for staving off loneliness.
Speaker 1: It's a prerequisite for being able to feel connection with others.
Speaker 1: And I heard you talk in the beginning of this
Speaker 1: conversation about self hatred, and it seems like that's the
Speaker 1: real demon that you've been fighting, Is that right? Absolutely? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have this deep seated hatred of myself, and what
Speaker 1: I need to know and learn is to love myself. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love who I am, and my wife reminds me
Speaker 1: of this every single day, God bless her. I still
Speaker 1: don't believe it. Yeah, And I think you're a one
Speaker 1: hundred correct that if I don't love myself, it makes
Speaker 1: the loneliness last longer. And it's like, I'm addicted to
Speaker 1: that loneliness because I've been alone for so long. But
Speaker 1: if I learned to love myself, I won't be because
Speaker 1: now I would have a relationship with myself. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've felt that self hatred too. I think so many
Speaker 1: of us have. And oh, gosh, in your case, what
Speaker 1: I feel is it is such an unfounded dislike of
Speaker 1: this little boy that I see as a hero is
Speaker 1: a brilliant, strategic, loving little hero, and so it just
Speaker 1: feels so irrational, right that you would you would not
Speaker 1: love that little boy. But gosh, this is a big question.
Speaker 1: But that's kind of like what has worked for you
Speaker 1: in terms of learning to love yourself and to unwind
Speaker 1: some of those negative thought patterns you know, in the
Speaker 1: process of writing this book, I would have this very
Speaker 1: vivid dreams where I was back on the route. I
Speaker 1: was back somewhere sometime during those nine weeks. And in
Speaker 1: the writing of this in the facing it almost every day,
Speaker 1: I learned to view the kid as how you just
Speaker 1: describe them as a superhero. For twenty years, from the
Speaker 1: ages of nine till twenty nine, I saw this kid
Speaker 1: as this helpless push over who put people at risk.
Speaker 1: And so I was blaming him and hating him for
Speaker 1: having done what he did. Sorry, let me tell me
Speaker 1: what you mean by done what he did? What did
Speaker 1: you do by that? I mean that he immigrated by
Speaker 1: himself that and that was on you, and that was
Speaker 1: on me. And I blamed them because you know, why
Speaker 1: would you do this? And I guess that traces back
Speaker 1: to none of this would have happened if I had
Speaker 1: been more lovable and my mom had stuck around and
Speaker 1: I had given her a greater reason to stay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it goes back to that. And so you blame yourself
Speaker 1: even though you're a nine year old kid. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: and in the looking at this kid, I also realized
Speaker 1: that I was treating him how politicians and the news
Speaker 1: outlets treat immigrants, so I was believing them, and that
Speaker 1: also affected how I viewed my nine year old self.
Speaker 1: He had committed a crime, he was taking resources that
Speaker 1: are not his. He is a pushover. He is I
Speaker 1: don't know, somebody that doesn't belong into society. He's an outsider.
Speaker 1: All these negative terms that I have completely internalized, and
Speaker 1: slowly I was like, no, hold up, this kid is
Speaker 1: a g he's a gangster. He survived the unsurvivable. He
Speaker 1: really knew how to survive. Rarely, rarely have I heard
Speaker 1: that term survivor be attached to immigrants. You know your
Speaker 1: refugee a lot, but it's unpacked that these refugees have
Speaker 1: survived something. And these immigrants have survived the thousands of
Speaker 1: miles as they cross Mexico, and they've survived the desert.
Speaker 1: And using that term and claiming that term has really
Speaker 1: unpacked a lot of things for me to the point
Speaker 1: that I'm like, Wow, this kid is a superhero. He
Speaker 1: has so many skills and he made it and that
Speaker 1: gave me agency, and having that agency is the beginning
Speaker 1: of learning to love myself. Yeah, I'm not there yet.
Speaker 1: And when you said that, one thing that my wife
Speaker 1: just recently made me do She made me tell myself
Speaker 1: in front of a mirror that I love myself. She's like,
Speaker 1: just do it twenty five times. And I couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: And this is after I wrote the book. This was
Speaker 1: like a few weeks ago. I couldn't do it. I
Speaker 1: started crying. And that's even after having finished this. That's
Speaker 1: still where I'm at. Although she doesn't know this, but
Speaker 1: I've been on the road and I've caught myself staring
Speaker 1: at the mirror and telling myself that I love that
Speaker 1: I love myself. So I can't do it. I'm learning
Speaker 1: to do it, and it sounds like a very basic thing,
Speaker 1: but he has it has helped me progress. Yeah, how
Speaker 1: do you think about when you reflect back on your
Speaker 1: journey and where you are today, how do you think
Speaker 1: about loneliness? I used to think, I don't know that
Speaker 1: cliche thing of people say, oh, happiness is fleeting, but
Speaker 1: we think that happiness is like a place to be
Speaker 1: and that it's going to stay forever. Well, I used
Speaker 1: to think that loneliness was always forever place. And I'm
Speaker 1: understanding it that is fleeting and it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: stay forever and That's what I didn't realize. Part of
Speaker 1: Javier's process for learning to love himself again has been
Speaker 1: to rebuild trust with his mom. For years, he had
Speaker 1: resisted talking to her about his childhood and how her
Speaker 1: leaving affected him. But they finally had that conversation and
Speaker 1: while says it's been a long road, today they are
Speaker 1: closer than they've ever been. Hey, thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: That's a wrap on season five of A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans. We'll be back in twenty twenty three with
Speaker 1: new episodes. Until then, you can follow the show and
Speaker 1: connect with me on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker, wishing
Speaker 1: you a happy holiday in New Year. A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans is created, written an executive produced by me
Speaker 1: Maya Shunker. The Slight Change family includes our showrunner Tyler Greene,
Speaker 1: our story editor Kate Parkinson Morgan, our sound engineer Andrew Vastola,
Speaker 1: and our associate producer Sarah McCrae. Louise Scara wrote our
Speaker 1: delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: So big thanks to everyone there, and of course a
Speaker 1: very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow a
Speaker 1: slight change of plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker