June 23, 2022 • 50 mins
The legacy of IRCA is complex but is it worth trying to do it again? Hosts Patty Rodriguez and Erick Galindo search for answers with special guest US Senator Alex Padilla.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi listeners, just a quick heads up out of the shadows,
tell stories of people fleeing and living in sometimes violent environments.
If there's one thing to know about Eric Allimo, it's
that he's mellowed out since the wild days of his youth.
Back then he was more interested in being a gangster
(00:22):
than he was being a writer storyteller. He's always been smart,
a hellic studious person, but contained the angst and anger
of a young star aggressively emitting a gaseous light. Patty
Rodriguez is a complete opposite. She was calm, observant, and ambitious,
(00:44):
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
(01:04):
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
(01:27):
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
(01:51):
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.
(02:21):
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,
(02:41):
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
(03:06):
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
(03:27):
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
(03:48):
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
(04:12):
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
(04:33):
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.
(04:58):
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,
(05:19):
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
(05:40):
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
(06:04):
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.
(06:25):
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
(06:46):
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
(07:06):
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
(07:28):
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
(07:51):
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
(08:12):
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
(08:36):
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
(08:57):
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.
(09:19):
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,
(09:44):
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,
(10:06):
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
(10:29):
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
(10:52):
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
(11:18):
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.
(11:41):
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
(12:03):
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
(12:27):
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,
(12:49):
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
(13:10):
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,
(13:32):
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
(13:53):
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
(14:14):
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
(14:35):
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
(14:57):
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
(15:20):
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.
(15:44):
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
(16:05):
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
(16:28):
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
(16:49):
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
(17:10):
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,
(17:31):
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,
(17:53):
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
(18:16):
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,
(18:42):
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
(19:05):
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,
(19:27):
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
(19:49):
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
(20:10):
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
(20:31):
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
(20:53):
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
(21:14):
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
(21:36):
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
(21:58):
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
(22:21):
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
(22:43):
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
(23:09):
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
(23:34):
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?
(23:58):
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
(24:21):
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
(24:43):
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
(25:03):
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
(25:26):
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
(25:50):
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
(26:11):
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
(26:35):
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
(26:56):
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
(27:17):
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
(27:40):
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
(28:02):
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.
(28:26):
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
(28:49):
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
(29:10):
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
(29:31):
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
(29:53):
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,
(30:24):
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,
(30:45):
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
(31:08):
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
(31:31):
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
(31:53):
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
(32:16):
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
(32:39):
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
(33:00):
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
(33:24):
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
(33:47):
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
(34:07):
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
(34:32):
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
(34:54):
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
(35:17):
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
(35:37):
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,
(36:01):
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
(36:23):
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
(36:46):
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
(37:07):
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.
(37:31):
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
(37:55):
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
(38:17):
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
(38:41):
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
(39:02):
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,
(39:29):
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
(39:52):
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
(40:14):
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
(40:39):
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
(41:00):
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
(41:21):
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
(41:43):
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
(42:04):
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.
(42:26):
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
(42:46):
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,
(43:08):
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
(43:29):
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
(43:52):
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.
(44:14):
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
(44:34):
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.
(44:58):
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
(45:21):
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
(45:44):
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
(46:11):
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,
(46:34):
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
(46:58):
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
(47:20):
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,
(48:09):
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,
(48:31):
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
(48:54):
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
(49:16):
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,
(49:43):
Oscar Ramidez, John Rodriguez, Juan Rodriguez, Joshua Sandoval, Eric Sclar,
Tony Sorrentino, and Megan tan So what do you think, Eric?
(50:08):
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,
Hi listeners, just a quick heads up out of the shadows,
tell stories of people fleeing and living in sometimes violent environments.
If there's one thing to know about Eric Allimo, it's
that he's mellowed out since the wild days of his youth.
Back then he was more interested in being a gangster
(00:22):
than he was being a writer storyteller. He's always been smart,
a hellic studious person, but contained the angst and anger
of a young star aggressively emitting a gaseous light. Patty
Rodriguez is a complete opposite. She was calm, observant, and ambitious,
(00:44):
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
(01:04):
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
(01:27):
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
(01:51):
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.
(02:21):
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,
(02:41):
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
(03:06):
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
(03:27):
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
(03:48):
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
(04:12):
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
(04:33):
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.
(04:58):
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,
(05:19):
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
(05:40):
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
(06:04):
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.
(06:25):
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
(06:46):
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
(07:06):
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
(07:28):
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
(07:51):
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
(08:12):
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
(08:36):
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
(08:57):
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.
(09:19):
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,
(09:44):
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,
(10:06):
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
(10:29):
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
(10:52):
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
(11:18):
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.
(11:41):
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
(12:03):
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
(12:27):
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,
(12:49):
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
(13:10):
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,
(13:32):
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
(13:53):
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
(14:14):
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
(14:35):
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
(14:57):
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
(15:20):
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.
(15:44):
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
(16:05):
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
(16:28):
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
(16:49):
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
(17:10):
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,
(17:31):
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,
(17:53):
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
(18:16):
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,
(18:42):
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
(19:05):
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,
(19:27):
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
(19:49):
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
(20:10):
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
(20:31):
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
(20:53):
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
(21:14):
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
(21:36):
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
(21:58):
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
(22:21):
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
(22:43):
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
(23:09):
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
(23:34):
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?
(23:58):
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
(24:21):
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
(24:43):
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
(25:03):
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
(25:26):
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
(25:50):
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
(26:11):
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
(26:35):
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
(26:56):
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
(27:17):
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
(27:40):
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
(28:02):
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.
(28:26):
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
(28:49):
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
(29:10):
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
(29:31):
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
(29:53):
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,
(30:24):
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,
(30:45):
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
(31:08):
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
(31:31):
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
(31:53):
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
(32:16):
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
(32:39):
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
(33:00):
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
(33:24):
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
(33:47):
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
(34:07):
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
(34:32):
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
(34:54):
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
(35:17):
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
(35:37):
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,
(36:01):
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
(36:23):
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
(36:46):
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
(37:07):
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.
(37:31):
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
(37:55):
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
(38:17):
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
(38:41):
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
(39:02):
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,
(39:29):
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
(39:52):
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
(40:14):
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
(40:39):
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
(41:00):
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
(41:21):
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
(41:43):
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
(42:04):
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.
(42:26):
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
(42:46):
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,
(43:08):
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
(43:29):
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
(43:52):
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.
(44:14):
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
(44:34):
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.
(44:58):
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
(45:21):
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
(45:44):
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
(46:11):
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,
(46:34):
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
(46:58):
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
(47:20):
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,
(48:09):
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,
(48:31):
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
(48:54):
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
(49:16):
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,
(49:43):
Oscar Ramidez, John Rodriguez, Juan Rodriguez, Joshua Sandoval, Eric Sclar,
Tony Sorrentino, and Megan tan So what do you think, Eric?
(50:08):
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,
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