Growing up I had these images in my mind of helicopters at night. I thought it was a movie I had seen. No one told me the story of how I got here, and somehow I knew I shouldn’t ask.  I didn’t find out until I was eighteen and had to go back to Mexico to live with my grandmother.

—Sandy Velaz 

 

Crossing the Border, Landing in LA

I was born in Mexico City. My dad migrated to California soon after and for two years, he saved up money for the Coyote so we could reunite with him. My grandma and grandpa were the ones who crossed the border with me and my four-year-old sister. We got on a raft at night and went across the river. Once we were over on the US side, there was a car waiting for us. They grabbed my sister and I and threw us into the trunk of a car!

Luckily I don’t remember this. When we got to Los Angeles, there was a huge party — celebrating being together again. All my uncles were there. We got some new clothes because we were in America now. There are these pictures of me and my grandparents. I was teeny tiny and so happy. I didn’t know how dangerous it was, how scared my grandma was for us.

I lived in Los Angeles until second grade.  There was domestic abuse, and we lived in poverty — my older sister remembers that. But for me that was some of the best years, because my parents were together. I look back at my LA school pictures, and everybody looked like me. In first grade I had a white male teacher who spoke Spanish to us, but we were supposed to write in English. I was confused about language and expressing myself. My parents didn’t speak English, but they did their best to expose us to it.

 

Rodney King 

I lived in Huntington Park. I have images, memories of drive-bys—the car coming through, guns, having to run inside and get down. We were there in 1992 when Rodney King happened. I was five. We couldn’t go outside. We didn’t have electricity. But we were all together. We had candle light. For a kid, it was fun! I didn’t know people were dying— the racial conflict that was going on. I’m sure the adults were scared too, but for me — it was a good time. My parents came home with a piano and food for us.  I got a piano, and it was awesome! Now I think, that was really bad.

 

Getting To Minneapolis, and Kmart 

In 1994 my parents weren’t doing too well. There were problems with money. My dad had a friend who had moved to Minnesota, who told him, “There’s lots of jobs here.” Everything about that move happened fast. I felt so confused and scared. In LA, I had a pet turtle. My sister had chicks. We were living the kid dream. We had to give all that up.

I told my classmates, “I’m moving to a place like Alaska — really cold.”

My mom, sister and I went first. We came on a plane — the first and last time I was on a plane until I was 18. We got to Minnesota at the beginning of winter. The first place we went to was the Kmart on Nicollet and Lake street to get coats. In LA, buying and getting things was different. More bartering. I don’t ever remember going to a department store until Minnesota. I was scared. I looked up, and the room was spinning with Christmas decor. I got lost.

 

Highly Mobile in South Minneapolis 

For the next ten years of my life I moved a lot, slept on the floor and shared a room with different people. We first moved into a duplex around 33rd St. and 1st Ave. Many people lived with us. Family and friends. My dad took longer to meet up with us. My mom had to find a job. My dad’s brother came up. We pulled our money together and got an apartment on Nicollet Avenue and 33rd: Mom, us kids, her brother-in-law, and his wife and kids in one apartment. Mom worked night shifts, so for a while, me and my sister were alone at night.My parents being apart, made my mom realize she did not want to be in the relationship. There was a lot of fighting over the phone.

 

ICE Raid 

When Dad came about a year later, we were together for two months before the apartment building got raided by ICE. It was a weekend. Someone knocked on the door. We didn’t know we had the right not to answer. Now people are more aware of what to do if the police come to your door, due to Know Your Rights campaigns — but not then. There weren’t close relationships within the apartment complex for people to tell us: “If ICE comes, don’t open your doors.” Dad opened the door. Four men came in. They didn’t take my mom, or us, but they took my dad. I think that’s lucky. Sometimes — then and now — kids go to school and come home and both their parents are gone.

Once again, my sister and I were separated from my dad. While he was back in Mexico, my mom found a new partner. It was a nasty divorce. I didn’t understand it. For many years I wondered, did I do something wrong? For me, Minneapolis represented everything going wrong in our family. From my kid perspective, everything was good and we were all together before we came here. If we had only stayed in LA, my parents would still be together. But Minnesota was also prosperity for us. It wasn’t easy, but the struggles that came our way, made us better people.

 

Before I knew Brown, I knew Black.

When I started second grade, me and my sister were placed at Bethune Elementary on the North side, even though we lived on the South side. I liked the school bus, seeing the whole city. The school was a culture shock. My classmates in LA were all Latino. Bethune was African-American. They thought I was weird, but we soon got along fine. Before the end of the year, my sister and I were transferred to Holland Elementary in Northeast.

At Bethune and Holland Elementary Schools,  I had all this exposure to African-American artists and writers, to slavery in America. It wasn’t just in February that we learned about it. All year long we had plays about civil rights. In choir, we sang freedom rider songs. We sang the African-American anthem. I loved it.

Holland Elementary was a small community school. It was the same elementary where Prince went, and we had the same music teacher he had. She was a great teacher. All the teachers were compassionate. They weren’t afraid of administrators. They just taught us, took care of us. The ESL teacher was a Latina with two educational assistants who were Latino. It was a great place to be.

The teachers exposed us to material that was relatable. I remember watching a movie about a kid growing up in the Projects. He finds a cat. His mom gives him money to buy food.  He buys cat food too, on credit. I could relate to that.

 

Working class, single parent, in poverty, and normal.  

When Dad returned from Mexico, Mom already had an apartment and a new partner. It was nasty between them. My mom was one of those adults that didn’t really want to be a parent, they just happened to be a parent, so Dad got full custody of me and my sister. It was interesting growing up in a female body, without a mom. My dad said, “Its OK. I’m going to do this.” We lived in a house on 35th and Nicollet – Central neighborhood, with Dad, and a friend and his wife and kids. It was fun. We played backyard baseball, went to the Hosmer library, chased after the ice cream truck.

My Dad worked two shifts, so we didn’t see him much. When we came home from school, no one was home to give us a snack. Dad would leave us an envelope with money in it and we would go down to the corner store. After a year, someone from the neighborhood complained. They were going to call the cops on us because they noticed we walked to the corner store everyday alone. That had to stop. As a kid that didn’t make sense. I thought, “we are just getting food.” So then Dad had to find someone to take care of us: Single parent struggle.

Holland Elementary was filled with working class families, single parent families, kids in poverty. We were normal. You couldn’t pick on anyone because they only had a mom or a dad. Everyone was from different backgrounds. I had Native American, white, African-American friends. I had an Afro-Latino friend. I would say to him “You’re Black! — But you speak Spanish!” It was trippy. He was from Panama.

I feel lucky that I went to Holland. I have heard horror stories of kids being put into ESL even though they spoke English, being put back a grade. None of that happened to us.

 

Powderhorn Park in the era of Murderapolis 

I moved to a duplex in the Powderhorn Park area. That was the period when people were talking about Murderapolis, you know. I saw gun violence. Once, we were pulling up into the driveway near Wilder Elementary. A girl peeked out at the corner store, then shot a gun and ran. Another time, I was at the playground and someone pulled out a gun and everyone just scattered– all kids. The third time, I was in my dad’s car on the corner of Lake and Chicago. It was a green light, but nobody was moving. Two cars were in the middle of the intersection shooting it out. I said “ This is like a Hollywood movie!” I guess you become desensitized. To me it seemed normal. It reminded me of LA. No big deal. We still enjoyed the park.

 

Tracked into ESL and remedial reading 

Later, more family came up. Dad bought a house with his cousin in North Minneapolis. Then I took the bus from North to South to attend Folwell Middle School. Before making that transition, my teacher told me, “Your English is at the highest level. It’s up to you if you want to do ESL in 7th grade.” I decided to do it so I could be with my Latino friends. I didn’t realize there were so many Latino kids at Folwell.

Staying in ESL, meant I didn’t get to have music or other enriching classes. When I tried to get out of it, they put in a remedial reading class. It was a little degrading. In the long run though, my reading level in 8th grade was above average and I thought maybe I needed that little extra boost. I didn’t want to be sad that I never got to learn an instrument.

 

Becoming Brown and aware of race 

At Folwell, I paid more attention to race. In elementary school, watching Roots and learning about the underground railroad and singing freedom songs, Black was all I knew, and it was amazing. In middle school, I realized there was Brown and there was Different. There was racial tension between the Asian and Latino students. If someone had a beef with a Hmong student, we were all together, against them. I tried to be neutral, and have all kinds of friends and activities.

I had an English teacher who had a white savior complex. In her journey to teach us about social justice topics and Native American culture, she was coming at it from an angle of “I’m sorry.” I saw through it, and I didn’t like it. It was interesting to start noticing those things in 8th grade.

I decided I liked the open program at Roosevelt High, so I applied. Otherwise, I would have gone to Henry or Edison. But I got in.  I was taking a long bus ride again. I always liked the school bus.

 

Drugs, raid, and a system that abandoned children 

We lived in the basement of Dad’s cousin’s house in North Minneapolis, in the Camden neighborhood, close to Folwell Park.  That part of North was pretty safe then. There was a Kowalski’s and a Target in the area and a charter school across the street. Eventually the stores went away. Today it’s a dangerous intersection.

Dad’s cousin had a lot of kids. He felt that pressure to provide and do better. He had been in trouble in Mexico. His nickname in my grandma’s pueblo was Diablo — Devil. My dad decided to give him a chance, but he eventually got involved in selling drugs.

My dad would tell us, “We are not involved. Stay away from that.” But we would see it. We would see guns and my uncle doing drugs. Overnight, they would suddenly have material things. It was interesting, but eventually the police were on them. One night, a swat team came in. I saw my little cousin standing behind the door.  There was a cop with a gun to her back saying, “Put your hands up.”

It wasn’t an official rental, so the basement was considered part of the drug house. Everyone in the house was searched. We sat in the living room all night long while they went through everything. By then I had a stepmom. She had just given birth to my brother. She had a baby shower, and got a lot of cash. They took the cash, and she never got it back. There was no way we were going to go and claim it.

During the raid, all of the adults got taken away, except my 21-year-old, mentally ill cousin, who had been under guardianship. She wasn’t fit to take care of us. It was her and ten minors in the house.  For a week, none of us went to school. We were all fending for ourselves. I wanted to stay home and take care of my newborn little brother. No one wanted to come near the house because they were freaked out about the raid.
Our teachers didn’t know. No one knew.

Eventually my stepmom, stepbrother and I, moved back to the southside with our Aunt and Uncles. We had four families in a three-bedroom apartment. It was fun — all my cousins, and Powderhorn Park to play in. When we made breakfast, it was a buffet—so much food and community; everyone watching out for each other. We lived there for a couple of years before my Dad came back and we moved back to North Minneapolis, to a big house, with the entire extended family.

 

Dad in detention. 

That was the second time Dad got taken away. I was in 9th grade. They confused him with a fugitive, and for three months he was in a detention center until they figured out who he was. It took him six months to come back.

All my life, Dad has been my super hero. He was taken away, and somehow he came back! He’d just show up. Recently, he has been willing to tell me about crossing. He told about seeing young kids with an elderly grandma who couldn’t do the walk across the desert with a crying baby. “I wanted to help her,” he told me,  “but we had to keep moving.”

These are experiences people hold onto.  I think about the mental health aspect—everything they carry.

 

Coming into Adulthood, Undocumented 

My senior year, I had to face the fact that I was undocumented. I really wanted to go to college. A teacher of mine, Jehanne Beaton, was a mentor.  She was my social studies teacher in middle school, and when I went to Roosevelt, she did too, so was my social studies teacher all through high school, as well. We had a close relationship. She wanted to help me figure out how to get to college.

I was doing “Admission Possible.” I got accepted into St. Thomas, St. Kate’s, the Uof M–all these awesome schools–but I couldn’t afford any of them, especially with out-state tuition. There were some legislative campaigns for Dreamers at the time, but nothing passed.

Jehanne found me a free legal clinic. Since my parents got divorced, my mom had married a white guy–a US citizen. She had become a resident. I hadn’t been in touch with Mom for a decade. Now, I realized that through her I could have been a citizen!

I understand now, as a woman, that Mom’s relationship with Dad was abusive and she did not want to reach out, so I don’t have any resentment about that. People gotta do what they gotta do.

I talked to an attorney who said there was nothing I could do, but another said, “There must be a way.” My sister—then a teen mom—was also working on it. Dad didn’t want to help if it meant reaching out to our mother. But my sister did it. She contacted Mom, who was living in Anoka.

Mom was willing. She would pay for the attorney to get us status. We started the paper work, but the process would take time, and I was about to turn 18. As an adult, I would start to incur fines for my undocumented status. I had to leave.

 

Returning to Mexico 

In August 2005, I returned to Mexico. Dad paid the plane fare. It was scary, because I knew I might not come back. But I was eighteen and ready for adventure. Besides, by then I resented the system, inequalities, the lack of opportunities for me. I told everyone indignantly, “I’m leaving this place!”

Even though I had grown up in bad neighborhoods, my parents had done a good job of sheltering me — keeping me at least feeling safe. Mexico was a culture shock. The homelessness, the kids without shoes, people with disabilities on the street. The most exposure to that kind of poverty was when I visited Chicago one time when I was sixteen and saw people cleaning windshields for money. One thing I struggled with the whole time I was there, was people’s ability to become numb to other people’s suffering. There would be little Indigenous children with no shoes on, trying to sell you things on the train. I thought, “Why does nobody care?”

I spent 32 months in Mexico City, with my grandma. There wasn’t much green. The air smelled like sewage. My first year, I was pretty depressed. I didn’t leave my neighborhood much. But I got to know my family and what had happened to me when I was two. I knew it was a gift, to be able to spend that time with my grandmother, to hear about how I crossed, about my parents, their relationship and the hardships they went through.

The second year, I started to travel more. I went to my grandma’s pueblo, and saw mangos growing on trees and beautiful green mountains. I went down the Yucatan peninsula and Cancun, Chiapas, Chetumal, Playa del Carmen–all these beautiful, magical places. I thought, “I will never be able to come back. I need to see it all.”

I started working at an outsource call center. We were lien collectors and our calls were to the United States. Because I spoke English, I got the job. My co-workers were college-aged, English-speaking Mexicans. It didn’t even feel like a job. We would joke all the time.

I found a couple of jobs teaching English. The first was grueling. It was run by Protestants. We started the day reading the Bible. They threw me in a classroom after one week and I was supposed to give the students a test: kids and adults. I was nineteen, and had never assessed anyone. I quit, and got a job as a tutor with a small company. I was popular. I would have these conversation clubs, where I would give them a theme and they would have to converse. I enjoyed teaching. I had a student who wanted me to help him translate a YouTube video about levitating. He said, “I know levitating is weird. But don’t argue with me, just translate. I want to levitate.”

 

US Immigration Debacle in Mexico 

When I got my letter about my immigration appointment, Grandma and I got on the smallest plane and went to Ciudad Juarez. The whole process was scary.  I was holding on to tears the whole time. 

We were there for a week. I didn’t want my grandma to stand in line with me. The letter said, “Tuesday 8 AM,” and 100 other people had the same time. There was already a super long line. Eventually, we entered the building and I turned in my paperwork. I went to have my medical exam. I heard rumors that if you have piercings or tattoos they do a mental health evaluation. They asked me if I was pregnant. Luckily, I  didn’t need any extra examination. But then I went back to the main building and just sat there. It was like a bank, with rows and rows of chairs. I sat there, waiting for my name to be called, watching people shouting “Yes, Yes!”, and others walking away crying.

When my name was called, I went to the teller window.  I had to turn in my passport. The interview was about five minutes. Just a guy shuffling through my papers. It was intense. The guy’s first and last name were Latino. He looked like me, but he spoke only in English. I was there by myself. He looked at my paperwork and asked me, “Where is your mom?” I said, “She couldn’t come. She’s sick.” He said, “Look out there. All these people are sick. Go sit down.”

I thought, “Shit, I messed up.”

For an hour I sat there. I made eye contact with other people in the room. I knew they were feeling the same way I was: gut churning. Eventually they called my name. He gave me my visa and said, “You gotta go get it stamped at the border.” That was it. Two years and eight months, and now it was done.

 

Home — in Minnesota

The whole time I was in Mexico I was homesick. Some people might say, “Well, you were home.” But I wasn’t. I really missed Minnesota. Even though I had made the best of my time in Mexico, I was ready to be home.

When I came back I had two new siblings. My sister had another baby. Life had happened. Yet some things were the same. Many members of my family were still undocumented. I got to go and they didn’t, and when I came back, I had status and they didn’t. It was difficult.

 

Thoughts on becoming a citizen 

But I was happy to be home. I got a job as a legal assistant. In 2012, I enrolled at MCTC. I wanted to go to college with people who look like me. I could have gone to those other schools, but I didn’t want to be the token.  Minnesota is so white. It’s easy to be the only one. I decided to do the Urban Teacher program at MCTC. Every choice I’ve made since, I have been intentional about doing it here in the city, working with people who look like me. Whenever I have volunteered or interned, it has been with communities of color.

I think all these experiences have made me stronger, but I still don’t know what to do with those years in Mexico. Everything I saw and everything I learned. I haven’t found a good outlet for all that frustration —all the inequality.

I still consider myself part of the undocumented community.  Anytime I have a chance to be that voice, to say, “Hey this is my experience,” I take it. I don’t do it to teach others. I do it so they are aware we exist. When I do things like healthcare, I think about undocumented folks  and the opportunity gaps. Because it still affects my community.

Now I am a citizen. In 2016, the question is, “Who am I going to vote for?” The ability to vote is super heavy and important, but when I think of my choices and my intersectionality—a person of color, an immigrant, a woman, an undocumented person—voting is picking my poison.

 

A commitment to give back 

I have learned so much from people in Minneapolis:

• My wild music teacher who had us singing freedom songs.
• Jehanne Beaton, who was with me in the school system who came from the perspective of — the system wasn’t built for you —so how are you going to beat it?
• My sister, who is really strong doing everything she could to help me get to where I wanted to be.

I feel a strong sense of having to give back — to do what those people did for me. My dad still lives in North Minneapolis, so that neighborhood is still on my mind. Now I live in St. Paul. I am discovering this whole other side. My professors have done a good job of teaching me about African-American Rondo, the immigrant East Side, the Latino West Side and its history of dislocation.

 

Teaching Sex Education at Planned Parenthood 

I recently graduated from Metro State University with a BA. People ask me, “What are you going to do?” Right now I answer, “I’m doing it!” I work for Planned Parenthood, teaching sex education to Latino youth. I do two projects — an internship rooted in social justice work, and STD and sex education for students who want it.  I partner with kids from El Colegio.

I am conflicted about how to tell people where I work. The organization comes with a heavy history of contributing to oppressing the reproductive health of women of color, but I think that by doing the work I do, I am turning that around. Latinos are going to have a healthy community. Young people are going to know their choices. I hope the students who work with me feel like, if she can do it, I can too.

Rosa Clemente and building solidarity among people of color 

Recently, with all the police violence , I am reminded of all the great things I learned in school about the African-American resistance and liberation movements. I understand that people are still not free.  The murder of Philando Castile, affected me the most.  At this moment people of color are seeking platforms to be heard — not remaining silent about the injustices we face. With Black liberation, there will be Latino liberation, Asian liberation, GLBT liberation and so on. 

September 18-20, 2016, I attended the We Won’t Wait Summit in Washington DC, bringing together more than a thousand activist women of color.  We talked about economic justice, defining family, immigration reform, reproductive rights, gun violence, state violence,  building solidarity across these issues, and how to fix them for ourselves.  When I returned to Minneapolis I attended the Navigate gala with Rosa Clemente,  who addressed anti-Black sentiment in the Latinx community. She said we need to recognize our race, because the state has already racialized us. It was powerful for me, because I am a person who has always wanted to keep race at the forefront. Other people in my community have wanted to get away from it. Rosa Clemente gave me inspiration and a blessing to continue to speak up.

Minneapolis Interview Project Explained