Interview with Gabby
Introduction
I chose to interview my aunt Gabby because, like many others brought to the U.S. as children, her migration story offers a unique lens into the challenges and opportunities faced by undocumented youth. I was curious about how her experiences compared to those of my parents, from the reasons behind her family’s migration to the impact of policies like DACA on her life. Gabby and I are very talkative, which allowed us to explore personal questions during a Zoom interview. Gabby came to the U.S. at 10 years old and received DACA at 18. Our discussion reflected on the ways DACA has shaped her life, her recent trip back to her home country of Mexico after 14 years, and the contrast between the life she has here and what could have been.
Her Arrival
Gabby’s migration story begins with her father coming over to the U.S, a common pattern explained by migration network theory. Her father served as the initial connection, leaving for the U.S. years earlier to establish a foothold. He found work along the East Coast, primarily in New York, and saved money with the goal of eventually opening a store in Veracruz, Mexico. His earnings and connections allowed him to pay the rest of the family’s journey, creating a pathway for their migration.
Economic opportunities in the U.S., particularly in regions where labor was in high demand, align with job pull theory. Gabby’s father’s ability to secure consistent employment exemplifies how the promise of better wages and stability can drive migration decisions. After some years here her father hoped to reunite the family in a more prosperous and stable environment.
Gabby remembers crossing the U.S.-Mexico border with her mother and older brother, reuniting with her father after years apart. While the move fulfilled her parents’ dreams of uniting the family, Gabby struggled to understand why they had to leave the idyllic life she remembered in Veracruz. Her father’s deliberate search for a family-friendly city to raise his children reflects the broader considerations many migrants face when navigating new labor markets and social systems.
Life with DACA
Gabby’s life changed when she received DACA at 18. Before that, she faced the reality shared by many undocumented teens—limited options after high school like considering taking on secondary jobs.Without access to financial aid or the ability to obtain a driver’s license, opportunities felt limited. Gabby worked hard but often found herself facing systemic barriers. One vivid memory was when her trade school mistakenly granted her financial aid, only to later revoke it because of her undocumented status. Unable to afford the costs, she was forced to drop out.
While DACA provided some relief, including a work permit and a Social Security number, it came with its own challenges. The renewal process is lengthy, expensive, and fraught with uncertainty. Gabby shared how she once went four months without work because of processing delays, despite submitting her renewal as early as allowed. Political debates surrounding DACA only add to her stress, as its future remains uncertain.
Reflecting on “Home”
For Gabby, the concept of “home” is complex. Growing up, Veracruz was her idyllic place—her backyard was the beach, and her family lived comfortably. A year ago, using advance parole, she returned to Mexico for the first time in 14 years. The visit brought mixed emotions. While she cherished reconnecting with her roots, she also faced the harsh realities of colorism, especially through the experiences of her daughters, who are of darker complexion.
The trip reinforced a feeling of displacement. In Mexico, she was treated as an outsider, yet in the U.S., she struggles with belonging fully. The cultural norms she grew up with in the U.S. now make some aspects of life in Mexico feel foreign. Gabby describes this as a “culture shock,” realizing that neither place feels entirely like home.
Now
Gabby’s story underscores the difficulties undocumented individuals face even with protections like DACA. While it grants temporary relief, it doesn’t resolve the deeper challenges of living between two worlds. Many people assume that having DACA means being “lucky,” but Gabby notes the constant worry of losing it, the limited access to higher education, and the emotional toll of feeling stateless.
For Gabby, returning to Mexico permanently isn’t an option. She recognizes that her children, born and raised in the U.S., are rooted here. Yet the possibility of retirement in her home country feels distant and uncertain, given the barriers to reintegration and the cultural shifts she has experienced.
Conclusion
Gabby’s story highlights the multifaceted challenges of migration and integration. Her family’s journey exemplifies the interplay of migration networks and job pull theory, illustrating how economic opportunities and social connections drive migration decisions. However, her experiences also reveal how difficult it is being without your parents for some years. She’s not the first nor will be the last person to tell me about how difficult it is being far away from family for such a long time.
DACA provides benefits but falls short in addressing broader challenges like access to higher education and job security. For Gabby, the U.S. is where her children will grow up and build their futures, but it’s not without sacrifice. Her story reminds me of the resilience and adaptability of immigrant families and the urgent need for policies that offer stability and inclusion for individuals like my aunt.
[Roxana]
Okay, so I’m interviewing my aunt um Gabriela Bolaños. Okay, now just let me um talk to you a little about yourself, so we’re gonna be discussing about… um, you came here as a I don’t know how old were you when you first came here?
[Gabby]
I was 10, about to be 11, yeah .
[Roxana]
And who did you like come here with? Was it like you’re just your parents or did your brother also come with you guys?
[Gabby]
My mom and my brother… Your mom and your brother was your dad or like already here in the States or…
My dad was already here
[Roxana]
so like where did you guys first go?
[Gabby]
he was living in New York and he was living in New York, but he moved to Virginia before we came to the states just because he was looking around for places where it was going to be the best for us as teenagers to grow in.
[Roxana]
Because how did he move like from how did he decide like oh hey, like New York no, like let me just go to Manassas?
[Gabby]
So he was working and delivering; he worked for a company that delivers food to the Hispanic stores, oh so he got to know a lot of places.
He got to know Maryland a lot, um, so for New York I think that’s where they have all the the stuff that they deliver, and for New York they Deliver around the area, the DMV area, so he got to know the DMV area a lot and based on that I think he kind of figured out, well yeah it’s the city, it’s like a lot, yeah,
[Roxana]
well it’s kind of like the same thing that happened with like my grandfather, my, my, abuelito. First, he went to New Jersey and he left like my, my dad in Mexico, and then like my dad didn’t go, didn’t come to the states so like he was 15 or like 18, something somewhere around there, okay?
[Roxana]
But you coming over here, let’s talk first before before you got DACA.
How was like your life before obviously with DACA we all know that you can have the ability to work legally at that point and have a driver’s license and all that, but how was it before you got DACA or like how old were you when you got that?
[Gabby]
I was so scared. I said I live in the shadows from when I was the age I came which was 10 years old until I was 17. um I didn’t have any documents, so it was really stressful to know that. Okay, well I’m almost gonna reach 18 and by the time whenever I do reach the the age to work and do everything, I’m not gonna be like my friends-it’s just gonna be like probably I’m gonna end up working at cleaning houses, honestly.
That was in my mind and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s gonna be like my life.’ I’m not gonna be like my family; I’m not gonna be like my friends. To suck. I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life because I don’t want to do that. I really I mean it-it’s not like it’s a bad job, but honestly, it’s something that I feel like didn’t get paid good, me there, so yeah, that’s how I felt, yeah.
[Roxana]
Because well, right now in my one of my other classes because right now I’m taking sociology of immigration, which is the class I’m interviewing you for, but I’m also taking like social movements um and one of the things that we were studying for a little bit was DACA recipients and how difficult it is sometimes when you’re like-it always hits mainly everyone once they’re like, turning. 18 because it’s also the by at that time before like during when DACA came out um tuition was very expensive also it was double the price and they were unable to even pay for you wouldn’t get financial assistance and we would we would study all those people and see how difficult it is for some and how um also it’s difficult for them to come out as like that they’re undocumented or that they they don’t have the same as like their other friends
[Gabby]
yeah so I actually tried to go to um tech school when I graduated um well I was actually in I went to school for like a for like a month or so but I guess I mean .It was my parents didn’t spoke a lot of English well not at all and so we didn’t know how how it was going to be for us for me to go to that tech school and I thought we were going to be able to afford it but because I was a DACA recipient and it was new it was new like that year that’s the year I got it so even the schools didn’t know what that was so that’s why I think that’s why they took me in because I was gonna have a social security number so they were like oh you’re gonna have a social security number we’re gonna be able to work with you but then after I sent a certain point like two weeks after I was in they’re like they started to question like oh we don’t we don’t work .With that program, it’s new so and they were like, ‘Oh, you have to pay like back then it was like a thousand dollars, a little bit over a thousand dollars,
a thousand but my parents had to pay rent so it was like, um, we’re not gonna be able to afford it because rent wasn’t as much then, so a thousand dollars was a lot then, so um, that’s why I had to get out of it but they kind of literally kicked me out, yeah, that’s like a big thing.
[Roxana]
Well, like now it’s not even how well we obviously know like DACA is having like a little switch since like 2021 that it was stopped for a good bit and then you obviously having a lot of these opportunities now with it but Even though you are kind of in the limited because you don’t have the right like all the range that you would as if having residency or becoming a citizen, but let’s like how has it been since you have your DACA?
Obviously we know that you’re allowed to drive now legally with that and work. But how has that like an intense about it?
[Gabby]
Well, it’s been easier; it was easier when it first started because you we can I feel like we kind of felt a relief like, ‘Oh, we’re someone now what’s this here now?’ So it was really um, a relief for me to know that. But um, but that was at the beginning when everything was okay. When we got our social security Number when I was able to know that I was gonna be able to work um since not everywhere but mostly everywhere um, and that I was gonna be able to have a better job and better opportunities.
I don’t feel the same way now, but that’s how I felt when I first got it because I guess after I was able to get into the job that I have now, which is driving a school bus that’s kind of I worked for the county, so I kind of feel good about that. But I wish I could go beyond that.
[Roxana]
Yeah, so how obviously with us now getting a new president, Trump has been talking about how he wants to work with democrat lawmakers to help out more dreamers and like probably .More of a like path to like residency, how like, how do you feel about that? Obviously we know that Dreamers have been like told so many things before, like ‘Hey, we’re gonna give you this’ and ‘giving you that.’ And how, how do you think about that?
[Gabby]
I mean, if and I I’m not speaking for myself but there’s a lot of DACA recipients that have really good jobs that they were able to afford, have um more education than myself, I just have a high school diploma, um, I do have a CDL license which is good, um, but a lot of the DACA recipients are able, there’s some doctors, police officers, um, there is a lot of them have a really good jobs and and I have, I do feel like we just we need more than what we have right now and I think that’s a good thing I think that’s a good thing to have um and like I said I’m not just saying it for myself because
I don’t these people put so much into their education that I I believe they reserve they deserve to have something more than just being in the limbo every year every two years we’re in the limbo because we gotta go and we gotta do our renewal and it’s pretty much like oh they’re gonna give us um our permit on time or not because if we don’t get it on time uh a lot of times we have to resign from our jobs
yeah I’ve touched on that because USCIS is very backed up right Now as we all know, they are currently taking new asylum cases which is very controversial right now. I would say, because a lot of people from different countries are getting practically a straight path to what many would want right now and there’s people who’ve been here for 20 plus years and haven’t come been able to come close to that,
[Gabby]
yeah so yeah well that’s really hard for for us knowing that we’re not more than that.
And then you have someone, I mean I’m not I’m not saying um that they don’t they shouldn’t get it, I mean I get it just like like myself there was a lot of other people that needed to come because I was like Know I don’t know, the the way they live in their countries, um I mean, I just like I said, just the way the way my parents thought because it wasn’t even the way I thought because honestly when I lived in Mexico I thought I had it all, my parents were there and we never, I never thought we didn’t have it.
Oh, I think when I was a child I always thought well, we have everything, we don’t need no more than this. But I was a kid so I couldn’t really see that reality, besides that, so um yeah, I forgot where I was going. Um, I think with like, with how we were talking about how now many people who are seeking asylum of all these
[Roxana]
Things compared to that, um, also I want to because we talked about how your dad practically brought you guys over here and I think that’s so that’s something I learned, I didn’t even know, because we were talking about how like why immigrants decide on a certain location, and because it’s not just coincidental, it’s because usually like a family member brings you over, so it was good to know that like it was like that your dad was the one to bring your family over, yeah.
[Gabby]
So practically my dad was here already and he had learned about different cities already, but um, other than that we didn’t have any other family members
[Roxana]
so it was Good to know that, like it was like that, your dad was the one to bring your family so, yeah, let’s talk about.
Obviously we know everyone has their own different reasons of, like, coming into this country, but what was, like, the thing you understand from what you were younger that your parents decided to come here? So when the reason we ended up coming here,
[Gabby]
my dad, my dad’s reason was because we needed to build something in Mexico. We had a family , and a house, um, but we didn’t have nothing besides that just our house.
He wanted to have, um, like a store, but not like The regular stores he wanted to go a little bigger than that just because he needed to have enough money for the family, um, that was the main and the priority my dad had. And then my mom came along with him, um, actually my my dad came and was here for maybe two years, I think, and then he went to Mexico to see us. And when he was coming back, my mom came along with him, um. The reason being, I don’t know, they just decided to both of them come here and we stay with the family member for around nine months, close to a year, um. But when my mom came with my dad, my mom couldn’t be too long without us, so she decided to go back to Mexico, when she came back.
To Mexico, she didn’t even tell us it was a surprise actually um, but I guess when my mom was here, my dad had said that he was going to be here for five years and my mom was like, well we can’t keep our family apart for too long so that was the reason my mom was like, well i’m if you can, we can actually just all of us go and that’s why we decided to come because my parents didn’t want us to be apart for too long. Then my dad was like, oh it will be good because then they can study here and they’ll they’ll have a better life.
[Roxana]
And yeah, how do you think it would compare to the life that you would have had, like do you ever have those questions, hey? If, like, my dad stayed here and, like, we were just grown up in VeraCruz, like, how would their life be different? Do you like obviously we know the lack of opportunities that there is in Mexico. My mom constantly touches on this, like, obviously you and my mom are from Mexico. And my parents have, like, probably a different upbringing, but the way she discusses her upbringing was that, like, you obviously know like they had to work at a young age to support their family. How would your life have been different if you did grow up a lot differently?
know i got to go to mexico twice already with a parole yeah the advanced parole um um and i think when i got back when the first time i went back i got to see the reality again when since i moved when i was a kid i wasn’t seeing that part to me um mexico was just so it was it was nice to me right when i was a kid but now that i went and i went with my kids especially i got to see a lot of the reality it was i mean there there is a lot of good things my family is the good thing i have in mexico that’s all i can say and now if i don’t get me wrong i mean i think you can build a life in mexico but i myself experience um what would you call that um people being Raised racist against my colours, yeah, colours.
And, and that was really shocking to me because I live in a country now that is not even my country, and they treat me a lot more fairly than they do in my own country. And that was the biggest thing because my dad you well, I don’t know if you have seen pictures of my dad, but my dad’s skin is a lot darker than my than my skin. And one of my kids, Joanna, has the same color, so knowing that my kids wouldn’t grow up to be a girl back there, back home, it was gonna be hard on me to know that they were gonna go through all that. So this is what I went through.
I think I told you already um, but I went to olive garden in mexico in cancun i didn’t know that oh yeah i went to an olive garden in cancun so you chose to go to olive garden while you were in cancun because my mom and my dad liked it oh okay so it wasn’t for my experience it was for my parents you know they never those are what did they call it back then um those are for rich people in mexico yeah yeah it’s true and my parents when they were here they love oligarden so they had never been to it since they went back to cancun so they never went back to oligarden so they never went back to oligarden back to mexico so i’m like oh let me take them there it wasn’t for us but um but yeah we decided to go, so when I walked in.
First of all, Cancun is way too hot for us-like really hot, um it’s just really humid and it’s so we were dressed like really light, just a dress and some chanclas, like sandals, because I mean what else can you wear in a hot place? And, um, and you know Joanna, she’s really picky about the clothes she wears, so she was just wearing simple clothes-not even makeup-because again it’s so hot that I hate it to know the idea that I had to put makeup on. So when I walk in, the lady, yeah, the lady that took us in, she gave us a look, um, and that was because again our color. And we all know this, my so, my mom, she’s a lighter Color, yeah, yeah, she’s like your skin, my mom’s, she’s like I will, I guess she don’t suffer it because her skin color, but um, she was able to move positions in her job a lot faster than the people of different color, uh.
But anyway, so that lady that took us in, she was really rude at the beginning, I was like, ‘Well now you’re gonna get a taste of it right.’ So me and my kids started speaking English, and she changed completely after that, and that was that was really hard, it was really hard because this is where my people live, this is where my family is, and they get to experience this every day. I mean, I don’t think it’s fair that a family that Doesn’t look the way you think they should look to go to a place like that because you never know, I mean I could be I just thought about about it myself like I could if I was a person I would be like’, I’m not sure if I’m a person
leaving there I would probably save up money for I don’t know how long in order for me and my kids to have something nice like that right, and you would think that, okay well these people are gonna get the same treatment that everybody does and it will suck for a family if they do that like ‘okay we’re gonna save up money and um and do something really nice for us’ but yeah so it was it was just I don’t know if I would have girl in Mexico, and if I would have a family down in Mexico, I think it wouldn’t be nice for me. It was; I probably would have, I don’t know, probably would, it wouldn’t even finish school, especially because I was a mom too, yeah, um, if I would leave the life of a teen mom down in Mexico, uh, it would have been really bad for me.
[Roxana]
It’s difficult, yeah, yeah, but yeah, no, I feel like we did touch all the bases; we touched like, while you came here, like probably, yeah, you came here and why your parents decided, um, how do you I don’t know how do you at least, like, we talked about it, um, at least with DACA, it covers minors, there’s this also thing like you know the the age factor in here it was very we discussed how like in the beginning I don’t know how old you were here but like in the beginning with DACA we were seeing that it was very much hesitant lots of people were hesitant towards it they were like should we even allow this like I think like many news networks were saying I think this is the worst thing to happen to this country if we allow um underage kids to have this and now we’re seeing that the positive impact that it’s
giving like you guys pay your taxes we have seen not just you but even undocumented contribute a lot of money in taxes but like how do you feel towards the adults here also in this situation like your parents when they first arrived here I doubt I don’t think they got papers also like when they left when they went back no my parents were undocumented until the day when they back so my mom and my dad they both live in Mexico um well my dad passed but um they both left without documents they weren’t they weren’t ever able to do anything besides that and I can tell you that my mom as soon as we came here she started doing taxes herself and my dad as well so um I mean I get it I get it that there is a lot to do with immigration but it’s actually that part of me is always like oh they shouldn’t been able to get something at least I mean
hard they work they take up um like what we like to call is that the majority of Hispanics take up secondary jobs which is like the less prestigious ones like you know construction chicken farmers are like um like what working in the field and we see how difficult they work in those things and then for them to lack in compensation they pay taxes at the end of the day and we see that they don’t get anything for their efforts yeah so that’s the part that it really sucks and and that’s why like you said it’s a lot of it’s really controversial that there’s newcomers being able to have it a lot easier than than our parents they were never well at least my parents like I said they’re back in in Mexico now and at least them they never got a chance or opportunity to even
[Gabby]
show who they who they were really so it’s just it’s really hard and actually I think this is something that um out ways I thought should be say um kind of follows I, worries me a lot or I always have this thought in my mind um when my dad left and when I got uh when I went back home I saw a photo on him and on my mom as well that because I live in the state where they get to , still recently, country even though they went back to their to their home country their their mentality never changed they were they were an immigrants back in their own country again because my dad was living the way he was living here in the u.s.
so like um just a bed and one little sofa that was it and i asked him why was he not like building that same house um that we had back then when i was like like a normal house you know um i questioned that myself and i questioned him too and he’s like because this is not where i belong so interesting yeah because and i mean if you think about it it’s true like i don’t i don’t see myself living in mexico i could probably say maybe when i when i retire but i don’t know how true that is because my kids are gonna be growing here and they’re probably gonna have kids and
i say that really easy right now but when i see my kids grow and when i see them having kids and and i’m like well i can’t be too far away from them so you know so it’s kind of you never get that back you never get a place to to call really your your house your home because new perception
[Roxana]
i’ve never like thought of it that way because you know like there’s also like things about like why many people don’t believe in daca and they’re like okay so do you think they should go back to a country They’ve never been like they haven’t been there since they were two or three, or young, like you. Like you wouldn’t even know what like what would be of that.
[Gabby]
Well yeah, like I said when I when I went back there it’s it’s even though I grew well I was there for nine years of my life, 10 yeah um almost 10 years of my life. I don’t I don’t understand the um even the political stuff that they talk about um and the uh the healthcare stuff too or what do they do this different than they do it here to me the way I live here is the obvious way you know and the things they do back back there it’s not as obvious as like, you guys start doing something that It doesn’t sound great, you know, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.’ Are you guys seeing people like the way you’re not supposed to?
But back there, that’s that’s their life, that’s how they live, and they see it as normal as oh yeah, I mean that’s all they know. Wait, I ran out of time now you ran out of time, I think so, I think that’s what it said, I don’t know. No, I have 10 minutes left, yeah, okay, but so, yeah, it’s it’s hard, I mean, I don’t, I don’t see myself living that when Trump came into office into office last time not this time last time um it was really hard when he said that he was gonna cut off it was my world was ending then. i was like oh no what am i gonna do
[Roxana]
so a really big topic still to this day and still like what they should be doing with daca even though at the end of the day i feel like you guys contribute a lot and it’s a lot not just in that but in education and holding certain jobs like you like i was discussing it with my mom she was like well you gotta tell that you gotta put that gabby works in um for the county even though there’s a bus driver shortage right now and she’s contributing to society that way
[Gabby]
I’m like they really need me a lot because you know, just driver shortage like in forever, I don’t know how many years now, I’m like well maybe I can find my way but now you know they’re never gonna do that because it takes a long time as well.
[Roxana]
Also, that’s what I kind of don’t believe in like the mass deportation thing that they’re that Trump has been talking about, because at the end of the day we all know how difficult it would like it would strain the economy because um like you have workers that do a lot and then if you just kick them out, like dude the U. s is gonna go into
a really bad recession yeah it’s gonna be i just i don’t know and kind of in a way i i ruled that part out because i’m just like i don’t i really think it’s gonna happen just how bad it is but i do think they will help stock out now that you i feel like if he brings it up to republicans or to democrats it will happen i hope so i i hope so because i know we bring a lot of money in every time we renew oh yeah yeah i i touched i have a paper for this cluster and i put um my dad annually spent 700 including the fees including the lawyer fees and that’s a lot and then i put also that uscis is backlogged like they take forever my dad submitted his Last October, still hasn’t received his ‘Oh Wow’ and I don’t know if we had changed for your dad but our amount of our fees just went up, yeah.
[Roxana]
And apparently USCIS in um April said that their thing even if it’s expired it extends for like a year now, well some of them do, yeah, yeah, like I think that’s what I saw or something like that, so like us doctor recipients, is that it’s up to our work if our job wants to take us in and like kind of know that they’re gonna renew it and they’re like back up with USCIS, um it’s up to them but you know I mean that’s well I work with kids so they gotta know that I’m legal here so they’re not my job does not give. I need a break, honestly. I know, I know, I know you’ve been constantly told that like we need that thing now, yeah.
[Gabby]
So, so far it’s been good, but it’s also uh since I renew early because i if they don’t send me my card on time, um, I do have to resign. So, I have to renew early, so I lost four months last year, so I’m back, oh my god, that’s a lot, yeah. But it’s not literally the price you gotta pay, though. So, hopefully they do something for us
[Roxana]
Thank you, Thea, for being part of my project; I’m gonna end record on this, okay.
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