Post by Breezy on Jul 6, 2020 8:55:19 GMT -5
I was 11 years old, and mi papa and I were fifty feet into America when the glint of the evening sun reflecting off the roof of the approaching Border Patrol’s ‘94 Ford Explorer struck an immediate fear into my heart.
Picking up our entire lives and running for the promise of safety and work in American had not been an easy decision for mi mama and papa, but after careful thought and deliberation, they each agreed that we didn’t really have a choice but to take that risk. Things had become too volatile at home. Gang and cartel violence was increasing rapidly, and within our neighborhood, there wasn’t even one family that remained untouched by it. When my cousin was gunned down and left in the middle of the street as a means of sending a message to the rest of our neighborhood, it really forced my parents’ hand on deciding to leave.
As that Explorer rolled slowly down the rocky terrain of the Texas panhandle, I looked mi papa in the eye, and he screamed to me, “Partir!” The idea of splitting my family up yet again was terrifying, because despite the risks, mi papa and I had split off from mi mama and sister already miles before we’d reached the border in order to maximize our chances of crossing the border successfully, and the idea of splitting again was terrifying. I asked myself What if we split and I never see my family again? Before I could really think too much, mi papa shoved me in the direction opposite him and we each ran off in a dead sprint for as long as we could.
Best case scenario, the agent was on an unfortunately timed regular patrol and simply didn’t see us. Worst case scenario, the agent had had eyes on both of us and was in pursuit to send us back to the hellscape that our home had become. Either way, by splitting up, we more or less ensured that he wouldn’t catch both of us.
As I started to feel the stitch in my side and my mind turned back to panic. I began to hear that little voice called intuition inside of my head. It was frantic, anguished.
Don’t stop now! YOU CAN’T STOP NOW!
Another voice began to drown out my own screaming inside of my head. In the fog of my escape, it took a moment for me to register that the second voice was booming out of the speaker system of the Border Patrol vehicle in the distance.
“STOP RUNNING! YOU ARE BEING DETAINED!”
I stopped dead in my tracks and stared for a moment, paralyzed by fear over the wellbeing of mi papa. I knew they had found him, and in that moment, I was gutted by the overwhelming concern that this was it for us, that this was the end of our effort to escape the violence and danger of our first familial home. As that fear washed over me, everything was a blur and I heard nothing but the dull yet deafening sound of my own pulse beating in my ears. In a swift moment, I shook off those thoughts and the fear and found a reasonable place to hide and observe what was happening.
I saw as the agents restrained mi papa before loading him into the car. I watched knowing that his capture possibly meant I’d never see him again, and it tore me up inside. The combined forces of the setting sun and my father’s capture sucked all of the light out of that moment. I saw my hope evaporate into the night, into a shade of black that’s indescribable. As I sat alone in the darkness of the night, I felt my will to fight on evaporating into the humid summer air. But then something changed. Dawn broke, and hope rose again.
In that moment, I watched the sunrise with new eyes, and I watched as the light touched everything without regard to which side of the border I stood on. The sun was the great equalizer, and even though I sat there alone in the world, I saw the way that light embraced and accepted everyone and felt a wave of calm wash over me like a tsunami.
That calm stayed with me even when I had my own run in with Border Patrol a day later. I was swooped up into the system. I was an unaccompanied minor in the American immigration system, but I knew enough to say the magic word: asylum. They drug me through hoop after hoop and hearing after hearing to prove that returning to my home was a death sentence, but eventually, justice won out. It must’ve been a lot harder to look a 11 year old kid in the eye and tell them to get lost than it was to load my papa into a fan and dump him off somewhere over the border.
Years later, I stood in a wrestling ring preparing and training every day for the next moment that I would lace my own boots, dawn my own mask, and show the world who the hell I am: El Gran Sol, hijo de Domingo y Adriana, hermano de Lucia, and -- more than anything -- UN MALDITO SUPERVIVIENTE. I never abandoned my heritage even though I grew up in the States, but without my family, it was difficult to maintain that connection I had to my people.
In the Lucha Bowl, I would show the world why I, El Gran Sol, have spent my entire existence fighting for myself and fighting for my family...wherever they might be.
