Transcript for the Piece Audio version of La Leche Subió (The Milk Went Up)

NARRATION: THIS IS A MIGRATION STORY. IT’S ANONYMOUS. A MAN FROM THE MIXTECA REGION ALLOWED ME TO RECORD IT; YOU’LL HEAR HIM NARRATE HIS EXPERIENCE CROSSING THE BORDER. AND ALTHOUGH HE CHOSE NOT TO REVEAL HIS NAME, YOU SHOULD KNOW, THAT LIKE SO MANY OTHER IMMIGRANTS, HIS LIFE IS TRULY A TRANSNATIONAL ONE. IT’S SHARED BETWEEN THREE DISTINCT LOCATIONS: THE MIXTECA, ENSENADA, AND A CITY FOUND TO THE FAR NORTH OF THE UNITED STATES, PORTLAND, OREGON. I HOPE YOU LIKE IT.

The sound of rain fades in. Music fades up slowly. A car passes. A truck passes.

“Carlos”: I am walkin’ on the streets of Portland. I’m looking around. I’m looking around at everything. It was raining, a lot. I’m feeling a bit down, a bit sad, down. I don’t have a car. And everyone passing me on the street is sitting inside their cars, the heat blasting, all bundled up. And me, in this moment, all I’ve got is a thin coat. I was getting wet from all this rain. And I was feeling, a little, like isolated. I felt “outside the circle.” I felt like, like I’d been forgotten, because I, well because, first I didn’t have a car. And it made me feel down. I was frustrated. I was feeling dislocated. I was feeling confused. And I kept thinking about this obstacle because I had to. It took me a long time to process. The fact is, in that moment, I started thinking about returning. But when I thought about returning, like to just go that same day, to just get in a plane and return to Mexico—when I’d get back to Mexico I would feel—I would return a loser, like someone who went to war and wasn’t capable of fighting or pulling the trigger. He was afraid of the bullets. That’s what I felt like.

Music fades up, then under.

The moment came when I found my courage, I found my strength. You have to leave. You have to shake off your wings like a bird in flight, in his sky—and take a dive into a new sky to discover how they breath in another place.

The rain and music fade out. The rain is replaced by sounds in a village. Waves fade in.

C: Eight years later I’ve returned to my village, Ensenada, Baja California—two hours fromTijuana. My friend decides she’s got a taste for bread and milk. I gave her 100 pesos and showed her where the store was. And she came back with 28 in change. It totally surprised me that she came back with only 28 pesos—‘cause in the United States you could’ve bought a lot more. So I asked my aunt what the minimum wage was; and she said it’s 100 pesos a day. It made me really angry, to be honest—really sad to know that my poor people work for a liter of milk and 4 or 5 pieces of bread for the day. It’s all that you can afford in a day. What future awaits you? What future can you offer your children if it’s this way? It was really sad. But all of this centered me a lot. I think from this moment my life changed 360 degrees. I realized that I had to give 100 percent until I reached my goal. I realized that I had to hurry up and get to it—‘cause if not I was going to return to misery. And this caused me a lot of anxiety—still to this day it scares me. I say it with all due respect—I think all of us have felt this at some point.

The music fades in again.

C: I don’t feel so insecure walking on the streets of Portland now. I don’t feel so insecure. I feel good. But, I also don’t feel altogether safe. I feel, there’s always this…thing that I lack.

Music up and under.

C: I’m going to confess something, when I arrived in the United States, the odor that the gringos gave off was really distinct. I think every race has its own smell—I don’t mean to offend anyone with this, to anyone that is listening. But I smelled this smell for like 3 months. Now, I don’t smell it; I don’t notice an odor. But I do notice my own melancholy—the feeling of not belonging to this place, to not be a part of—well, it’s probably this sense of not having the same rights or benefits of a true gringo over there. I think this is what still makes me feel isolated. And it makes me think I need to distance myself from it. But inside of me, in the deepest part of me, I know that I’m capable of whatever anyone is capable of. I know I’m capable of achieving whatever I want with the right attitude. It costs a lot to learn in life. It costs a lot to immigrate. It costs a lot to cross a line in order to earn yourself a couple bucks, to earn a real living—and to maintain your drive—which is what I most wish for all those people who cross; I hope they return with a desire to keep fighting—that they return with the trophy they dreamed of.

Music fades up. Sounds of the village fade up. Both fade down slowly.