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- Deported: Weazel's Diary
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When he was five years old, William - aka Weazel - moved from El Salvador to Los Angeles, California, with his family. For more than two decades, he lived a pretty typical American childhood in Los Angeles. Until he got in trouble with the police. Under current US law, legal residents who are convicted of crimes may be deported to the country of their birth. That's what happened to Weazel. This audio diary follows Weazel as he struggles to reinvent his life - and relearn Spanish - alone, in a new country.
"I've been banished from the U.S. you know. Like they used to do in the medieval days. They used to ban fools. I went to kindergarten in L.A., elementary school, junior high school, high school. I grew up singing, you know, My Country 'Tis of Thee, that little song America the Beautiful, pledging allegiance to the flag. I grew up with all that. You know? And here they are, 27 years later, kicking me out."
-- Weazel
Broadcast on This American Life 05/99
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Piece Description
When he was five years old, William - aka Weazel - moved from El Salvador to Los Angeles, California, with his family. For more than two decades, he lived a pretty typical American childhood in Los Angeles. Until he got in trouble with the police. Under current US law, legal residents who are convicted of crimes may be deported to the country of their birth. That's what happened to Weazel. This audio diary follows Weazel as he struggles to reinvent his life - and relearn Spanish - alone, in a new country. "I've been banished from the U.S. you know. Like they used to do in the medieval days. They used to ban fools. I went to kindergarten in L.A., elementary school, junior high school, high school. I grew up singing, you know, My Country 'Tis of Thee, that little song America the Beautiful, pledging allegiance to the flag. I grew up with all that. You know? And here they are, 27 years later, kicking me out." -- Weazel Broadcast on This American Life 05/99
2 Comments
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Review of Deported: Weazel's DiaryGripping tape from the first. Beautifully mixed between real time and retrospect. It's a "no holds barred" tour of deportation - and the haphazard road to ganghood. Weazel's honesty reduces to simple fact what an "ordinary" listener might normally find enormously complicated, even unapproachable. It is this unencumbered revealment that is unusually wrenching. Delight, irony, gratitude, resolve - fresh air gushing into a story that expects none of those elements. In a short 30 minutes, this young man evolves with all the dimension and exquisite complexity that could possibly be exposed without knowing him face to face.
vm |
Transcript
Deported: Weasel's Diary
Produced by Joe Richman
Broadcast on This American Life 05/99
[intro music]
IRA GLASS, HOST: In 1996, tough new immigration laws were passed making it easier to deport legal U.S. residents who committed crimes. The law expanded the definition of a deportable crime, and made the change retroactive. Gang members from the United States were suddenly being exported in larger numbers to their countries of birth, and many of them greeted these new homes away from home by acting exactly how they had acted here in the States. There have been big, big rises in gang activity in El Salvador and other countries as a result of the new laws. Jose William Huezo Soriano, a.k.a. Weasel, was deported just over a year ago to El Salvador. He had to make the adjustment from living in a very rich country to a rather poor one. And he had to figure out who to be, in this place...
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Josh Gleason
Posted on July 27, 2007 at 11:40 AM | Permalink
Review of Deported: Weazel's Diary
I'm almost at a loss for words. This is a stunning human-scale portrait of the actual implications of US immigration policies. Being a little ADD I was initially intimidated by the length - but this piece is totally engaging the whole way through. The scenes are woven together effortlessly and build upon one another to a truly powerful ending. Now if we could only create an army of Joe Richman clones and send them out to make an endless stream of fabulous radio documentaries. I'm thinking a whole Joe Richman frequency. Maybe satellite channel?
Anyhow, given the current immigration debate in this country there is no excuse to not air this - it doesn't perfectly map onto the issues at hand - but it brings home what it means to strand family members on opposite sides of the border.