[00:00:02] Carlos Perea: When you're an English learner, and you're in high school, you're sent to English Learning Development, ELD classes. That can become a trap. You more likely not going to be able to make it out of the ELD system. You have to take certain amount of ELD classes. For the high school I went to it was ELD Basics, ELD C, ELD D, ELD A. Then once you finish those courses, then you can actually take English 1, English 2, English 3. I call them a trap because out of the class that I started in my freshman year, in ELD, many of them similarly with other folks like myself that were migrants from Mexico, or refugees from Vietnam, that were learning English, only a few of us really made it out of the ELD system. Only a few of us graduated from high school.

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[00:00:53] Host: Orange County Grantmakers and Past Forward present, Adjust Accordingly, Placing Equity Into Practice. A series of discussions about how inequity is experienced in life and work, and how industries, organizations, and people are working to move equity forward. This series was produced with support from the Orange County Community Foundation.

In this episode, we connect with Carlos Perea, an immigrant rights advocate, and Director of the Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice. Carlos shares his story of immigrating to the US from Mexico at 14 years old to be with his mother, and the challenges he faced as an undocumented person trying to learn the language while navigating high school, the sociopolitical climate of the community, and the potential of a college education, and a better life. It is from his lived experience that Carlos found his calling as a community organizer and advocate.

Carlos, I'd like to start by sharing your story of coming to the United States at 14 years old. Now, 14 is a very special age. That 13, 14, it's that age where one starts coming into their own, and making decisions that can plot the course of the rest of their life. It's not like you were a young child who was brought here. You were coming with a purpose. You have this memory of it. I have vague memories, 14, your memories become part of your life and your existence. I'd love to hear a little bit about what that experience was like for you.

[00:02:39] Carlos: Yes and you're right in terms of the understanding, coming into this country, knowing what you leave behind, and knowing that this is going to be a different part of your life now. The migration story, the experience of loss, of mourning, is I think part of what we sometimes-- the conversation around immigration centers a lot, I guess, on the policies, justice, and what needs to happen.

I think part of what sometimes is missing in immigration story is when-- a comparison to other peers of mine that have migrated, when we think about immigrant youth, we definitely think about young people that came here when they were babies, or children. This typical story is they grew up in this country not knowing anything else, not knowing their homeland.

For many young people like myself, we migrate as teenagers, it's different. There is definitely a loss there, a mourning process that I think a lot of us go through because we grew up in a culture, we were nurtured by our traditions, we were nurtured by our extended families and so we have a sense of belonging, we have grounding in our homeland. I think migrating into another country, not even just talking about the migration experience and the violence around borders, and things like that, just in the fact of migrating into another country, it's hard.

When I came here, my story is very unique in the immigration, immigrant youth experience. We talk about dreamers, we talk about all those exceptional stories, but I think my story is unique but not so unique. My story is unique in that I'm one of those folks that came in that awkward age gap. There's many like myself, many peers that migrated when they were my age, 14, 15, 16, some are a little older. It's a challenge. Mainly the challenge that one faces is definitely the language barrier.

It's different growing up learning the language when you're five, six, seven. When you migrate here when you're 14, or 15, and anyone that is an adult, and you need to learn the language it’s different. It's harder, and also, you are aware about your positionality in this country as an undocumented person. One, as an immigrant, and second one as an undocumented person. When you're at that age, you understand very well how you're perceived, the systemic issues we might not be able to articulate what XYZ is a systemic issue is, but we understand that, we feel it.

Thinking back on my life, and even also when we hear about the typical immigration stories of young people that migrate into this country, I think for me, sometimes I quite never really identified. One, because I came here… I fully knew I was coming here undocumented. I didn't come here to this country because I was seeking a better place, or one of those typical stories. For me, I wanted to be reunited with my mom; my mother who had migrated here into the United States when I was four years old.

That was four to 14 years old, that's a 10-year gap. My formative years, I was raised by my grandparents, by my uncles, my aunts. I think for me, when conversations start to emerge within the family about, "Hey, you're 14 now and you haven't seen your mom." There's a lot of things that go with that, as to why that happened that are, I think, part of this. Also getting to that age, and understanding you have been without a mother, but also then understanding, "What about my father?" Then learning things that your family didn't tell you before, which is my mom experienced domestic violence and she had to flee the country because it was dangerous for her to stay in Mexico.

It's not like there's a process for people like my mom to apply, to come to the United States legally because, one, there's not such a pathway. [chuckles] Even though she was fleeing violence, not only domestic violence, but also my father and my father's family were very influential in local government. That's another thing. Things like those that I came to learn at that age did have an impact on me. I came to the United States, I knew fully I was coming here undocumented.

[00:08:01] Host: Did you make the journey, were you alone when you did this? Were you with family, did you travel with family?

[00:08:08] Carlos: I traveled with family that helped me, or accompanied me on to the point of the border. The journey of the border, it was on my own with, you'd be hearing stories of coyotes, and things like that. That's where I went on my own.

[00:08:28] Host: As a 14-yar-old? You're still a child-

[00:08:31] Carlos: Yes.

[00:08:31] Host: -at that point.

[00:08:32] Carlos: Part of what I do a lot in my work today-- now on immigrant justice and in the larger things, social justice, had been very influential by my migration experience, and also my experience at the border. I say that because when it came to crossing the border, I was detained by border patrol, my first time around. I was taken to the processing center at the border patrol's station. That was hard to see. One, I was a young person, so I had a slightly different treatment than older migrants that were crossing. That was my introduction to the United States.

[00:09:22] Host: It's fully armed people.

[00:09:26] Carlos: Yes.

[00:09:27] Host: It's got to be intimidating as a young person.

[00:09:29] Carlos: Not only that, but you see, in detention, in the processing facility, we'd call them hieleras or the ice boxes, which is really the cells but they're cold [chuckles] that's why we called them hieleras, for me that impacted a lot of the work that I do around detention, immigration enforcement, things like that. One, because the first introduction to the United States was militarized police, which is border patrol.

The second one was the treatment of people that look like me and seeing how folks that were being brought into the processing centers, some of them were bleeding, some of them had a rough journey and rough arrests bringing to border patrol, the smirks, the attitudes of border patrol officers, in how they were treating us, that made me upset. I think a lot of folks who get very I think understandably, there's trauma and there's things like that but to me, that upset me. I was angry.

One, I was angry that internally, I was leaving my home country and I was coming here. I wanted to see my mom, and I wanted to reunite with my mom but also was like, I'm living behind a whole life. Then secondly, I was upset because then I realized from the very beginning what I was going to be facing and what people like me face in the United States.

That was my introduction to the United States, obviously, I made it, I came here, I'm here. I think the second part, which became very formative to what I do as well is my experience as a teenager in the American education system.

[00:11:14] Host: That's what I wanted to ask too. You come here at 14, you're going into high school. High school could be traumatic for anybody, even if you're born and raised here and know the language.

[00:11:28] Carlos: Yes, it was interesting, I went to the school in Los Amigos High School. Going to Los Amigos High School for me, that was another experience that helped shape my understanding of my identity as an immigrant but also my identity as a person of color, now on a broader level, and also, I think back then, you have to understand people get treated differently and there's factions and there's cliques and things like that. Now we understand that that's systemically done that way and how different groups interact.

For me it was, one, I didn't have much of an issue when it comes to language, I think learning English. Thankfully, that was something that I was able to catch up very quickly. I think that I was able to learn English within a year and a half and I became proficient and that allowed me to move. When you are an English learner and you're in high school, and similarly in other grades in what is, intermediate or junior high, you're sent to English Learning Development, ELD classes.

I think as a person in high school, if you don't know English and you’re sent to ELD, that can become a trap. You're more likely not going to be able to make it out of the ELD system. Meaning that you have to take a certain amount of ELD classes. For the high school I went to, it was ELD Basics, ELD-C, ELD-B, ELD-A, and then once you finish those courses, then you can actually take an English 1, English 2, English 3.

I call them a trap because, out of the class that I started with in my freshman year, in ELD, many of them, similarly with other folks that are like myself, that were migrants from Mexico or refugees from Vietnam that were learning English, only a few of us really made it out of the ELD system and only a few of us graduated from high school. It's because our experience it's completely different from the rest of the students in the school. One, language barrier, second-- language barrier, that definitely impacts educational performance in areas where English, the language is needed mostly. I think a lot of us did very well on math and things of that nature because that doesn't require English.

[00:13:50] Host: Math is universal, yes.

[00:13:53] Carlos: The other things around that is also class. I think many folks, many of my friends that I went to school with, we came from working backgrounds and I think that undocumented folks experience it very differently as well when it comes to class issues. Because not only does your parents or your families do not have consistent work but also the threat of deportation is there. There's a lot of things that can disturb the ability for someone to really finish high school, or even finish high school and think about college.

I think for me, that was very formative to what I do. I was also a very angry kid in high school because of many things. One, I think part of what had happened at the border, and just in general part of my character is that a lot of us in high school either did not engage with other kids. I think we knew we were being bullied, we knew we were being looked at a certain way, not just by the white students but also by second-generation Latinos or in general, other students that were born here. Also, some of the other students that were also undocumented, but that came here when they were younger and so they were assimilated into this country. There were such interesting tiers. There's people that look like me but then also I experienced prejudice and experienced bullying and things that you call it like that.

[00:15:34] Host: Were you able to find a sense of community though?

[00:15:37] Carlos: I was. I think for me, it was very different because, one, I like to interact with folks. I made friends with many folks. I joined the volleyball team in high school, I joined the dance team in high school, and I joined a club in high school. I think I was able to find a sense of a community, a sense of having a clique. Part of it is that I had the ability to learn English quickly, and I was able to pull out of the ELD trap and so I was exposed to many other students, many other interactions that definitely helped.

Also, I think part of what caught me really well in high school was, at the time, by my sophomore year I had come into contact with groups, community groups as well, that were working on immigration issues, specifically around the time it was the Dream Act. I became aware, I was like, "We can fight to go to college." At that point, I think we had AB540, which means that undocumented youth can go to college in California and pay instate tuition instead of out-of-state tuition, which helps us a lot.

We also knew we should have access to financial aid and we should also fight for legalization for ourselves and so the Dream Act became the California Dream Act and the Federal Dream Act. I came into contact with those groups and that is also what really empowered me to get more involved in my local high school. I didn't call it this back then, but now, I know that what I started doing was organizing. I was organizing my fellow peers to fight for better counselors that can actually pay attention to us specifically, undocumented youth, a club that was welcoming to undocumented youth as well, and then getting teachers involved in supporting the Dream Act by sending letters, things of that nature.

I was also very angry so then I wouldn't take things that people would tell me and just let it go. I would fight it back so if there was someone that was messing with me or my group but things of that nature, just making either racial or prejudicial or ignorant comments, I was angry, so I would just be the one fighting the back.

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[00:18:02] Carlos: High school was a mixture. For me was a mixture of things and I wanted to ensure that I made my mother proud, to let her know, "Hey, I'm going to be okay. You don't have to worry about me. I'll take care of my-- I'll make sure I do good in school. I'll go to college. I'll do the things that I know will make sure that you're not going to be worried about me moving forward."

The second thing was I had a full understanding of how we were treated and how it was. In high school, I made a decision inspired by my involvement with many community groups. Many community organizations that I partnered with, with my organization, back then were helping for my political understanding.

Organizations like El Centro Cultural de Mexico, which is a cultural center in Santa Ana. Back then there was Orange County Dream Team, and I also come into contact with other fights like the labor union fights, struggles. I think those things really helped inform my decision that I wanted to go to college, but that I didn't wanna go far away, that I wanted to stay here near my community to be able to organize and to be able to do what I can to advance the rights of my community. That was a journey.

[00:19:23] Host: Going to college for a cause, not for just an education. You went with a mission, you had your mission, you found in high school, you continued it through college and went and studied sociology.

[00:19:37] Carlos: Yes. It was funny because I changed my mind on the majors a bunch of times. I think I wanted to do something that impacted social justice. First I was thinking I wanted to do journalism. I explored that. I went to community college in Santa Ana College first and that helped me really explore. Honestly, community college was the best experience that I could ever have.

I was close to my community. I was able to do organizing in my community, go to college and stay still connected. Going back, I changed, I wanted to do journalism, so I explored that for a bit. Then I wanted to do political science. I found out I really don't like political science, I think it looks at things in a very white-and-black way, politically. Then I found sociology was something that I thought could help me develop a more critical understanding of things.

While I was in community college, I also helped co-found a youth organization called RAIZ, which was an immigrant youth group that fought deportations and fought against police-ICE collaborations. I went to Cal State Long Beach and rather than getting involved with student clubs at community college or Cal State Long Beach, I think for me, that was not where I feel I needed to be. I ensured that I spent my time going to college, but then immediately going back to community and do the organizing work that I wanted to do.

That's how my journey really evolved as a migrant to a student, to an activist, to an organizer, now to what I do now, which is doing work around policy and movement.

[00:21:21] Host: Tell us a little bit about the Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice.

[00:21:27] Carlos: The Harbor Institute it's an organization, it's a think tank here in Orange County that was really brought together by a collaborative between community organizers and movement academics. I helped bring a group of people, and to really think about-- I think this was 2020. Our thinking was trying to figure out how can we continue to build political power for immigrant refugee communities while at the same time, building multiracial solidarity while at the same time intersecting immigrant justice and economic justice.

Part of the conversation of the immigrant rights movement in the last decade has evolved to-- it's not just an immigration issue, it's a class issue and it's a multiracial issue. Now we need to really look at intersections of all of them. I think with that understanding, we established the Harbor Institute, which is a place for movement political strategy, policy development, and advocacy on immigration and economic justice issues.

Now, the role of the institute is to really think ahead. While the work is happening right now with many of our community partners, on fights, and pushing for policies, campaigns, things to help advance and improve the conditions of communities. The institute is looking into how are these fights connected in a long-term battle. How are we connecting geographically, not just one fight happening in Santa Ana or another campaign in Garden Grove, or another thing disconnected in Fullerton. We're thinking all these fights are happening across Orange County in those cities, whether it is Vietnamese people organizing in Little Saigon, whether it is Mexican, south Americas organizing in Santa Ana these flights are interconnected.

Particularly, in a county that has systematically divided our communities have pitted each other against us, this is where the institute is coming to think long term.

[00:23:29] Host: What are those challenges, Orange County has that historical right-leaning, conservative political viewpoint. It’s slowly changing, I think they call it purple now, but we definitely still, it's more red than it is blue, but it also has this huge community of immigrants and second generation immigrants. How do you fight that mountain?

[00:24:02] Carlos: First, I think that with Orange County, it's a very unique place, but it has been the breeding ground for a lot of the right-wing, really draconian policies against immigrants that have been implemented across the country. This is where Proposition 187 was born. This is also where really, the fight against day laborers took place from cities, cities tried to criminalize day laborers. Fortunately, day laborers fought back and they lost. But, a lot of their policies that we see now, even under the previous administration, under the Trump administration, you see in other states being implemented, a lot of them were experimented here in Orange County first.

That tells a lot about the importance, not only of Orange County in California, but also importance Orange County is for nationally. I think now, finally, folks, are seeing what many of us have been saying of Orange County, that what happens in Orange County is really going to have ripple report effects in the state and the nation. We've been saying this for a decade. [laughs]

Now, after the last elections and seeing that Orange County has really become the narrow focus of congressional-- the fight to hold Congress or even the fight to determine the state legislature, super majorities, things of that nature, folks are coming to understand Orange County plays a crucial role, so yes, in terms of the political occasion.

Also secondly, this is the place where we can really set an example of how to build movements that are interconnected with one another and specifically because we have large immigrant or refugee populations. Going to answer your question around, "How do we tackle this?" I think Orange County has had-- it's known for being the place for white supremacy and right-wing leaning things, but also has been a place of resistance from the beginning, from the inception of Orange County.

You have native communities, they're having a resistance, you have also black communities that have been in resistance. Mexican communities, Mexican farmers that were pushing back, and all of them were systemically oppressed by the county and local governments. When people think about Orange County, they think, "Oh yes, it's a place of right-wingism," it has been a place of a lot of good resistance work and a lot, by the communities here.

I think that the conversation is happening now that, because Orange County is shifting demographically in terms of population numbers now, there is more immigrant refugees than maybe white people. Yes, that's important to acknowledge, but also important to understand that it has been a long history of that.

Now, with that said, I think that-- and I mentioned systemic, how our communities have been divided and pitted against each other, and it has been systemic by design and with that-- so for example, the Orange County board of supervisors, which is the highest government decision making entity in the county tradition had been white and all of that. In the 2010, to I believe, 2018 and even now, right, the board of supervisors actually was majority, the folks serving on the board of supervisors the majority of them were Asian, and they were passing the body, the government and body were passing really horrible policies, or supporting policies like collaborating with ICE, find the state on immigrant rights policies and trying to work with immigration as much as possible, ignoring Latinos [chuckles] under the pandemic.

When the pandemic hit, the county was super slow to respond. Our communities were dying and they didn't care. All to say that the issue about systemic work that we need to do and equity and things like that, we need to put into context of class, of race, of immigration status because we have seen that… I think, part of that, sometimes the mistake that we all do when it comes to fighting for justice or fighting for communities, is we need to have representation, which is important, yes. It's important to have people that look like us. It’s important to the people that we have representation at the table. Given the example, the Orange County supervisors, and given the example, for example, the city of Santa Ana, for more than 20 years, we had one mayor who was Latino, yet never really listened to the issues of the Latino community.

Things of that nature I think for us to think about equity and to think about beyond equity too, justice, solidarity, and things of that nature, we need to get out of the framework that we need just representation. Representation is not enough. We need to have different analysis to be able to then have campaigns, fight for policies that bridge communities across racial backgrounds, across cultural backgrounds. Because I think at the end of the day, when it comes to Orange County, with the work that I do with the institute, what we believe is that it’s an issue of class, it's an issue of race, and it's an issue of immigration status.

[00:29:39] Host: I'm going to finish with this question. A lot of undocumented residents live in fear of, unfortunately, being found out or discovered. How do you handle that? Are you concerned about that title about your status? When it's broadcast to the press, when we have conversations like this, and how do you help communities mitigate that fear with the work that you do?

[00:30:14] Carlos: That's, actually, very interesting because when I started organizing, I started activism in high school and I started to get some media coverage, and some of the work that I'm doing, that never crossed my mind, actually. That's never something that I-- not because I'm not afraid, or things of that nature, but I think because naturally, what I was doing and getting the message out of what I was doing was important. To me, that was the number one priority, is ensuring that we have a voice and to tell our narratives on how our stories are covered.

It wasn't really until family, and friends, and that nature, told me, "Hey, you have to be careful, or are you afraid?" I think I never really thought about it that way. I think for me, I always started in the sense of if I have the opportunity to tell the story, our story in our way, and if there are other folks that can do it, that's great too and I think they are now. When it comes to our community, I think that the fear is there, it is real.

Also, I have seen even in the conversation around immigration, the framework is moving away from fear and more into action. I think that 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I think that was a very strong fear that our communities had. Like, that being targeted for political activism, or being found out or things like that nature, or fear of speaking up because you're undocumented. I think that that was very present, but I think we're in a different situation now in which there has been a lot of activism in Orange County around immigration and other things.

We're seeing a lot of community organizations that have been building resident power, doing workshops, community power, and outreach that I think it has become like the norm of folks organizing and speaking up and knowing that it's not about immigration status that should prevent you from doing that. I think that that has been very powerful to see of the immigrant community in Orange County. The fear is still, there's always going to be the fear, but then, now we're transforming that into-- we're thinking of we're going to speak ourselves, we got to fight for ourselves.

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[00:32:31] Host: If you would like to continue the conversation, visit harborinstituteoc.org to learn more, and visit Orange County GrantMakers at ocgrantmakers.org and the Orange County Community Foundation at occf.org. To listen to more episodes and find books written by and recommended from our guests, visit pastforward.org or follow us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.