the unfiltered life of a DREAMer with Chris Farias

meet chris.

you’re going to hear the word dream a lot throughout this conversation, but i hope that this ultimately leaves you with the feeling of hope. because the most important lesson i’ve learned from chris is that words mean so much, and yet nothing at the same time. when used as labels, words have the ability to make you feel on top of the world or invisible in a crowd of 800 million or in a classroom of 18. the difference between the two? whether or not there’s a sense of hope. 

and in a world that can feel so divided, it’s more important now than ever to open our hearts and minds to others. like i said, labels can build you up or leave you feeling broken, but no matter what, we’re all humans at the end of the day. 

i hope this conversation inspires you to reach out to someone new, someone different than you, or someone you seem to co-exist with but have never taken it upon yourself to say “hi” to. you may find that you have more in common than you initially thought, but more importantly, i hope you’ll find yourself feeling connected and inspired to do whatever you can to ensure that person feels some sort of hope that day. 

because if there’s anything Chris has taught me, it’s that we all need hope.

Let’s start at the beginning.

I was born in Uruapan, Michoacán. That’s in Mexico, south of the capital of Mexico. I actually do remember a lot about my childhood and I think it’s because it was such a better life for me for so long that I held on to those memories much more than what my very first years here in the US. My very first years here in the US were really hard and I just hated being here. I always thought back to my childhood. My two grandmas – my mom’s mom and my dad’s mom – lived across the street from each other so I remember always going from one house to another and even walking to their houses because they were so close. I feel like I had a pretty nice childhood. Both of my grandmas sold food outside of their houses at night. My mom’s mom had a food truck, outside of a hospital, and I would always go with her and help her. Not really work, but help her with small things. Very small things. One of my brothers was born in Mexico, so him and I were always very close. All of my family is still in Mexico – all of my aunts, all of my uncles, all of my cousins. Every time I think about Mexico and how my life was in Mexico, I’d say it was pretty nice. I had my family. Every holiday we were together – every Christmas, every birthday.  I think because my family was so united, I never as a child noticed how dangerous it was where we were living. Now, the crime really is bad - the climate in Mexico and politics and all of that. It’s a pretty corrupt country and I never knew that. Still to this day, I wouldn’t really fully know unless I could live there again. That was basically my childhood. It was a ton of family get-togethers, a ton of Mexican food. I love Mexican food so much, and I went to kindergarten in Mexico, actually. I started. When I came to the US, I was just about to finish kindergarten, so I do remember the school settings. I remember my teacher and learning the alphabet, the numbers, all of that, in Spanish.  

Did your parents give you warning? I think, especially living in Southern California, we see it through the lens of a reporter, but what was it really like for you?

When I was three years old, my dad came to the US. I remember hearing from my mom, “Oh, your dad is going to go work somewhere else.” And that was it. We call it el Norte, which is north. “He’s gonna go north,” and that’s all I knew. A lot of kids my age, too, their dads weren’t around because they left to the north. I didn’t understand what that meant but I remember the day that I came to the US. I literally always think about it. I went to kindergarten class that day, and then when I came home, all of our things were packed. My mom said, “We’re going to go see your dad,” so for me, it was exciting. I hadn’t seen my dad for two years because he had been in the US. I was three when he left; I was five now. I didn’t really know what she meant, but I was going to see my dad. After we left our house, we went to my grandma’s house and that’s where everything was so weird because everyone was there. Everyone was saying bye – my aunts, my cousins. They were all crying. I was confused because I was like, “Why are people so sad about us leaving? What’s happening? I just want to see my dad.” We got on a bus with a bunch of other families, and I remember looking out the window and everyone outside the window is crying. Everyone is saying goodbye; they knew we were never going to see each other again. But I was just so happy that I was going to see my dad that I didn’t focus so much on why they were crying. I didn’t even question it. I remember just saying, “Bye, I’ll be back. We’re going to go up north.” But now thinking about it, that was literally the last day I got to see all of those people. That bus took us to another city called Guadalajara, which is a bigger city in Mexico. From there, we took another bus that took us to Sonora, Mexico. That’s kind of by the border. We stayed there for a few days until we got the coyote – the person that emigrates people illegally through the US through all these different routes, underground stuff; they know what they’re doing. We were in Sonora waiting for the coyote to come. It was about four kids, four children, maybe five women, and then about eleven to twelve men. It was a total of like twenty people in that little house that we were waiting for the coyote guy in. All I remember is this man is going to take me to see my dad, and I’m so happy. From Sonora, the guy came. They told us, “Leave all of your belongings. We can’t risk having you guys bring a ton of bags, a ton of toys, a ton of this and that.” We got to Sonora that morning and that same day, actually, when the coyote came, the men left like right away. All of the women and kids were left behind, like nine or ten of us. The reason was the men were going to go through a faster yet more dangerous route, and the women were going to go through a safer route, but we were probably going to be exposed by ICE and we would get deported. We call ICE la migra, so I remember people saying, “Be careful with la migra.” My mom told me,  “if we see a man with a gun, don’t run. Let them get you, because if you run, they can do something.” I still wasn’t scared; I was just excited to see my dad. When the coyote came, he took us and I had to leave my kindergarten backpack with my favorite toys behind. I was pretty sad about that because I had a drawing that I did for my dad that I really wanted to give him. The journey started, so we actually walked through the Sonora desert for about an hour. It was really hot, and I remember complaining, but I was the oldest – I was five; my little brother was three. My mom was carrying him and helping him more because I was the oldest. I had to tough it up. While we were walking through the desert, we started running because people – which was ICE – were on horses and started chasing us. We all kind of scattered everywhere. I was holding my mom’s hand and we were hiding behind some bushes for a while. Eventually, they were gone and  luckily we didn’t get caught. We continued walking with the coyote. When we reached our destination, still in the Sonora desert, he told us, “At some point there was going to be a truck down the road. When they stop, run and get on top or behind the trunk of the truck and don’t move, don’t say a word. Just close your eyes, let them take you.” All of that was so confusing to me because I was like, “Why am I hiding? I didn’t do anything wrong. Why are people crying?” Kids were crying; moms were crying. While we were waiting for that truck, I remember looking around and there were so many items everywhere – kids toys, clothes. So many lost memories just left behind. That was kind of getting me scared. Eventually, that truck came. I remember the coyote saying, “Run!” We started running. My mom let go of my hand. She was like, “You need to run as fast as you can.” I remember running to the truck and climbing on top, and then all these people started climbing on top of me and all the kids were scared. They were calling for their moms. I called for my mom’s name, and I couldn’t hear her voice so I was so scared. I didn’t know if my brother made it; I didn’t know what was going on. Eventually, after calling my mom so many times, and so many people on top of me, I heard my mom’s voice and I felt relief. They covered us with a tarp and then the truck started moving. The truck was headed towards Tucson, Arizona - now that I’m older, I’m understanding more the geographical aspect, and how, by the time we got on that truck, we were already officially in the US. Right before we got to Tucson, we got stopped by ICE. They were questioning the driver, and my mom says the people who stopped us were touching the tarp to see who was in there, and they knew people were in there but they didn’t do anything. They let us go. We got really lucky. We got to Tucson, and we eventually met with the men; they had made it safe. We were put in an RV with twenty people, and were in that little RV for three days, waiting for our families to pick us up. My dad actually didn’t know that we were going to come. He didn’t want us to come to the US because he knew how dangerous it was to cross the border. When we were in Tucson my mom was calling my dad and he couldn’t believe that we were already here. He was like, “I don’t have a truck. I don’t have a car. I can’t pick you guys up.” And my mom was like, “Well, you have to pick us up because we’re already here.” It took my dad three days to find a way to get from California, because he lived in Anaheim, to Arizona. When he finally got a way to get here, they - I don’t remember who,I’m guessing it was like the people in charge of the RV - took us to Phoenix to meet with my dad, but the night prior to that, ICE came into the RV. They broke into the RV and out of the twenty people, we were able to hide inside a very little bathroom. I don’t know how we got so lucky, but from the twenty, it went down to like seven people. They took everyone away. They deported everyone. They arrested everyone and took them back. We just got super lucky. I remember when they were taking us to this little town near Phoenix, I was so excited to finally see my dad and when my dad finally got there, I wasn’t excited because he had changed so much. He wasn’t the same happy person that he was. He smelled like alcohol and he was going through a really rough time in the US. I never knew that. I think as a parent, you never tell your kids, “We’re going through stuff.” So, it turns out the reason why we also came was because my dad turned into an alcoholic and stopped sending money to my mom. She couldn’t survive with two kids and no money, living in a very dangerous neighborhood. When my dad drove us to Anaheim, the very first word that I learned in English was ‘quarter’ because my dad took us to a gas station and he called through a payphone to the people we were going to live with. He also didn’t know English, so he didn’t fully pronounce the word ‘quarter’ but you know, he did his best. That was my first English word, and I will never forget that moment. We got to Anaheim and my dad lived in a garage with about four other men that were also immigrants. The night we got there, my mom cried all night because she was like, “How could you live here? You literally left us in Mexico for you to live in a garage. You’re a drunk. What’s going on?” I hated it, too. Now that I saw my dad, I wanted to go back to Mexico, but we couldn’t because we went through all of that. Now I won’t see my grandma, I won’t see my grandpas, my cousins – everything – because we’re going to be with this man that I haven’t seen in two years and we live in a really messed up place. Eventually we moved out to a small room in a house in Anaheim. In the house where my dad rented the garage, other people lived in the actual house. They were also other immigrants, and the owner was an immigrant herself from El Salvador. She had three daughters, but her youngest daughter was actually my age. She was five. Another girl that lived in that house that was also an immigrant, she was five, too. We instantly clicked just because we were the same age and they also spoke Spanish. To this day, they’re still my friends. One of them, we really grew up together and she’s my cousin. We don’t even say we’re friends; she’s my cousin. I didn’t finish kindergarten in Mexico; I had only two months left. April 1st was the day that I got to the US. I’ll also never forget my first day of kindergarten in the US because I was in a classroom full of white kids. I’m probably the only brown little boy in that room, and everyone is speaking a language that I have no idea what they’re saying. It was a whole different culture all thrown at you at once. The teacher gave me a paper with a dinosaur drawing and the dinosaur was labeled in different numbers. Each number you had to color green, yellow, whatever. She gave it to me and I just started drawing. She comes to me and she’s trying to explain it but it’s in English, so I’m just crying and crying because I don’t know what she’s saying and I’m telling her, “Please talk to me in Spanish. I don’t know.” Other little kids were able to help me kind of translate. Luckily the two girls that lived in that house were in my kindergarten class so they were able to help a little bit. So, that was kind of like my first two months in the US. 

When you’re in that position and you’re that young, learning another language is not like it is where you have it for a half hour every day in school. You have to just jump all in at once. Even though you were young, you still know what feels natural and what doesn’t. Learning the language is almost a fight-or-flight reaction, right? It’s more of a survival technique, in a way? 

For me, it totally was like, “I have to do it to survive,” because I went to school in Mexico. I learned the numbers and learned the alphabet there, but it’s like none of that mattered because now you’re in the US, so now you learn the alphabet in English. Now you learn the numbers in English. It doesn’t matter if you know it in Spanish; you have to learn it in English. I think because I love school, and I think I’m a pretty smart person, I was able to actually learn the numbers, the colors, and the alphabet in those two months that I had left of kindergarten. One of it was because yeah, I felt like I had to learn this language instantly, this new culture instantly, because now I’m here. But another is because I was the oldest, so I had to teach my little brother now. I had to teach my parents now, because I’m the one that’s getting an education in this new country. They’re not. My little brother is too little to go to school so right now my job not only became to be a good student and learn the language, but also teach them. I definitely felt like I didn’t get a chance to prepare myself. And it wasn’t, like you said, a thirty-minute, forty-five-minute class. It was my new reality that, as a kid, you weren’t asked. You just have to do it.

I keep coming back to the fact that they call you DREAMers, because it almost sounds too nice to me, in a way, because you’re faced with these obstacles and you feel the weight of your whole family, and no one at age five should have to do that. To, “run, run, run,” because someone armed is coming at you. That’s not how things should be. 

It’s not. And it’s so sad that we just have to do it. There’s no option. You just have to do it. You have to do it for your family. I mean, based on what’s happening right now with these kids getting separated, I see myself in those kids, you know? I know what they fear and unfortunately, their worst fear became their reality. My worst fear was running into that truck and my mom not making it, and I’m never seeing her again. You know, that truck is going to start driving and they’re going to ask, “Okay, where is your mom from?” And it’s like, “I’m five. I don’t know my address. It’s in a different country.” It’s sad. We’re called the DREAMers obviously because we dream so big and we came to this country with our parents not knowing that we were doing it illegally, but half of society just doesn’t understand that. To them, we’re these bad people. We’re criminals. Our current president [Trump] loves telling us, ‘We don’t belong here, we’re aliens.’ Filling out an application for something and that question, “Are you legally allowed to work in the US? Are you an illegal alien?” Me having to fill that out for a very long time, it hurts because I’m not alien, you know? I’ve done nothing wrong, but it is what it is. And it sucks that it is what it is.

I remember in high school, everyone getting their first job application and seeing that question and just brushing right past it, when there’s so much weight behind it, you know? Why is there such a stigma, and how have you overcome it? Because that’s not easy. 

No, it’s definitely not easy. And I think it’s something that I still haven’t fully overcome. My first job was when I was sixteen and I really wanted to work. I just wanted to work, not to like help my family, not because we were in extreme need, but I just wanted to work. The only place where I could work was at a fast food place, you know? I couldn’t work at a mall, I couldn’t have a nice student job. It had to be in a fast food place and under the table. My first job was at McDonald’s and I was able to get that job just because my parents and the manager were able to help me out with that. I’m so thankful for that, but I was always feeling so embarrassed - I mean, in elementary school, middle school, high school, the kids didn’t know that I was undocumented. I was so embarrassed of it because one, I felt like no one would understand the struggle. No one would really care. And I felt like I was really the only one in my community. I lived in Anaheim for three years, but then I moved to South LA in a small town called Wilmington. That’s where there were finally a lot of Latinos in my community, so I was able to blend in more in my community, but it’s not a safe community, either, so my parents sent us to schools that were out of the city where there were better opportunities for us. That meant I was once again the Latino in a class full of white kids. I tried my best to blend in and hide my culture so much in school because, like I said, I was embarrassed. Eventually I started living this double life where I was American in school, but I was Mexican at home. You know, you’re kind of feeding into that stigma of you being different and you being all these negative things. I still battle with it, unfortunately. I think this [past] president hasn’t made it any easier. If anything, it’s made it a little bit harder to kind of be proud of who you are. The day that Donald Trump became President, I remember walking to school at Cal State Northridge and for the first time ever, I actually felt that everyone who looked at me that day - didn’t matter good or bad - felt so sorry for me and that they were like, “Poor kid, you’re about to get sent home to your country.” It was such a sad day. I remember I was walking to my Spanish Journalism class and we all cried in class. It was a bunch of Latinos and we talked about elections and how this man was not going to be elected, and our hopes were so high that our professor even felt like she failed us. So, we cried. I remember on social media I had a ton of middle school friends and high school friends that I grew up with that, like I said, were white that were celebrating that this president was our president. And I deleted a bunch of them, because it was so hurtful. At that very specific time, I felt like everyone that liked him, hated me then. Would not accept me. So of course I was not even going to tell them I was undocumented because I was like, “Now I know their true colors.” That kind of made me close down a little bit about me being undocumented. Because he has brought so much momentum into immigration and all these other issues, I now – four years later – I’ve really pushed to be as proud as I could be to be undocumented. I think opening up actually has helped other people open up about not feeling alone. Because we’re not alone. I mean, we’re about 800 million dreamers in the US. Which is a ton of people. Not enough, obviously, it’s not the whole country, but it’s a ton of people. It’s a really beautiful community. I’ve met some of the coolest people that are undocumented and I mean, you couldn’t tell, you know?

There’s no face to being undocumented.

There isn’t. It’s crazy because all of my life I thought, “I have a face that says I’m undocumented. I wasn’t born here. I’m an alien,” but [after] learning about other people, you’re like, “Wow, I had no idea you were not born here. That’s awesome. You’re surviving.” 

Let’s talk about that, the ‘face.’ I think college is a lot more open minded than high school, middle school. Something I found to be true in high school was that sometimes teachers talk to the room, but not to the individuals in the room. Did you ever have instances where they said things that were offense or made you feel invaluable?

Actually, throughout middle school, high school… I never thought I was going to get to go to college, ever. Because no one in school talked about being undocumented and opportunities for undocumented students that I didn’t realize that there were. No one taught me anything about them. The only time I would hear anything about immigration was at home, and my parents unfortunately, they don’t have an education, either so they also didn’t know really what it was, what kind of rights we can get as undocumented people. So, throughout high school we would talk about going to college. There’s all these events that happen for seniors and they’d bring in all these people that talk to students. I would go to the events because they were required, but I never paid attention because I knew that I wasn’t going to go to college, because no one ever told me that I could. Instead, I heard, “Oh yeah, Immigrants can’t go to college.” And that was it, so I just believed it and I never questioned it. There was a situation in ninth grade in my math class where we were talking about colleges and our teacher was asking us, “Where do you want to go? What do you want to study?” I mean, I hated that question because I had to either lie and say I want to do all this because they don’t know I’m undocumented, or just kind of be honest and say, “Oh, I’m not going to go to college because I don’t want to” - supposedly, because I wanted to go so bad. In ninth grade when it was my turn, I told the teacher, “I want to be an engineer.” And he knew about my situation because I had told him the day before because I was so nervous for the class. He was like, “Oh wait, but you can’t go to college,” and I was like, “Yeah, I know, but if I could.” And then people looked at me and some giggled. I didn’t see who giggled because I didn’t want to look around. But people were like, “Wait, why can’t he go?” And he was like, “Oh, because he wasn’t born here.” And I just felt so crappy because it was my secret. He put me out there. But because he’s the educator, I believed that he was right and that I wasn’t going to go to college because I’m an immigrant. Even after class, because I was so vulnerable to the whole situation, I told him, “So, if I can’t go to college, what should I do?” He’s like, “Well, you can work in construction after high school, or you could work at McDonald’s. I know a bunch of immigrants work there.” And I believed that. So ninth grade, that’s what I learned, that that was really my only option, so throughout high school, I never paid attention to anything college related. Because I always went back to that. And I was too scared to tell anyone that he had told me that. It wasn’t until I was a senior, around December or November, I stayed after class for something and I heard some students say, “Oh we’re going to go to the Boys and Girls Club and the College Bound program because we’re going to start applying to college.” I heard college and I was like, “That’s so cool, they’re going to start applying. Not me.” But because they didn’t know I was undocumented they invited me to go with them. And I just wanted to kind of see how they do it, so I was like, “Yeah, I’ll go with you guys after school.” I remember calling my mom and she was like, “Okay, don’t get your hopes up.” Because I kind of felt like maybe I can. So I was watching them sign up, make their little profiles online and stuff and then one of the mentors came to and was like, “What about you? Where do you want to go? We’re going to get you there.” And I was like, “Oh, I can’t go to college.” She was like, “Wait, why?” So I told her and she was like, “Do you know that you can go to college? There’s the DREAM Act, there’s all these other undocumented students that are in college right now that are making it out there.” And that was a big relief. That was so much happiness. Even right now I’m getting chills because I remember that conversation. I wanted to tear up because she was giving me hope, you know? Hope that I thought was so unrealistic. An opportunity that I thought was so unrealistic. But she was not only telling me, she was showing me – “You know this guy, he’s a lawyer, and he’s undocumented. And he went to this school.” She was just so motivating. She was so reassuring and she believed in me without even knowing me, without even seeing my undocumented face. I was just a student to her, someone that deserved the same opportunities that everyone deserved. I was so happy. By then I was a senior and I wanted to be a filmmaker. She’s like, “Okay, what schools? Let’s sit down.” And I was like, “I don’t know about anything. I never looked.” And she was like, “It’s not too late. Let’s look it up.” So it was one-on-one, she never told anyone my business. We went through a ton of film schools. We were really realistic, too. There wasn’t a lot of help for undocumented students but definitely enough help to get me to college.  One of the top Cal States was Cal State Northridge because I felt like I fit all of the requirements. For me, my mind was set. She was like, “Okay, I’m going to get you into Cal State Northridge. We’re going to do it.” I applied, and I was part of the conversation now. It was something I wanted to do for so long. My parents were so iffy because they’re like, “Are you sure? Is it going to be expensive? You know we don’t have the money. Maybe don’t do it. Don’t get your hopes up.” But no.  Once again, because I was the person that taught them everything, I had to sit down and do extra research - research that none of my peers knew about because they weren’t undocumented.

I had to learn about what being undocumented was, actually – not what society or what my school was telling me – but what it actually was.

It was just such a big relief. I was so happy, I felt like I was finding an identity that I didn’t have or understand for so long. I mean, by this time, it was 2012. I came to the US in 2001. So it was like eleven years later, so eleven years of just feeling like, “You’re not enough, you’re not qualified enough. You’re invisible.” I finally felt not invisible. So, I applied to college and a few months later, when everyone was getting accepted, I wasn’t. I wasn’t getting that letter and I remember kind of being a little sad because people were celebrating that they were in. When I went to the College Bound to meet up with my mentor, I told her, “I’m not getting anything.” She was like, “Are you sure? Are you checking correctly?” So we checked together and for whatever reason, that same day is the day that I got my acceptance letter. We cried together and I couldn’t believe the words of, “You’ve been admitted to Cal State Northridge.” My name was on a college something, and that was so awesome. I remember crying. I remember I had a little iPod, and I filmed myself just saying, “I did it!” It was such an awesome moment for me. I remember walking to the bus stop after that and calling my mom, just in tears, and they were so happy for me, yet very scared because they’d never been through this, either. But I reassured them. Still to this day, I reassure them about so many things when it comes to immigration that I knew that this acceptance letter wasn’t just mine, it was my family’s acceptance letter – our key to some survival, some bright future that we thought we would never have.  

I think the way that you think about education is so… I don’t think refreshing is the right word, but I think so many people take it for granted as just the expected next step. They’re more into going to college for the social aspect than all of the learning opportunities. And I think you see both sides of learning – the actual curriculum as well as human to human connection and culture. Looking at comprehensive learning, how important is education to you?

I mean, literally for me, education equals survival. Like what you just said, a lot of people really take it for granted. I know so many people that just go to college for the parties, for the out of state stuff, for the fraternities, for the sororities, or even like a legacy of their parents. Their parents have been through that college; now they have to go to that college. So, I don’t want to say it’s easier for other people, but it’s definitely easier for other people. Because for me, college was this other big step that I had to just take, once again, because my parents had never been through it. I had never met anyone in my community that went to college, so here I was, once again, going to it alone. I was terrified but again, survival - that was on my mind all the time, just “Survival. Survival. This is to survive.”

Education, to me, is such an important tool. It’s something that no one will ever take away from me.

Maybe, knock on wood, I might someday get deported if nothing ever happens, but I’m going to be bilingual. I’m going to know how to navigate in a different country and be smart enough to learn my new country because unfortunately, right now, I don’t know anything about my actual country. So, I know that I’ll make it, eventually. But I’m here right now because of education. Nothing else is going to get me anywhere if I didn’t have my education. I have no connections. I had no legacy to follow. I wasn’t in it for the parties or anything; I just needed to get that education to become something. 

Yeah, and you mention that you don’t really know. We’ve talked a little bit about culture, and something I’ve wondered is the idea of what feels true to you. What does culture feel like to you? How do you identify it?

I feel like, all my life, and this is something I’ve actually learned from so many other DREAMers is that we’re not American enough, but we’re also not Mexican enough. So, I have this culture. I think I’m living like the Mexican-American culture in the US. I think I know enough about where I come from, where I was born because I remember all those memories that I told you about earlier, but if I go back to my country… if I were to go back right now, I wouldn’t know anything. I don’t know how to get to a place, I wouldn’t know what city is north, south, east, west. I wouldn’t know who the president is. I wouldn’t know any recent big events that happened. I don’t know anything because yes, I love being Mexican so much and I’m so proud of it, but I’m not connected to the roots like I wish I could be. A lot of my other friends that are Mexican-American born here, they get to go to Mexico every year, every summer. They get to reconnect to roots that they weren’t born at, you know? But I’ve been in the US for almost twenty years, so I don’t have those roots and it sucks because I’m 100% Mexican, but with no roots. Now, my grandparents are dead. I can’t listen to stories that maybe they wanted to tell me about. My cousins are grown up. The kids that I grew up with are grown up; they have their own families. They don’t remember me. I don’t really remember them. I have all of my family, but I don’t have a family. My only family here is my mom, my dad, and my two brothers. That’s my only family. Only us five, which is so sad because when I think about that bus and everyone that was crying, they don’t remember us, you know? It’s hard to accept that, but it’s the truth. They remember me as a little five-year-old boy, sure, but that was twenty years ago.

And that’s why, to me, it’s so wrong when people use the phrase, “Go back to your country,” because you were there for such a short period of time. It doesn’t feel quite like the home most people assume it to be. The media plays a role, of course, in why things are politicized and presented a certain way, but what do you want people to know about DREAMers?

Unfortunately it is a place of ignorance.

I think something that I would want people to actually really understand is that the DREAMers - the immigrants in this country - left their country because of a very terrible event that was happening in their home. We didn’t come here to steal jobs. We didn’t come here to steal that education fund for their kids. I didn’t come here to steal that spot in college. I came because I needed to survive.

Someone just saying, “Go back to your country,” just so easily… I’m here because I’m surviving barely. You’re telling me to go to a place where I’m not going to survive. I left there because of all these other issues that I just don’t fit in. I’m not part of that society. I’m part of this one. And being part of this one has so much weight on it, but it’s a little better than where I come from. I feel like people just really need to understand that we’re not here to cause trouble. Mexico isn’t sending their most dangerous, their biggest criminals. Sure, there’s criminals coming to this country, just like from any other country. But there’s a ton of good people – people that just need to survive, people that need a second chance, people that need hope. So, me getting sent back is taking all of that away. It’s taking the story I just told you away and starting from scratch. Because I have nothing - I don’t have a home out there, I don’t have a job out there, I don’t have an education out there. I have nothing. It’s so much more than just, “Go back.”

And I think something you see in the news is that parents risk being separated from their children, and oftentimes, that separation does happen. Your mom had to have known something so deep within her to risk you getting on that truck without her - that you at five years old would have a better chance by yourself than staying where you were. 

Exactly. And I’m so glad that you understand that because there aren't many people that get it, you know? We’re literally leaving to survive. And like you literally just said, my mom knew what was up and she said, “I’d rather risk my kid’s life and give them a shot. Maybe I won’t make it, but at least he will and at least he will survive.” So, I don't know how bad it was. I was five. But, it’s sure better out here.

Like you said, we have a new president now. What would you say to other DREAMers right now, as we’re transitioning to a new president, knowing what you know?

I would tell other DREAMers that there’s still so much work to get done. We are not finished. We have not made it yet. There’s still so much work to be done but this new president is giving us the key to opening up a brand-new opportunity that we’ve never seen before. So let’s take that key. Let’s not judge the name, let’s not judge the person that’s giving it to us. Just take it because it’s a key that we’ve waited for for so long; it’s that opportunity that we’ve waited for so long. And I feel like we need to feel very relieved that hope is coming. I myself have no idea what kind of hope is coming, just like all of us, but I know that there’s good things that can happen. But it’s time for us to really come together and form groups and get out there and demand what we need, what we’re fighting for. Let our voices be heard. And I feel like this president will hear us, will hear our voices.  

What does it mean to be a DREAMer? 

Being a DREAMer is being a believer that anything that we really set ourselves to do, despite all of the negatives that are constantly talking to us in our heads...I think we have to just believe in ourselves. So hard. Because it’s not just for us; it’s for our whole families. it’s for our moms, it’s for our dads, it’s for our grandmas, it’s for all of the people that we couldn’t see because there’s a wall that’s literally separating us. Like, we’re doing it for them.

We’re dreaming the dreams that our entire family line has dreamt of so we have that opportunity.

You’re a DREAMer, but you’re so much more, and you have made so much out of it for your family. You now work in the news media. What is that like? 

One big reason why I joined the news industry is because I feel like there’s such a big lack of representation in news. Like you said, [the] news is very, very influential with many topics. Growing up, I would have really liked going back home and seeing things on TV that were positive, informative, and educational for Latinos. I wish I had that, so a reason why I joined the news is because I want to be a part of that. I chase stories about an immigrant that made it, an immigrant that started their own business, a student that went from not believing in themselves to really believing in themselves. My job is  not just reporting what’s happening. It’s more than that. It’s that culture, that love. It’s really getting to know where those roots come from. That even helps me learn more, you know? I’m learning every day and like I told you earlier, I’m my parents’ educator, so when I learn something from my job, then I call my mom and I tell her because I’m their teacher. And I’m so okay with it.

Growing up, being five-years-old reading legal documents to my parents, I think it’s a chore that I didn’t ask for, but again, we’re surviving out here.

My job really has taught me a lot about who I am and what I can be,  who immigrants are and who DREAMers are. It’s an outlet. And I’ll always open up about this issue because right now there’s a fifteen-year-old that’s undocumented that does not believe in themselves. If they see this interview, other interviews, more things on TV, more things on social media, it might just push them, so why not talk about it?

What does a day in your life look like?

A day in my life is hectic. I wake up at three in the morning to go to work. I don’t stop. I go in, there’s breaking news like at every hour. I need to communicate with ten, twelve other people. I’m in charge of a lot. Being a news producer, it’s a really heavy job, but it’s a job that I really like. Weirdly, if I were to explain every detail, you’d like, “Why are you doing this? It’s so much work.” But it’s a drive that I just love. I’m communicating to my community. I’m letting them know what’s happening. But I feel like a day in my life is just hectic and it’s a journey and it’s a roller coaster that just never ends, but it’s a fun roller coaster, you know? I learn every day. That’s awesome, because it’s back to me learning and education.  I get to learn every day.

Speaking of learning, what is one thing that everyone should know how to do?

There’s so many things that I feel like I always wish people knew. I think people should really know how to eat real tacos because there’s so many different tacos – like hard shell with cheese on top, sour cream... no. A taco is a simple tortilla, the protein, cilantro, onion, salsa, and lime. That’s it. Don’t add cheese, don’t add all the crazy stuff. That’s a simple taco. I feel like people should really learn how to eat a taco. But other than that, I think people should really know how to connect to someone that’s outside of their ethnicity. I think it’s so important to learn a different culture even if it’s not yours. Open up about meeting someone. Because throughout life, I’ve met so many people that stick to their own race, their own whatever, that when I actually meet someone that’s not Mexican and they want to know about me, I love connecting with people like that. I really wish people connected with others outside of their [race].

2019 was the year you made your dreams come true. 2020 was unexpected for many in a lot of ways. In retrospect, what did 2020 mean to you?

2020 is the year that was really crazy for everyone. I had so much momentum going on – finishing college, starting my job – that I feel like 2020 helped me a little bit to reconnect back to where I came from. I think my job, it’s so, like I said, it’s such a roller coaster that you kind of get sucked in. So, 2020 was a year that I kind of needed to just sit back and relax and just do the things that I love the most. I think because so many things were closed, I was able to go out on hikes. And I’m in a new city right now - I don’t know Bakersfield, so I’ve been able to go to our river. We have a river out here that I didn’t even know about. We have all these different little parks. 2020 was a year to just kind of refresh, which has been nice.

What will 2021 bring you?

2021 is going to be a big year for me because my contract here in Bakersfield ends in June. So I’m going to start looking for my next job. 2021 is going to be a new chapter for me. I think I’m going to be someone with experience in the field, someone with a degree, someone that is more aware of who they are because of this year. I see 2021 as a big year for me. A lot of positive vibes coming, a lot of new opportunities and a new President that seems  to understand the meaning of American immigration.  

You’ve graduated college, started a dream job. What's a dream you still have?

I dream about going back to my country every day. Just to visit, just to see the pyramids that people talk about, or go to Acapulco, or all these fancy beaches that my friends always talk about going to. I think my dream is to go back and see it myself, you know? And give back to my neighborhood because I remember we struggled. We had old toys and we lived pretty poor in Mexico. So, what I envision when I go back to Mexico - because I know it’s going to happen - what I see and I think about it every day…  I see myself as an adult, maybe in my thirties,  arriving in a big truck full of toys and just knocking on everyone’s door, doesn’t matter if they have kids or not, saying, “Here, toys for you. Money for you.” I want to do that so bad. So, so bad. I just want to give back to my neighborhood, because that’s where Chris came from, you know? I guess that’s really my biggest dream, just to go back and give thanks and give gifts and stuff to the kids.

seven questions with chris farias:

I can’t go a day without… coffee.

Everyone should read… ten pages a day of any book.

Life is better with a little… Bad Bunny.

Everyone in their 20s should… travel.

One insider thing to do in Bakersfield… drive down to the Kern River. Take a book, sit down, and chill there all day. 

What the world needs right now is… more kindness.

One way to spread love is… compliment someone. I love complimenting people. 

Follow Chris on Instagram here and on Twitter here.

Learn more about DACA and The Dream Act here.

All photos courtesy of Chris Farias.