Lupe Maravilla: Tripa Chuca
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
Guadalupe Maravilla was among the first wave of undocumented immigrants to enter the US from Central America when he immigrated alone from El Salvador at the age of 8. In this episode, Maravilla sensitively recounts harrowing tales of traumas experienced during the events leading up to and including his border crossings and how they later evolved into an illness he uncovered through experimentation with “ancient medicines” — eventually getting diagnosed with and overcoming stage 3B colon cancer. Maravilla has seemingly spent his life crossing borders and entering forbidden spaces of different kinds and in this episode, he incisively recounts for the listener a tale of a dramatic journey traveled with intent and intensity.
RELATED LINKS
Visit Lupe Maravilla’s Website
Follow Lupe Maravilla on Instagram (DM Lupe for info on how to make donations)
Lupe Maravilla’s artwork is represented by PPOW Gallery
Visit the web site of our storyteller from this episode’s Call-In Yard Tale: Christine Howard Sandoval
EPISODE CREDITS
Written, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Luz Fleming. Original Music by Luz Fleming and James Ash. Executive Produced by Jacob Bronstein. Production assistance by Davis Lloyd. Theme music by Andy Cotton. Yard Tales branding was designed by Andy Outis.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Yard Tales – Lupe Maravilla: Tripa ChuCa
Luz Fleming:
This episode contains strong language and mature subject matter. It may not be suitable for young ears.
What up, this is Luz Fleming. You have come to the place where we tell tales of the train and bus yard, the tenement yard, and prison yard. We detail close calls and chase stories. We dig into larger conversations about crossing boundaries. The other side of the tracks, borders, and forbidden space. Whether to make big life changes, to forward the artistic or professional practice, to escape peril, or just for the sheer thrill of it.
Lupe Maravilla:
And I remember conspiring with my seven year old friend and the others ones to kill the coyote once he came out. And I remember having meetings with the other little boys outside that we were going to kill him. Like I remember, I was so angry. I felt responsible for all the kids and I said, "If we kill him, there's no way we're going to cross over and see your parents again".
Luz Fleming:
Today. I am honored to have Guadalupe Maravilla tell his own border crossing yard tale. Lupe is a transdisciplinary artist living in New York City. I say transdisciplinary because he not only paints, makes sculpture, does video and performance, but he also brings his practice into politics, social justice, teaching and healing.
So sit back and let us tell you one of our favorite Yard Tales.
Lupe Maravilla:
Alright my name is Guadalupe Maravilla, I go by Lupe for short. A couple of years ago I changed my name from Irvin Morazan to Guadalupe Maravilla to show solidarity with my father who's undocumented, who uses the name, Maravilla, his fake identity. My father bought his fake identity from a Mexican who was a U.S. cItizen and he moved to Mexico, and then he sold his papers to my father. He looks just like him. So, he carries his name, and that's why he changed his last name, and to show solidarity with him during these harsh political times I decided to change my last name to Maravilla and I'll tell you how he became undocumented and how I became undocumented.
So, we'll just go back to 1984 in El Savador. It was the height of the civil war that was happening there. It was the civil war and the guerrillas were winning the war. Once the U.S. intervened things heated up. It was also during the Cold War. So the U.S. was terrified that El Salvador would become communist and somehow Russia and Cuba were on the other side, feeding weapons to the guerillas and the U.S. was feeding weapons to the military. The U.S. trained death squads in Florida and North Carolina. And eventually anyone that was protesting against the war or had any, any suspect of any opposition to the military, to the government, were considered communist.
So one day my uncle was a protester at the university, was protesting with his friends, with colleagues in university in El Salvador. And they were taken by the military and they were missing for two weeks. They were kidnapped basically from their dorms in the university and taken.
One afternoon like there were some bodies that were hanging from their legs in the tree and they were beheaded, their heads were missing. And my father recognized his brother because he was wearing the shirt that he had purchased for him. And after that my family and myself were all considered to be communist and they decided to come after my father and my mother. So immediately my father, you know, he was actually like a car mechanic and a Mercedes dealer. He was doing really well for himself. He had to like escape El Salvador and come to the United States because if not, they would have just killed them just the way they do to his brother. My mother stayed with us, but she was also at risk. They were coming for her. So she decided to leave and it was too dangerous for her to go with us as well.
So it was easier just to leave my sister and myself with my grandmother in the countryside. So she decided to leave. It was too dangerous for her also. On top of that, there was the civil war at its at its height. So it was like, kind of like, okay, my parents are like fleeing for their lives, but also they don't want to risk us in this journey.
They were hoping that maybe things would calm down and they were able to like, take us through the United States, like with our paperwork because they applied for refugee status. And unfortunately like I think more than half of the country apply for refugee status. So it was really impossible for the paperwork to, you know, just to get through so fast. Somehow my sister's paperwork cleared and she was able to fly out.
So then it was just me and my grandmother in the house. And keep in mind, El Salvador is probably the size of New Jersey. And during this 12 year civil war, about 365,000 people were killed and unknown number were missing. And this was brother against brother, sister against sister fighting the war, a very tiny country.
You know, my cousins were in the military. And I had the cousins that were, that were guerrillas. And then everyone else in between. It was a very difficult time. So after that I was in the countryside with my grandmother going back between her house in San Salvador to San Vicente.
And a bomb hit the house next to us from a helicopter. They were targeting guerrillas that were there and there was like really no one there. Was just like an old lady and her dog that got killed next to us. When that happened, my uncle and my family were terrified of my grandmother and myself, and she had papers so they were able to fly her out. And at that point, I was left alone at eight years old in San Salvador to kind of fend for myself. And they had my nanny who was just like the housekeeper. And then she was just kind of started watching me.
It was like a really interesting time because I was like a street kid and I used to run around in a pack of like 12 boys. At that point. I hadn't seen my mother in two years. I hadn't seen my father in four years. So, from like age, six to eight, I was living with my mother. And so I was kind of like this kid that was in the streets all the time, playing in the mud, playing soccer, climbing trees, playing with the animals and in nature. It's kinda, of, I have actually have like really beautiful memories of those times.
I was an artist. I was an artist since I was two years old, before I could even talk, I was already drawing and I was making sketches and I was considered to be like the artists in the neighborhood all the time. I remember one time this one friend that brought me a sketch of his cousin and he had made clouds and used shading. And he goes, “well, you can't do this so you're not the big shot artist.” And I'm like, what, I was, I remember seeing this clouds, I was blown away. I was like, how did he do this? How does he do shading? And I was like, really like, Wow, like humbled at the time. And I was probably like four or five years old, you know, I don't even remember.
The Tripa Chuca, which is this drawing game which we put certain numbers in a piece of paper. It's a game that you alternate with someone else and you take odds and evens. Basically you connect one number to the next by drawing a line. The only rule is you cannot touch anything. Nothing on the paper, another number another line. And to me, it starts to form almost like this bond between two people. It was almost like a fingerprint mapping of two people and it's always different. So as a kid, we used to play this game to the extreme, like maybe on a piece of paper, put up to a hundred numbers in there. Sharpeners to sharpen the points of the lead to make sure that we can squeeze our lines to just like the smallest spaces. And even use magnifying glasses just to make sure we wouldn't touch lines and I guess whoever touches the line first loses. So there's like a competitive aspect to it.
But I do remember having this really amazing childhood and playing soccer. And, you know, sometimes we play soccer and the military would come and play soccer with us and they'll take the ball and play with us for like five minutes and they'll keep going, you know, and sometimes the military, if you really think about it, they're... they're young.
Some of them were under 18. They had rifles in their arms. Well, next thing you know, 20 minutes later, the guerrillas will swing by neighborhood and play soccer with us. And then within minutes, there was a battle down the street or a couple blocks away. And then the helicopter will come by, drop some bombs.
Also I remember my grandmother sometimes when she was still there and she would hide me from the military because I was a little bit taller, right, at seven years old. And so apparently at 10 years old, they can take you and make you a child soldier. It was completely like a thing. So I remember that she would hide us in the roof of the house when the military was around. Cause they just might take me and all the older kids would be hiding as well. She was just really paranoid because I was a little bit taller, but I was still only seven, but they, yeah, possibility I could have been a child soldier. So that, that was always one thing about the soldiers. Even though they play soccer with me, I was always like, okay, I gotta be careful because they might just take me with them.
I had another kid in the neighborhood that was taken by them. He was only 11 years old. I never heard of him again
At the same time, I also remember going to tons of funerals when I was little. I remember particularly seeing like a little girl who went to school with me about seven years old with open casket. And we knew she was just had gotten killed in the crossfire, it was very clear to us at seven years old.
But everyone, all the adults would tell us, Oh, she's sleeping, she's sleeping. We're just like, okay. We know, we know the deal already. Like, we're very aware of what's happening. And it's interesting seeing it from a kid's perspective, the idea of death was something that we actually understood pretty clearly and adults, I guess they're a little bit in denial that we knew this much at this point. I can't believe like this was actually part of my own childhood, but I remember being afraid, but also being really kind of, it's like part of life growing up in this environment, it's like, really it's just life like everything else.
And also during this time I was actually like, I was in a Menudo cover band, which is like really absurd at the same time. We were rehearsing, we were playing, we were playing the churches, we were playing the school we were like really, you know, we didn't go on tour, but were performing all the time.
It was like, we had synchronized dancing, singing and I particularly remember the Súbete a Mi Moto song and it's like jump on my motorcycle. And there's like a lot of roaring motorcycles that happens and somehow that later became part of my work. So there's a connection to that.
So eventually one afternoon, I was in the house in San Salvador with the nanny and bullets got sprayed all over our living room and she grabbed me, threw me on the floor and covered me.
At that point, she called my parents in the United States. They were actually in New Jersey at the time, and she said “look, we need to get him out of here. This is too dangerous. I just can't watch him. I don't want to be responsible for his life. We need to get him outta here”. She wanted also to like leave and go home to her, like to the country and just hide and get away from the situation.
So she didn't want to be responsible for me anymore either. My parents had no choice. They hired a coyote and a coyote is a person who smuggles undocumented immigrants over the U.S./Mexico border. But it's also very complicated because El Salvador and the U.S. Mexico border are very far.
Back then it was just like it was brand new. I was part of the first wave of undocumented children to come from El Salvador into the U.S. It was 1984, I was eight years old and I went from El Salvador to Honduras to Guatemala, all the way up through Mexico into Tijuana and eventually to San Diego, San Ysidro, San Diego. So when I started my journey, I went to Honduras first.
And when we got to Honduras, there was a, I remember eating papusas. And if you're not familiar with a papusa it’s basically, it's like a thick tortilla and it has cheese fillings or beans and meat and combination of a lot of things. And it comes from El Salvador. So we went to a papusaria and I remember I was eating the papusas with my hands because Salvadorans eat the papusas with their hands. They don't use utensils. It's kind of part of the culture. And I remember sitting in the restaurant eating the papusas in my hands and someone came up to me and said, Oh, you're Salvadorian because you're eating papusas with your hands.
And I was terrified that they had found me that I was going to get sent back. And from there on I decided not to eat papusas with my hands anymore, I started using the utensils. Just out of fear of getting caught. And in my head, everyone's looking for me, right. They're like looking for me to send me back.
And from Honduras, I went to Guatemala on bus and basically all the way to Tijuana, I was being passed around from person to person. Sometimes a grandmother on the bus. Sometimes I would sleep on someone's couch. Sometimes I would sleep with a family and have like a full dinner with them or a lunch.
Next thing you know I am waking up, there’s a grandmother making me a breakfast somewhere. And it was just like from house to house, regular people. I don't know. I guess they were connected to the network of coyotes that tons of children just kind of go from house to house, to house. So they're kind of set up for that to have visitors that come for like a day or a night.
And after almost like a two month journey we made it to Tijuana. It just took very long. I wasn't in contact with my parents. I wasn't in contact with anyone. They didn't know where I was. Eventually I got to a hotel in Tijuana.
At this point I was eight years old. It was really hard at that point. Like I felt, I felt like I was never going to see my parents again. I was still crying a lot, you know, I was very emotional, but I felt like I felt very strong at the same time. I remember being in the hotel with a dozen other little kids and I was the oldest one. Of all these kids that were there, everyone else was younger.
I felt like I was had more responsibility in, in the group and I made friends. So I was in the hotel room for two weeks and the coyote would come and take a kid every night, one by one. And eventually it was my turn. And he wanted me to memorize like a little bit of English.
He wanted me to speak enough English in case the border patrol started asking me questions, who I was, and I was supposed to pass off as his son. And his son is American and he went to school in America. So he wanted me, my English to be somewhat passable. I remember like addresses and phone numbers and this kind of thing. And I just couldn't.
I would cry every night. I didn't have it in me to remember anything and he would get frustrated with me. He was just like, I can't take you unless you memorize this. I'll come back tomorrow for you. You will come back the next day. And again, not, I wasn't ready. I couldn't memorize anything.
I was just too emotional. And then he would leave. Sometimes he would leave for three days. You wouldn't see him. So there was no food. I, you know, he had this white dog this beautiful like dirty white dog, this mutt. It would just be with us. And I decided to go into the market. And at first we started stealing fruit from market and people chase after us.
And then I eventually, the old ladies caught on and say, what is this kid always stealing food? And I will bring back the food and give it to the other kids cause they were younger. And the old ladies caught on, the old ladies in the market and they were just like, Oh wow. Like these kids like are just hungry.
So they started giving us food. I remember getting these like styrofoam containers and I would take food back to the rest of the kids and we'd all eat. And I remember the food being too spicy, you know in El Salvador we wouldn't use spices like they do in Mexico. And the food was too spicy to, I couldn't even eat it, but I'll eat it anyway cause I was so hungry.
One night the coyote came over and there was a little girl that was with us and he took her into her room and he raped her. And I remember conspiring with my seven year old friend and the other ones to kill the coyote once he came out. And I remember having meetings with the other little boys outside. That we're going to kill him.
Like I remember I was so angry and I felt responsible for all the kids. And I said, if we kill him, there's no way we're going to cross over and see our parents again. I really remember having this conversation. So the little girl was about maybe six or seven years old. I don't know what happened to that little girl.
Bless her. I have no idea what happened to her after that, but yeah, that's something that I cannot forget. It's kind of crazy at being eight years old and conspiring to kill someone, but that's, that's how it was. And we didn't have the courage because we felt like if we, number one, if we don't kill him, he's gonna kill us.
And the other thing is we'll never see our families again.
This is something that, that is still happening now. That's why my parents were really lucky that my sister's paperwork cleared because they were terrified to send her through coyotes because usually these girls get molested of all ages, even the women. The mothers, the children, like, all women are in complete danger and some boys too, obviously, of being molested.
There's predators all over that space even more so now than before. They're just waiting for these desperate people to come by to take advantage of the situation. Yeah. So we just kind of let it go. I don't know. Even today I still think about her and I'm like, Oh, what happened to her? And what's happening to all these beautiful children and women that are coming over.
It's just very difficult.
So eventually the coyote came back and he said to me okay, we're crossing and you know, this amazing white dog that actually became very loyal to me, probably even more so than him was around with us the whole time. I felt like I had a bond with this animal. This beautiful mutt. Amazing, white, dirty dog was really dirty all the time.
And the dog came with us.
Luz Fleming:
Hey guys, this is Luz, the producer of Yard Tales. I wanted to take a minute to ask you for a favor. A show like this takes a lot of time and effort to produce. We’re not a big team, it’s mostly just me. We don’t have sponsors contributing money or influencing what I make or what I say. This is independent media. If that’s something you support, please help me to keep making this show and providing it to you for free by donating to Yard Tales. Even one dollar helps, but even if a small percentage of listeners gave the price of one of those fancy gourmet slices of pizza that you eat… well you get the picture. Just go to yardtales.live/donate and click on the button that says “donate now”. That’s yardtales.live/donate, any amount is really appreciated. Thank you so much.
And now let’s get back to Guadelupe’s border crossing.
Lupe Maravilla:
It was about three, four in the morning. I was in in kind of like a Jeep kind of car, like a pickup truck, and a dog was in the back with me and I was laying in the back of his car. Here we are getting close to the border patrol. And I was in the back kind of sleeping and dog got on top of me, covered me. It's a big dog.
And he said, the driver, the coyote, "Do not move. I don't see you. We're going to just try to sneak you in. Don't make a sound."
And we got to the border patrol. I think the border patrol was kind of sleeping. It was just kind of like a quiet night. Not a lot of cars and he kind of, I guess he glanced around, didn't see us. And he said just can, okay. I remember him saying, okay, you can just go.
The car passed the coyote was like celebrating. I remember the dog got off of me and I looked at the window and I saw a little American flags, I guess it's San Ysidro and he dropped me off in a house, a big house full of toys. It was like heaven. There was so many grandmothers there. A bunch of kids, everyone's playing, they all started cooking.
They showered me. They gave me new clothes. They gave me a bed, clean bed, food, so much food. I ate so much and I was there for three days. I didn't want to leave. I was in paradise playing with tons of children. And then eventually I had some extended relatives come pick me up, take me to this I guess to the airport, maybe in San Diego, I don't know.
And I flew to JFK and my parents were there. I remember seeing my mother immediately. Hadn't seen her in two years. She was waiting for me. I remember her crying, hugging me. My sister was there too. Also hugging me and crying. She was three years older than me. She was 11. I was eight. And my father also, I hadn't seen him for eight years.
I did't, I didn't even remember him at that point. He was a complete stranger.
And yeah, they took me to Times Square, like on the way to New Jersey. And I remember seeing Times Square and all the lights and all the graffiti and all the ghetto blasters and all the hip hop. And I was just like blown away. It was kind of wow, what is this universe?
So here I am in 1984 in New Jersey, Elizabeth, New Jersey and in Newark, everything you would think of, of New York in the eighties was happening in Newark as well. Brick city. Graffiti, my sister eventually was dating just this kind of major drug dealer that had like five pit bulls. And we used to visit my, my sister with ghetto blasters and like, I started really getting influenced by the hip-hop culture of that time
From age eight, to like, fourteen. I felt like I was just like learning to speak English. I didn't have much connection to New Jersey for those times, but I was just like taking ESL classes, learning how to speak English and all these things. But the minute I turned fourteen, I wanted to go back to Times Square. You know, I had this connection to New York City, the Puerto Rican, lowriders to the ghetto blasters, to the hip hop to the gothic.
I was so obsessed with this culture, you know, and I continued to make art as a kid. I kept drawing. But when I turned fourteen, fifteen years old, I started missing class and I would just take the Path train to New York City. And I started hanging out here
And art was always a big part of it. Eventually I went to SVA when I turned twenty-three for photography. During those times I used to sleep in a casket that I'd made myself. It was a hardcore kind of gothic phase, you know? It was like this Afro Latino gothic group that I use to hang out with. We use to wear black skirts and long black hair down to my belly button.
And yeah, that was, that was the lifestyle that, that I kind of grew up when and I really like I was here in New York city for the whole thing. I was always commuting. I, it's like, I've lived here for six months. Just going back and forth between here and Newark. And eventually at twenty-one, I had a girlfriend here and just kind of moved here and then just never left.
I went to SVA for photography. And eventually I went to Hunter, I was like 33 years old. I got into my MFA and I started doing sculpture. So in 2012, I was turning 36 years old. But what's really interesting about 2012 is the calendar. If you look at the calendar, it was like from my birthday was December 12th.
This is the year of Guadalupe, you know, the Guadalupe is celebrated. It's the Virgin Saint of South America and she’s celebrated in Latin America on September 12th. It's the day I was born. That's why I changed my name to Guadalupe. So on 2012 the calendar says 12/12/12. It was all twelves. And since I was a little kid, I remember seeing that and it’s like, wow, I'm going to have a birthday that's all twelves. And I'm turning thirty-six, is twelve, plus twelve, plus twelve, equals thirty-six. It's so crazy. And I remember like being twelve years old, just thinking, I was like, wow, what's going to happen that year. Like something crazy is going to happen. What magical things going to happen? And I was like, okay, I'm going to get to that year.
And it's like, I'm going to have the craziest party. I'm going to just like live this crazy night and epic thing. My head's going to explode all these magical things are gonna happen.
So here we fast forward to five days before my birthday on a special special day. And I have no plans, like nothing. And I'm just like, Oh my God, twelve, twelve, twelve, equals thirty-six is coming up and I have no plans. Like this is so disappointing. I was hoping to be like in India, like in the middle of like this mystical place or having an orgy, like on top of a club, who knows what, right. So many of these things.
Nothing's happening. I have no plans. I said, this is so disappointing and I got a phone call. And it's someone from Hunter. I was at Hunter college about to start working on my thesis and she’s like, "Oh, there's like a ayahuasca ceremony happening in Brooklyn. Do you want to go?"
I was like, sure. It's not India or the Amazon, but I'll take it. I have no other plans. And I almost kind of jokingly accepted. I was like, fuck it. I have nothing else. So I go to this ayahuasca ceremony in Greenpoint in a yoga studio, and I'm like, okay, this is so embarrassing. And just like, wow, I should be in the Amazon.
Or I should be on a mountain in Tibet. Or like an orgy in the Limelight or whatever, this kind of crazy club that doesn't exist anymore. It's so disappointing. I'm embarrassed. I'm not going to tell anyone. I didn't go with anyone close to me. I went by myself. I was just like, okay, I'm just going to like, pretend nothing's happening and try to make the best out of this.
I just had really high expectations and I'm there with three people in a yoga studio. There's a man that claims to be some sort of curandero, which is like a shaman figure. And he has ayahuasca and I said, okay, I'll try it. I've always been connected to spiritual side, a lot of meditation, a lot of fasting, always. That's always been part of who I am.
So I'm sitting there meditating. I take the ayahuasca. 40 minutes passed by and nothing happens to me. The guy next to me is vomiting there. The person next to me is crying. Someone else looks like they're levitating. And I'm just like, fuck, I don't feel anything. I'm just like, I had done so much research about this, that I was like, fuck, I'm one of those people that's not meant to see anything today.
Cause I'm not ready. I'm not spiritually connected and not spiritually ready for what it's offering me. I'm just like one of these people. And I was like, fuck it's so disappointing. And I have a sense of like, anxiety, because I'm not seeing anything everyone else is having this experience. But then I was like, Oh, my stomach hurts.
So I go to the bathroom, I put my pants down, I sit on the toilet and I'm like, well, I gotta take a shit. Wait, it's not, I'm not, I'm not taking a shit. I'm sitting on the toilet. And I look between my legs and I see so much light. It feels like when you're on the highway and someone's blasting their headlights, like this, like giant lights on you and it's coming out of the toilet and I'm like, what is this light coming out of the toilet?
It's coming out of my ass. And then I started to have like 10,000 orgasms. I fall off the toilet, pants are rolled down, belt's unbuckled, and light is streaming across the floor horizontally because I'm laying on the floor and I try to get up and I see the beam of light go to the corner of the room coming out of my ass.
And it's just like this light and orgasms. And the curandero, the shaman's, like knocking on the doors. Like, are you okay? Okay in there? Are you okay? I am more than, okay. Like leave me alone. I'm having 10,000 orgasms blah blah blah, water’s coming out of my eyes, water’s coming out of my mouth, my ears, everywhere. I'm just kind of exploding. I have this gigantic orgasm.
And eventually I calm down after a couple of minutes. And I go back and I sit on my yoga mat and then I started having visions. I see my unborn daughter appeared to me this female energy, this super energetic child that wants to be with me, my deceased mother, traumas from, from when I was crossing the border as a kid.
I started seeing all these visions, millions and bazillions of colors, everything that I read about. I'm just in this amazing journey that I, that I wanted on this special day of December 12th of 2012. And it was just this amazing experience and the shaman’s singing the whole time, this really beautiful thing like this shaman that just like dressed like a regular person, all of a sudden it's like the real shaman. Amazing.
So I had this amazing experience. So afterwards I was like, okay, that experience that I had when I came back to the, to the yoga studio, to the mat, It's felt like everything that I read about like happened. But what happened to me in the bathroom? Like what was that? He said to me, that's the first time you did ayahuasca and the ayahuasca was trying to cleanse your stomach because you have a problem in your stomach. I went to Woodhull hospital and got a colonoscopy done.
And they found that I had stage three B colon cancer. And if it was a couple of months away, it would have went to stage four, which is terminal. So that is how I found out I had cancer and it was because of the ayahuasca. After that, I had a radiation, chemotherapy, two surgeries, in between all, all that I did a lot of ayahuasca. A Korean healer appear, like just emerged.
I had this amazing person who does séances appear to me. This Jewish healer appeared to me. This Chinese Shaman appeared. And what I mean by appearing, like they just entered my life and they started treating me.
And I had all of this ancient medicine around me, along with the Western medicine. And during all my journeys of experiencing ayahuasca and kambo, and peyote and like all these things, like I found out that it was obviously clear that the cancer came because of my trauma and the trauma that I had of being separated from my parents and the war in crossing in Tijuana and that girl that was raped and seeing all these, all that trauma was all there.
And I held it in my stomach for so long and eventually it developed into a tumor that almost killed me.
And here it is. The ancient medicine came back and saved my life.
So it's like, it all ties in just the traumas, the post-traumatic stress disorders that happens from the crossing journeys that people are going through. You know, and like I said, and I was in the first wave of undocumented immigrants, so I was the first wave to also suffer from the traumas. So what's going to happen to all these children that are in cages right now, what's going to happen to the children that are going to these caravans?
Like what, what is all this trauma and all this stress, what is that going to develop into the future? So I am on the forefront of what's happening there and I was blessed by the ayahuasca to be here and healthy and to talk about it right now. And this is how it all kind of ties in. You know, it's like the, you know, it's not just about crossing, but it's also what happens afterwards.
And then the traumas, and, and what happens to these people once, once they do cross, if they even cross.
I'm still an artist now. And just had a show at the Whitney, The Whitney Museum in New York City where I incorporated the same Tripa Chuca technique into my new drawings that I'm making. The most important thing is that I'm still playing with undocumented immigrants, this same game. And it feels like we're mapping our journeys, that never connect, they never touch. The one kid that I play with he's eighteen years old and he just crossed two years ago from El Salvador.
So his journey is very different from mine, but they're very parallel to each other.
Like, as an artist. Like, I feel like I'm responsible to talk about my story and the ayahuasca and how, like these ancient medicines can help with traumas as opposed to just giving antidepressants and like these other kinds of medication to anyone that's dealing with the trauma as immigrants.
And I also like draw parallels to the, you know, my descendants are Mayan, you know. We built pyramids. We have deep connection to our spirituality, to the use of plants, through ritual, and because of colonization and globalization, it's completely wiped out and erased. So like, I guess like as a survivor of cancer and a survivor of my border crossing, I feel like I have somewhat of a responsibility to, to talk about this and to make work about it, but also like actually like, make, do something about it.
And that is, that is my crossing story. Thank you.
Luz Fleming:
From us all, thank you, Lupe and do something about it, he is. Lupe is currently taking donations to purchase and distribute food and supplies for the undocumented community who has been hit particularly hard in these times.
I recorded Lupe's story for Yard Tales on the traditional territory of the Canarsie and Lenape Nations or Bed-Stuy Brooklyn. I recorded and produced the rest of this episode on the unceded territory of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations, or Vancouver, BC.
Thanks so much for joining today. Thanks again, Lupe, for sharing your incredible life journey with us. And if any listeners would like to make a donation or find out how you can help Lupe keep the undocumented fed, you can find out more information in our show notes. You can also follow him on Instagram @guadalupe_maravilla, and you can see some of his current work at guadalupemaravilla.com and at ppowgallery.com.
Yard Tales is executive produced by Jacob Bronstein, Andy Outis is our design director, and Davis Lloyd is our production assistant. Original music and sound design by myself and James Ash. Shout out to Andy Cotton for the dope ass theme music. Thanks for letting me put a little remix on it for this show. If you like Yard Tales, be sure to follow on Apple, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. And please use Apple Podcasts to rate and review Yard Tales because it really helps to point more listeners to the show.
You can find more information, images and additional audio at yardtales.live. And check us out on Instagram @yardtales and Facebook @yardtalespodcast. If you want to leave feedback or reach out for any reason, send us an email to info@yardtales.live. Be sure to listen to the end of each episode where we feature audience member’s own call-in yard tales. And be sure to tune in next week when Susan Tran, good friend and neighbor, tells some of her own harrowing yard tales.
Susan Tran:
And we had to crawl through like open sewers in the jungle. It was not a short trip. You're eating bugs, trying to stay alive, trying to escape, trying to get to the water.
Luz Fleming:
And if you are still listening, that means you might have had a real connection to this podcast. And maybe you have a yard tale of your own that you want to tell. If so, go to yardtales.live/callinyardtales for detailed instructions on how to do so. If we dig your story, we’ll feature it at the end of a future episode. And now, we’ll let Christine Howard Sandoval take us out with her own call-in Yard Tale.
Christine Howard Sandoval:
My name is Christine Howard Sandoval. And I'm recording this story on the unceded ancestral lands of the Tsleil-Waututh, the Musqueam and the Squamish.
And this is my yard tale. I'll never forget the time. One of my earliest experiences in education, when it felt like I had crossed a boundary into the specialized space of smart people. When I went into the AP class and philosophy during my senior year of high school. I went to independence high in San Jose, California.
The demographic at the school was, and still currently is primarily people of color. You have the Samoans, you have the Vietnamese, you have the Chicanos, you have a big immigrant population from different Asian countries. You have, so many different languages being spoken at that school. And I remember I was a student since freshman year in a magnet program, which is a specialized program that teaches you a career-based skill alongside being in high school and learning kind of the basic course of education. And I was in the teaching Academy, which meant that I was learning how to teach alongside learning as all of the things that you learn when you're in high school.
And by the time that we got to senior year, our philosophy teacher, Mrs. Smith, who was our mentor and champion. An incredible teacher who we had for three years. So we were quite close to her and she really created a safe space for us. We debated race, gender, class, and different political issues for years through some of the texts that she introduced to us.
And now she was creating a bridge for primarily female identified students of color to join an otherwise very privileged space in the AP program, which to me was this, it was like, wow. The AP program, it had really had this, I guess, stigma of being this very elite smart program for the best and the brightest students in the school.
And the fact that we were, what I thought, I felt like we were being allowed to join the class. And I remember the day that we literally walked into the class on the first day of school, we walked in as a very small group of all female students of color into a predominantly white classroom. And I just remember the looks on everyone's faces.
Our teachers had a look of both excitement and I could see that they were nervous. The class had looks of confusion, being uncomfortable. There was definitely a tension in the air. We were, I remember, very self guarded. We were very nervous and being nervous means that our pride kind of flared up and we were definitely protecting ourselves in that space.
As the year went on, we eventually started to build relationships with students in that class that felt genuine. And the entire experience that year was a huge education in and of itself just to be present and be invited into a space like the AP program. I am the first college graduate in my immediate family.
And I'm pretty sure that I'm the first person in my extended family with a master's degree. Currently, I'm an assistant professor of interdisciplinary praxis at Emily Carr university in British Columbia. And I'm a professional artists and I teach what I know through my practice as an artist. I exist in a very, very privileged space and as a teacher and as a woman, who has such clear memories of that young girl walking into the AP class and feeling both invited and also like I represented a kind of threatening presence.
I want to open up those opportunities for students of color. With the agency and the privilege that I have right now. It's a huge part of my practice and my goal as a teacher in higher education. And that experience of crossing that boundary had an indelible effect on who I am today.
And, that's my yard tale.