Oral History Program Andrea Flores Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 31 August 2021 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Andrea Flores Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 31 August 2021 Copyright © 2022 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description Queering the Archives oral history project is a series of oral histories from the LGBTQ+ communities of Weber, Davis and Morgan Counties of Northern Utah. Each interview is a life interview, documenting the interviewee’s unique experiences growing up queer. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Flores, Andrea, an oral history by Lorrie Rands, 31 August 2021, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Andrea Flores Circa 2021 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Andrea Flores, conducted on August 31, 2021, in the Stewart Library’s Archive Conference Room by Lorrie Rands. Andrea discusses being born in Mexico, coming to America, her DACA status, growing up in Ogden, her time at Weber State University, growing up queer and accepting her identity. Michael Thompson is also present during the interview. LR: Today is August 31, 2021. We are in the Stewart Library archives conference room interviewing Andrea Flores for the LGBTQ plus stories. I am Lorrie Rands conducting the interview and Michael Thompson is here as well. So we're going to start with first of all, what I've been doing is, I identify as straight. She/her are my pronouns. MT: I'm bisexual, he/him. LR: So, what I'm going to do is ask you, how do you identify with your gender and sexual orientation. AF: I identify as Lesbian, go by she/her pronouns. LR: OK, thank you so much, and then when and where were you born? AF: I was born in Mexico in 1994. I was born in a town called Zacapu, but my parents were actually on a day trip and they didn't know my mom was gonna go into labor. So then they had to rush my mom to the nearest care. Then they had to take me back to town, which is called Huaniqueo, which is technically where I would call home. 2 LR: OK, so AF: Huaniqueo, do you want me to spell that for you? LR: Would you please. AF: It is H U A N I Q U E O. LR: Ok Huaniqueo, so that's the town you were born in or where you were raised? AF: That's where I was raised. Up until the age, I was about two months before I turned three. LR: So is that where your parents are from. AF: Yeah. LR: And where is that in Mexico? AF: So it's on the West Coast central part. So it's going to be between the state of Jalisco and Guanajuato is Michoacán. We're about an hour west of the capital, kind of right between the capital and the ocean, which is about two hours. So we're right in the middle. LR: Capital being Mexico City? AF: No, the capital is actually the capital of the state. LR: The state? AF: Yeah. Which is Morelia. Mexico City is about two hours south west from there. LR: OK, I don't know the geography of Mexico very well. So I'm sitting here with a deer in headlights. AF: Kind of like if you the picture peninsula where California is, it's kind of right kitty corner to that. 3 LR: OK, that actually helps. I appreciate that. So you said you were three when you moved. AF: Yeah, it was the first time we immigrated. My dad had come and gone multiple times by then time my parents were married and I was born. Back then crossing the border was literally just hopping over hopping in a truck and you're in California or Texas. My dad brought me when I was three and we lived with family members and, just the struggle, you know, just we lived in a basement apartment. I remember my mom saying we would go to the D.I. to try to get some blankets because it was the middle of winter. When you're from the hot desert in Mexico, the cold is the last thing on your mind. So that was a lot of my younger years. I remember going to school. Eventually my parents got a different basement apartment and I would go to, first I went to the pre-K or the Head Start on like 30th, 32nd, and then I went to Horace Mann. I don't know if they were doing like an inclusion program or just trying to do something because I lived on… The bus would pick us up on 34th and Childs and then they would bus us all the way to 7th Street or 9th Street where Horace Mann was. That's where I spent… Yes, it's a very long way. But that's where we were bus to every day. I grew up with a lot of white kids, and I was the handful of Hispanics in the school. LR: OK, I'm so I'm going to back up just a little bit. So you said you would hop hop across the border. Did you guys come all the way to Utah initially or did you stop? AF: We stopped in California. I think my dad has a sister in California. So when we 4 came over, we were in a truck driving in the desert. My dad was actually in the cab of the small truck covered with a couple of other guys just squished in there. And since they didn't want to put the ladies and especially me back there, we were all in the front of the truck driving through the desert for hours. I think they took us to some desert area where my aunt, my dad's sister actually picked us up and then took us to her house. We spent a couple of days there and then my dad's cousin brought us all the way back to Utah where we eventually where we just called home from there. LR: OK, so you were three, are you going off what you were told or do you have memories of this? AF: You know, I don't have memories of it. It's all what my mom has told me. She was like they got to a point where you were so hungry where you would ask for a cup of noodles, and for you to ask for a cup of noodles, was you'd have to be starving. I grew up in the ranch where my grandfather owned a lentil farm, so we had fresh lentils and he had cows and chickens. It was just fresh, great food. And so she was like, “You were hungry.” Like it was a long time that we spent there. And that's what it's the biggest memory. I mean, idea I had from that. But I think that's also what hits close to home with my mom that her kid was like that hungry. But it's just like she was just looking at the future. She was like, “It's OK, we're going to get there and I'll get you some food.” My mom's told me all of this and she does it with a smile on her face. It's never like sadness, which I'm proud of that because she knew the bigger story, like why we were coming here. LR: Right. OK, that makes sense. I get so caught up in the story, I forget to write 5 down the question and I had this amazing question. Give me a second. I remember now, I just had to get out of my own way. All right. So are you the oldest? AF: Yeah, I'm the oldest of three. My mom was actually pregnant when we got here with my middle brother. LR: Oh, wow. AF: So he was born, and she was probably a couple months pregnant. My little brother was born in July of that year, July 13th. We're all exactly almost three years apart. Three years later, she had my little brother Frank in February. Yeah, oldest of three. LR: OK, did you live with with your parents were you were here in Ogden? AF: Yeah. Yeah. We've lived together all our lives. LR: That's great. So you also mentioned that the first time you came, which means you went back and so can you walk through from the time you were three. When did you go back. AF: I was here up until the third grade. So right before I turned nine, almost exactly the same time, or we'll say about six years later. No yeah, probably when I was about eight, I don't know about the math, what that was. But when I was eight, about to turn nine, my dad's dad, my grandfather was very sick. He had diabetes for about 40 years and he had been blind for about 20 of those. So he was really ill, and my dad really wanted us to to get to know him before he passed. He wanted him to know us before he passed, which I really appreciate because I really got to meet him. I also got to spend time with my other grandparents and 6 cousins that I had spent time when I was really, really young. They took me everywhere and we went up to the little... there's a hike or like a little hike essentially wherever there's a pilgrimage where every 12th of December you take the virgin up to church that they have on top of the hill. It was very cool to see, like, the culture where I come from, because we would do traditional stuff at the house and I didn't know why and we would go to Mass on weekends and there was certain weekends I didn't go to Mass. As a kid, I just followed orders, do what I did. But it was really cool. I got to see, and it was right before my birthday, too. So as soon as we got there, right before my birthday, my grandfather was like, “I'm killing a turkey because you guys are here.” So my grandmother made mole by hand and everything. Yeah. We left probably end of November with one of my dad's friends and it was about a four day car ride where we just, all the way down, we drove all the way down to first a little spot past the border. I don't know exactly what it is, but it's my dad's friend's sister. We spent a day there just kind of rested, hung out. He wanted to see his sister. Then the next day we were in Michoacán or Huaniqueo saw it and we got there at midnight, my grandmother was, thought we were arriving in the morning the next morning. So in the middle of the night, she comes out and my grandpa, everybody's like, “Oh, my gosh, you guys are here,” and everybody's crying. I was like, “hi, hi hi. It's me.” It was pretty cool when I got there. LR: Sounds like it. So you for the five, six years you spent in Ogden what are some of your memories of that time? 7 AF: It was kind of the first immigrant kind of child problems, or not problems, just duties where you're translating documents, and there's memes online all over where you're translating legal documents at the age of five, six. My parents, you know, up to now, I still do it. My dad, like, “What is this a bill? What do I have to pay here?” Or “What is this hospital thing that they sent for your brother's birth?” It was a lot of that, but it was also a lot of really good times. My parents love to entertain, and food is everything in our household. My parents, there was probably a six-month period one summer, I remember every weekend there was a different party at my house. There was a wedding, there was a first communion, there was something going on. My parents love to just cook. I remember batches and batches of fried chicken that they would make and carne asada and all that fun stuff. It was a lot of schooling, too. I love going to school. I remember there were certain things that were hard, reading, writing, getting used to going from Spanish to English. Very young I remember a lot of things. I would translate into Spanish in my head to be able to understand them a little bit better. And then as the years gone out, I actually go from English to Spanish now if I need to work in Spanish just cause I've gotten so used to it. As far as a normal childhood, that's what it feels like. It never felt like I was out of place, you know, even though we were probably. I mean, lower income or on the poorer side, I never felt like it as a kid. My dad always made sure we had the basics. I had birthday parties and I'd say nothing out of the ordinary, just like a normal childhood, just with extra responsibilities of translating this and being like, “Hi, I'm 8 on the phone, my dad's right here, he doesn't speak English,” and then it was back and forth translating through people in the phone. LR: So did that ever seem out of place? I mean, being the translator did that ever become a like an annoyance if you will? AF: As I got older probably as a teenager it did. When I was younger it's what I did. You know, it was never... I liked helping, I think. You know, you develop your love languages as you get older, and I think taking care of doing chores for people, like very much become one, because I was so indoctrinated since I was young that I had to do, or not that I had to. But it was like, “Can you help with this?” My parents, always like, “Can you help us out with this.” It's never like you have to. LR: That's really cool. MT: So if I have my timeline correct. You were living here in the U.S. when 9/11 happened. AF: I did, yeah. MT: How did that affect your family, especially knowing you had family in Mexico and you would have gone down to Mexico shortly after that? AF: I had in a sense, I think my parents understood the severity of it. I, as a kid, you know, with multiple schools, I was like, what do you remember of this? Or my mom was like, I just remember being scared. She was like the same way everybody else was. I think shortly after 9/11 happened, it was when the borders were getting really tight and knowing that, like coming and going as it was before is not going to be as easy. I think that was, not the biggest fear, but kind of just the biggest hurdle that they had to understand from 9/11 because I had uncles 9 and aunts who were planning to come over. But after a certain point they kind of stopped or waited a little bit before they were able to actually do it or come. They were, it was just they were kind of like my parents were like it just happened. “We're not too sure what it means, but we know it's not good.” LR: OK. Did it complicate coming back to the US after you. AF: Oh yeah. That's I think that whole journey is one that I spoke to a lot. We came back probably late in March when we were finished in Mexico. My dad joined us probably in January. So he was there with us three months or halfway through after that late March, we started the journey back and my mom's sister, my aunt Patricia, joined us. It was now three of us that were crossing, not just two. My parents had signed letters that my aunt, who lives in California, could pick my brothers up at the border and bring them over to her house. So my little brother, since they were citizens, they were fine. They just, you know, drove across. I remember we took a flight to the border and then my aunt picked up my brother from there and brought them over. Then we were, I called it the safe house. We were at the safe house for a couple of nights with a couple who owned a store. So in Mexico, it's very traditional, where your upstairs is like the living quarters and bottom, it's your business. So that's the way it was. The first time we tried crossing, a gentleman picked us up in a car. We went to his safe house. We were there for about a full day and then we went to a different safe house. One that, I don't know if you've ever seen movies where just people are locked down dark, there's nothing. That's what it was. It was a house where it was full of men, probably mid-twenties, younger men, honestly, probably 10 twenties and up, older men just it smelled like urine and then they put us in a room or they were like, “Hey, you guys will stay here.” I remember my dad, late night. They're like, “Hey, does anybody need food or anything?” He's like, “Yeah, here's some money. Bring us some bread and milk for my family and my daughter.” I just remember, it was dark and all I could see was shadow sitting with bobs of head and constant chatter. Then the next morning, they were showing us how were going across and it was going to be in a vehicle and probably like a 19... Probably an older Camry, something just small and they were going to put me in the trunk of a car. I'm not kidding you, I had less space than probably what one of these seats are. LR: Oh, wow. AF: So I was going to have to be curled up in a little ball for hours, probably about four to five hours. And crossing the border, that line, I mean, it's insane. You really are there for hours. My mom and the other ladies, my aunt Patricia, she was going to go in the front of the car with fake visas or different visas. Once my dad saw where we were going to be at, my dad's like, “She's not gonna make it.” I remember him going off to the side and being like, “Hey, I don't want to ruin this for you, and I don't want to ruin this for me. Keep the money that we've given you. It's OK, but just let us go. I mean, we don't have to tell anybody, just let the four of us go and we're on our way.’ I just remember being like I was like I was determined. I was like, “Oh, shoot, I can sit and I can do it.” But I know my dad didn't want to put me through that because he himself has been in a situation very similar, where he's been crammed in a truck for hours. So he was like, nope. 11 So I remember they let us go in a random street. We found some rotisserie chicken that somebody was out there. I remember we went back to the safe house, ate our chicken and kind of had the rest of the day. I think I went to the Sam's Club with the owners of the store and it was just the day, nothing crazy. Couple of days later, we were going to hike in the Sierras. So I remember we started very early, maybe four or five o'clock in the morning, and it was just hot desert Sierra where we're going to climb all the way up. We probably climbed up for hours and hours and hours. My mom had this yellow sweater and my mom's like, “I can't. It's too hot. I have to leave it. It's too hot.” My dad's like, “No, no.” We still have this yellow sweater, too. So this yellow sweater, and I remember the exact tree where or the location mom was going to put it and it was kind of higher up. She was just going to put it on top of the tree. If you look at the trees, kind of those like dry kind of bushy looking trees with very small leaves and over the horizon, it's just beautiful desert hills with the beautiful blue sky. I remember that clear as day. My dad's like, “No, we're going to need it later. Plus we don't want to like if there's a helicopter or if there's anything, they're going to see it.” So we took it and we kept walking. I remember just dirt and I would see the little lizards and very kind of disassociated, you could say, to the point... and just walking and this one makes me a little emotional. Then it got to the point where it was night, probably about midnight. We got to a cave and like in the movies, I'm not kidding, they moved a boulder and they're like, crawl in, and we slept in a cave. My mom, I remember she was like, so scared. She was like 12 snakes, animals, scorpions, you never know. She was and she was like, “You were so tired that as soon as you hit the rock floor, you passed out, and low and behold, that yellow sweater was the one that kept you covered at night. [Crying] So. Sorry. LR: You're just fine. AF: And my mom, she was like, “You were shivering the entire night. I don't know, I mean I remember just passing out, just being so tired. It was I think my aunt, my mom, myself and my dad and then again, very early, like four or five a.m, they woke us up and we started walking again. That was my mom's birthday, April six, I remember. We started crossing or we started walking a couple of hours in the first half, ran off because the ICE was coming and then the back half somebody got too scared and didn't keep running. So they kind of crouched down. But I remember ICE came and we all went to jail essentially. But I remember my mom's arm was, like, held tight, like she would not let me go. She was like, “Nope, she's staying with me the entire time. She's staying with me the entire time.” I believe we got her fingerprints taken and of course we got like booked and everything. I remember sitting in a little cell with my mom and just like my dad wasn't with us, my aunt was there. But just being like, “OK, what's next? How long are we going to be here?” We were there probably a couple of hours, we signed the... I think it was a thing where you just signed to like willingly go back to Mexico and that was kind of it. I remember my mom saying, “You go stay with your aunt, I'm going to make sure your dad comes out.” So she didn't leave until my dad came out, and he did a little bit later. And then 13 we just went back and I remember getting to the house and the ladies like in the best possible way, “I didn't want to see you guys again.” My dad's like, “I know, we didn't want to see you either.” I think that exact night my aunt from California, which she lived in Coachella in the Coachella Valley. So it's right there. She got in touch with somebody who kind of helped with kids. So what happened is she came and picked me up at a train station. My hair was about to my butt and the way they were going to sneak me in is I was going to pretend to be her son. My mom was like, “I will cut your hair right here right now if I need to, be able to to get it to do so.” I mean, I don't know how, but my mom got it in a bun, put me in a hat, they told the officers that I was sick and that I needed a vaccine and that I was groggy. So I was very sleepy. She told me a certain word, she was like, “As soon as they say the word, you just very gently raise your hand and nod yes.” For the life of me, for years I've tried to remember this word, but I can't remember what it is. I just remember being put in this boy's little outfit and my parents did the sign of the cross and they're like, “We'll see you on the other side.” My Aunt Patricia was actually going to be snuck in the back of this van and kind of was probably like the Ventura van or something where they had a little scoop at the bottom. They pulled the scoop out, she laid in there and they laid blankets and stuff just to cover it, and then they put candy and pinatas on top. The thing was that, it was my brother's birthday so they were getting party supplies. But I was also sick and so they were just taking me to the doctor there… they had a story. I remember like being put in this car, I just knew that I 14 had to pull it off, that's all I knew. I pretended to, very early, fall asleep and just lay there. I remember she's like, “We're getting into the first cross.” I was like, “OK.” Then the gentleman, they look in the back and they’re like, “What's all this for?” The lady’s like, “Oh, my son's birthday is in two weeks, blah, blah, blah, blah. We just came to get some supplies so we didn't have to come down before I got too close and we can get stuff ready,” I remember she said. They’re like, “What happened to your little guy?” She's like, “He got the flu or something and he just got an injection or something, and so he's just a little tired. Then he comes in, and was like, “Are you OK?” I just remember nodding and he said the word and I just very gently [raises hand] went up and again and my hand just very gently went up and he was like, “OK, well hope you feel better.” They closed the trunk and she got in my truck and we left. Then she was like, “We still have another check point. So don't, like keep your guard up.” But on the second point, on the second check they just kind of wave you through really. As soon as they literally waved us through, she was like, you're good. [Recording cuts out.] [Recording resumes] AF: I just remember we were and I popped my head up and she was like good job, like we'll take you to your aunt's. I remember, we stopped at Jack-In-The-Box I got some food. And then I got to my aunt's house a couple of hours later. I remember once everybody was out of the car, I whispered to my aunt, “We did it,” Then I just went in, got my little chicken nuggets or burger. I honestly couldn't tell you what it was, and we just drove back. My parents took a little bit longer. 15 They had some hiccups. But about two weeks later, we were all probably all together. LR: OK, so the second time you crossed, how old were you? AF: I was nine. LR: I mean, when you came back? AF: Yeah. LR: So you weren't in Mexico for very long? AF: No, we got there probably December 2nd. So I was eight essentially, my birthday is December 16th, so about two weeks I turned nine and we were there till about late March or early April. LR: That makes more sense. And so you were nine, so that would have been... AF: 2004. LR: OK, for some reason, I thought you were in Mexico for a lot longer than just about four months. AF: Yeah, about four or five months that we were there. My parents knew that they wanted it to be kind of a shorter trip since it was that length of time. The school actually told them that I had to go to school there. So from I believe mid- December, all the way through right the end, right before we came, really, I attended school in Mexico and that was a culture shock. LR: OK, how so? AF: So here I was very used to like the very beautiful, colorful classrooms. And you're kind of a little bit more peppy here. And in Mexico, it's very kind of you get to work. There is I mean, we joke around, but it is very serious. The teachers come 16 in and, “Ok, we're hitting this, this, this.” I remember there was a lot of copying. There wasn't enough books for everybody to have their own or from like the teachers stuff. My mom bought me the set of books, she was like, “I'm not going to spend the money on the uniform but I'll buy the set of books.” So I got my set of books and I just remember there was a lot of copying from the chalkboard and I was not used to it, and I was the slowest kid in class. I remember one time the teacher was like, “You can't go to recess until you finish it.” I was like, what? School in America is really nice in that way, like the teachers understand that you need a little bit of a break. But there it was like you get it done or there's a no go, you eat your lunch in the classroom. I remember doing this. I got to see a lot of the cool culture stuff half way or on the Three Kings Day in December- in February- on January 6th, you get the Three Kings bread, and then in February something right before a certain Catholic holiday, which I should know, but I don't know. You have like a big potluck and in the king bread there are little baby Jesus. Whoever gets the baby Jesus has to bring the food for that potluck for everybody. I remember I wanted a baby Jesus and they got to a point where you could see it. I was like, “I want it.” My mom's like, “What the heck, why'd you want the baby?” I was like, “I don't know,” I just wanted to be part of the crew that brings food. So we brought food. I mean, I made friends in Mexico. I think some of the kids that I actually went to elementary school there eventually crossed the border when I was in high school and then a couple of them actually went to school with me here in Ogden High. 17 Ogden has a big population of people where I am from, Huaniqueo. Essentially where I'm from, a big population are from there. So I knew a lot of kids and a lot of kids that I went to school I'm still friends with online and Facebook and they're like, “Oh, do you remember?” And, “Yeah I remember.” So school was weird. I wore a uniform and you had to march every Monday morning. You wake up as soon as you get to school, you don't even go in the classroom. You're out and you salute the flag and they play the national anthem. The principal gives a little bit of a speech. “Hey, good week. Blah blah blah blah.” Then you march into class. I think it's the only day you wear the uniform, on Mondays. There was a little bit of a uniform and it was just like a black skirt and like a polo a white polo. But yeah, every Monday you wear the uniform, salute the flag and you get on with your day. LR: So culturally speaking, was it just the culture shock for school or was it a culture because you'd spent most of your life in Ogden? AF: Everything was a culture shock I mean, like I said, my grandma owned a farm. So in the morning he would go milk the cows and that's the milk we'd use through the day. I don't know how to put this. You boil the milk and then you kind of leave it out. You don't put it in the fridge. The bacteria has been killed essentially. So my mom would take milk and water it down because she was like, “I don't know what it's going to do to you guys. So we're going to stick on the safe side.” Over time, we got used to the milk. We had fresh eggs. My grandmother had a row of trees. 18 My mom is number five of ten. My dad is number two of nine. So they come from very large families. My mom's house is very big. It's a big two story green house with a big black gate, and my grandfather owns the plot of land in front where he keeps the animals. Then in the back is where he had the lentil field and right inside, probably basically in the backyard, there was a lemon tree, a passion fruit tree, I mean, number of fruit trees. They had pigs and turkeys and baby goats and chickens and stuff that I would go play with every day, and in the back there was a swamp where my cousins and I would go play. I remember my I've always had a thing for shoes. My dad sent me with about four pairs of brand new shoes to Mexico, he was like, I just want to make sure you've got everything. There's a pair of baby boots that I remember wearing.... It was a party day, and my cousins are, “Let's go play in the swamp.” I was like, cool, but I didn't assume you actually got in a swamp. And my mom, she was like, “Your cousins are just probably a little bit jealous.” But like I remember, they pushed me in the swamp and I came home crying. I was like, “My baby blue boots are ruined, my baby blue boots are ruined.” My cousins were like, “Don't be a baby. They're just shoes and blah, blah, blah, blah.” I remember that was the biggest… everybody was like, “What, like you're crying over shoes?” I was like, I don't know, like, it's just it's the boots. I love them so much.” That's the big memory that I have, just kind of being with them. But I enjoyed getting to know them. A lot of them now have visas and they can come over and so we'll hang out every couple of years. But it was really cool to get to know them and see the family dynamic and meet uncles and aunts that I 19 didn't know I had and new cousins that I didn't know I had either. Same on my dad's side, they're very kind of keep to themselves. But my dad's side is very different. He has a lot of sisters and in both houses, it's 50/50. Half of us are here and half of my uncles and aunts are in Mexico. LR: OK, so you were nine when you came back and you've been in Ogden ever since. As you're getting back into elementary school, how was... did you... I still struggle with how to ask these questions, so be patient with me. When did you start noticing that you were a little different? AF: Probably in the fourth grade as about the school year after I came back, I was in a classroom with Mrs. Miller in Ogden, in Horace Mann. There was a girl, her name was Ricky, and I just remember we were inseparable as soon as we got to class. The teacher had to separate us because we would sit and talk so much. But in recess, every single recess we spent together, we sat at lunch every single day together. I think she was also Catholic, so we always had a little bit of a bond. We always talked or whatever, and we did this and, how was your weekend? She gave me a picture of herself and I kept it in my little binder. I remember in recess, it's the fourth grade and you're kids, but she would put on my sweater because she was so much smaller than I was. I was always a little bit of a bigger kid, a little chubbier. So I would zip up my sweater and tie her hands around in the back, and then she would run around and I would try to chase her, that was the game. We played every single day and then both of us actually went to summer school that year. We saw each other at summer school and again, very like together. But I remember like almost at the end of the school year, I cut 20 a heart around her face and she was like, “Wait, why'd you ruin the picture?” I was like, “No, I just wanted to make it prettier.” She got a little upset that I cut the picture. But I was like, “It's my picture.” But I think that's the first time I realized that, I like this person more, but I don't know, like how to evaluate the feelings or understand what was going on with them. LR: But yeah, that's fair enough. When you were living in Ogden, going to Horace Mann, where did you live? AF: In the same house I live today. We've lived in a house that's in the middle of 33rd and 34th on Childs. My dad bought it about six months after my youngest brother was born in 2001 and I lived there all my life essentially. LR: That helps. All right, so you went to Horace Man your entire elementary time. AF: Yes, fifth grade. And then I went to sixth grade at Mount Ogden, and then I went to high school at Ogden High. LR: OK, so let's talk about junior high. Everyone's favorite time. How was that for you? Did you struggle or, you know just... AF: Junior high, I think for me was, I wouldn't say it was easy, but it was not anything crazy. Like I was good at school. I guess very early on, like, I wasn't like, essentially like the normal feelings like straight people have you could say to where like, “Oh, you have a little boyfriend,” in junior high or you have crushes. I guess if I had crushes I never really knew who they were for. If anything, I had maybe a crush on my friend's boyfriend. But it was maybe now that I realized the feelings, it was maybe towards her and not him. So just kind of stuff like that. But I always was very like calm, I was very chill. There was a boy that I was very 21 close friends with, and him and I were, how do I put it? Mount Ogden, there was a set of kids, Hispanic kids that either got put into, I wouldn't say the remedial classes, but it was just the teachers that maybe just didn't give us care as much. There was certainly Hispanic kids that were put in other classes. This kid Jorge and I were put in the class where the teacher wasn't that interested, he gave us very superficial like assignments and stuff. Jorge and I liked school, we wanted to do good in school. So him and I were the kids that did, Jorge and Andrea would be team leaders. We would always have like class competitions and they would be like, “Oh, Jorge and Andrea cannot be together because they're the smartest kids,” and it was stuff like that. So Jorge never tried hard, very hard. And so throughout the entire years him and I would just be together all the time. People assumed we were together and I was like, no, no, no. Jorge did the same thing like, no, no, no. Over time, I had a friend who I became very close friends with. She would always tell me, “Are you gay?” And I was like, “No.” And Jorge, everybody assumed Jorge was also gay, and Jorge's like, “No,” his voice hasn't dropped. He was a little bit of a chubby kid, and again, I was a little bit of a chubby kid and that was probably the story till, about sixth, seventh grade. I remember at eighth grade, I got like my first real haircut and I started straightening my hair and looked a little bit different, more like the other girls you could say. I felt a little bit more comfortable in my body. I remember being very young and being like, “Oh, what are these like?” Boobs came in early. I figured out everything about ninth grade and or figured out a hair straightener out, let's be honest. And then from 22 there it was the same, but like never had any interest at boys. I always just cared more about school and getting good grades and getting into the honors classes. That was the biggest thing. LR: Did you ever feel like, as far as you're going through junior high, did you ever have anyone you could talk to, to really just voice what was happening in your head? AF: No, not really. I don't even think I realized what was happening or who like, who I was really. I just knew that I like school. I was playing competitive soccer on the Hispanic League. So I was on the soccer field three, four times a week. I just it was my little schedule. I had soccer practice X amount of times. I had games on Sundays, up to two on Sundays. I think the biggest thing about, like in that kind of area was, era was my parents weren't really involved. My mom worked night shifts and my dad worked early. And so it was this where we had soccer practice was just around my house. So I just I walked to soccer by myself every day. My friends would come pick me up and we would walk to soccer every day. And that was about it. The school was very just what you do. I was like, “I can't go out, I'm doing homework,” and my friends, they're like, “No, come on, you don't need to read,” which now they're the readers and I'm not. LR: OK, you mentioned that there were certain members of the Hispanic population in Mount Ogden were put into the remedial classes. Did you ever feel like you were being discriminated against or was that just like the status quo? AF: I don't know. I think that a lot of us were put in there because maybe it was just easier for the stuff, because most of us in the class were Hispanic, the teacher 23 was Hispanic. I don't know if it was because and as far as ESL, I remember I hadn't taken ESL or felt like I needed ESL courses since probably fourth grade. My English was well, I could read and write, no problem. I was very good at getting the stuff done. I mean, it did feel like when we were all in that class we're like, “Why are we like all here?” There were certain kids in other classes, but I mean I always remember feeling a little bit of a discrimination as far as like being in school. But it was something you kind of just deal with or it becomes second nature to a certain point. LR: So I guess we can move on to high school, you went to Ogden High. Did you ever feel the need to actually I mean, when did you actually were actually, able to verbalize, “I'm gay.” AF: Oh, that was many, many years. I was probably twenty-one. LR: OK. So after high school. AF: Late bloomer, yeah. My high school career again was super normal, nothing out of the ordinary. I had like one fake little boyfriend when I was like a tenth grader at the end of my 10th grade year and it just felt like what I did and he was my first kiss. Again, I was never really too interested in anything like that. I just remember his breath tasted like a chicken sandwich from the lunchroom, and I was like, “This is awful, like, I hate this.” I then went back into and at that point, that kind of summer was kind of, I shedded some of the baby weight, felt a little bit more comfortable. 11th grade came around and I was interested in playing soccer, Ogden High is a competitive girl soccer team, so I unfortunately didn't make the team. 24 But I had like a great school year. I remember the biggest thing when I was a junior was that the ACTs, the test. I'm terrible at taking tests. I didn't get the best, I think I got a really bad score the first time. The second time I tried it, my score went up pretty good and the councilor even called me and he's like, “I just want to say congrats on your score. Like you went a lot more than, like traditionally you only go one or two points. You went up six points.” So it was like, OK, cool. I was really just focusing on taking AP classes and I started college courses. It was always kind of towards my future. “What am I, what do I want to do, where do I want to go.” I have a lot of kids go into late high school and high school thinking, “Well I want to be a doctor,” and that was very much myself. I was always in the anatomy classes in the medical terminology classes and doing extracurriculars. I did certain teams and stuff like that. Senior year came around and I had most of my credits by the time I was at senior year. I remember a lot of my, I had a couple of free periods or I just didn't want to go home. I want to be at school with everybody else because all my friends went there. A lot of my friends were doing packet, and I was happy just to be a TA for the gym teacher and Grounds for Coffee was around the corner. She's like, “Hey, you want to go grab some coffee?” So I would go pick up coffee for all of the gym teachers in there and hang out with all the people in there. Senior years kind of were like my core group of friends was built. I always make a joke that I was the funny one in the group because I always, my friends were the prettiest girls in school and everybody wanted to sit with us. It was probably a group of honestly fifteen kids that would sit in the same spot every day, myself 25 and all my friends, the boys, and it was good. I just that was the funnest time to go to lunch and you'd meet everybody. In that time you had an hour lunch, but if you had a C or low in a certain class, you had to go to that class for tutoring until you got your grade up. I was never in tutoring. I was just always sit there half an hour by myself or a couple of the other kids and for the rest of them to come out and... I remember at Ogden High, it is girls choice for prom. So there was a boy that I had a crush on the entire high school career his name is J.D. and I got up the courage and got on to ask for prom. He went with me to prom and we did the whole thing and we partied. I mean, I partied, I think it's when I started actually going to parties and I mean, there's some wild nights crying drunk kids where you probably shouldn't have crying drunk kids. But I had a really nice like I think senior year really like was the best year. I got to work. I took classes at the ATC because the district would pay for them. I took a medical or lab tech class. So I learned to draw blood and do stuff my senior year and then right away I started college right after that. August of 2013 was my first year here at Weber actually. LR: That's kind of funny, I was going to Weber at that time. AF: Oh, Cool, cool. LR: So I'm hoping I'm not out of line asking this question, but while you're going to school, you're not a citizen. AF: No, I have DACA. LR: OK, for those of us who don't know what that is, will you talk about that and give a little background for that. 26 AF: Yeah. So DACA was an affirmative action that President Obama instituted where kids, if they had entered before the age of 16 at a certain age, there's dates required. But I remember you had to take physical proof that you would be here. So I remember my parents took a picture of me with a newspaper from that day, at like Ogden High being like, look, she was here on that day. It made it to where you got a work permit for two years and then you got to Social Security that was for working only. So I could go to school and I can work. I've had it ever since then. There was times where it was a potential where it would come and go. The way the process is for, the first time you apply, it's a big, long application. You do your fingerprints and then after that they kind of send you your work permit. The first time they send you your Social Security, but after that, you just kind of reapply and reapply and you have to go get your fingerprints done every year except 2020, and up till now, just because of covid. Then a couple of months later, usually get your work permit in the mail. Most employers really try to push you to, like, renew it right before yours expires. For instance, mine unfortunately, did expire between the gap, but I got my new one this year. Mine expired June 9th. And then I didn't get my new one until July 23 this year. Just because the president, President Trump in a sense, kind of tried to get rid of it. But then judges stopped it, being like, you know, you just can't get rid of it the way you're trying to. Then it eventually did make its way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court just said the way Trump wants to get rid of it is not a viable way because just the way it was instituted. So it was brought back to the way it was. For a small period in time, Donald Trump made it to where you had to 27 reapply every year and no new applications can come in. Yeah, it's very confusing. So since I have had it from the beginning, I have never once been able to not have it. So as long as I reapply on time, I will get my work permit and my Social Security card will keep working with that one time, Trump had it to where you had to renew it every year and certain cases, only did have it for a year. Also kind of piled up into this year to where it's just very behind. So it's taking longer right now. Last I've heard, a judge put another ban on it or said it was unconstitutional, again. Which about 10 donors have said it was unconstitutional. Every time it gets, they're like relax homie. So right now, no new applications can come in. But you can keep reapplying if you've been in the program. MT: Can you reapply? Like is there an age limit once you reach a certain age? AF: Nope, as long as you're working and you don't have to keep going to school because I mean, people graduate. But as long as you're working and you're in good standing, like nothing essentially is going to happen. There's a travel permit that you can get, but it's for like rare cases. For instance, there was an athlete who at the Tokyo Olympics who essentially has DACA and lives in Arizona, but he competed for Guatemala. So he had to ask for that special document to have permission to go over there. I don't even think he could be there the entire time. He could go like his competition times and then he had to come back. It's very specific. For instance, if I wanted to go, my grandma would have to be sick or something happen for me to be like, “It's an emergency, I need to go take care of this and come back.” In the long run it's not a bad idea because when you leave 28 the country and then you come back with this paper, you're... for the kids that come in illegally, essentially. When you come back and your passport is stamped that you were given like legal entry into the country, then it becomes, down the line, if you ever have the potential to get a green card or a residency, it becomes a lot easier than, for instance, myself who just came illegally there. No documentation or anything. We’ll get to a story where I was married to a citizen and we tried to do the paperwork and him and I just that's kind of when I came out and got divorced from him and then I didn't do any of that stuff. Right now there is the Dreamers Act that is in and it's passed the Senate. But I think it had to go back to the House to get some stuff worked out. Of course, there's just certain members of Congress that will not let it or will keep fighting it and fighting it. But we're hopeful that Joe Biden will maybe pressure or do something. But at this point, you know, it's really going to come down to, I mean, I've talked to a lot of my friends in the same boat and they're like, “If something happens, it's going to be probably closer to his reelection where he needs to get that Hispanic vote and they're going to pressure. You had four years to try to do this.” But again, as a person who understands what's going on in the world with the situation in the Middle East and taking in refugees, I think, in my personal opinion, prioritizing, then getting us a lot taking care of. I understand and we know the situation and we've talked a lot about it with my friends. And we're like, it's right now it's kind of plateaued. There's nothing happening. It's not moving anywhere. They're more concerned with the security of the country. So we'll see what happens. I'm hopeful, but we actually had a friend write a letter to 29 the office. It wasn't Mitt Romney's. It was the other guys in the Senate and in the office of the Senator came back saying, like, “Thank you for your letter, but we don't agree because we don't agree with you, because x, y, z. So we will not be voting yes on the DREAM Act.” MT: Mike Lee? AF: Yeah. LR: Along with that, I'm kind of jumping ahead a little bit and so we're going to go back to when you started college in just a second, but what are your plans for beyond doing that, the Dreamer Act. What are your plans? AF: So up til the point that I got divorced, I get married kind of early, and then for the last couple of years, I've kind of just partied and had fun. Now I'm kind of really serious about, I'm halfway through the marketing degree and I just need to get it done. So I want to finish a marketing degree and then I actually want to get a minor in art history. Eventually I'd like to, if nothing ever happens, I would like to emigrate to Canada. I know once you have an education or are in a good standing with the country, it's not that hard to immigrate to Canada as a workers visa and then eventually apply for residency and hopefully eventually become a Canadian citizen. If nothing comes out, the next few years, just because I've explained it as being in a golden cage. You can have everything you want here. I mean, I can buy a house, I can buy a car. I can go from Hawaii to Puerto Rico to the top of Maine to the US side of Niagara Falls. I can reach all of that, but that is it. For somebody who has been told that this is home when your parents bring you out of where you're... this is the way I take it, when my parents left for 30 Mexico, they choose where I got to call home. And don't get me wrong, I love Ogden. But I wouldn't say Utah's home, Ogden's home. But other than that, I have always had, like, a limited variety of what I could do. I remember I always was very into school. I can't remember if it was like ninth grade going into tenth grade. I got invited to go to a program to go to take students to Japan. Of course, they couldn't do it, and I remember being a bummer, being like I could have gone to Japan, but like very rational being like as soon as I got the letter, I told my mom. She was like, “You can't go.” I was like, “No, I know, but I just want to tell you.” So it's very difficult. I mean, a lot of my friends are like the World Cup in 2022 is coming up next year and it's Mexico, US and Canada. I was like, well I'll catch the US games, as many as I can. Just nothing like that. Just kind of frustrating being like, “I would like to see more of the world. I've worked hard my entire life, but.” MT: It's almost like you're incarcerated. AF: Yeah. So golden cage. Everything I want and can have, but it's only here. So Canada seems like a nice place. Toronto, that area. LR: OK. I'm sorry, I went a little ahead. So you graduate from high school and you start, did you start here at Weber? AF: Yeah, started going summer or fall 2013, took a bunch of generals just doing really, really well. I was playing on the rugby team, the girls rugby team. I was a fullback and I was also, for I did one game, I played the position of Hooker, which is, since I'm a small human, I attach myself to large girls who hold me in essentially what's called a scrum. That's where the big kind of people get into a 31 fight. Then you've got to hook the ball back to your team. Gave a girl a third degree concussion. Kind of flipped her over and she fell on her head. She was also wearing a helmet. So that was kind of wild. Came back, did spring, and then just kind of kept going. I would say that I was doing good, I was passing all my classes. Everything was going good. December of about 2014, I met the person who would eventually be my husband. Because of him, I kind of let everything's slack. I remember I was going to spring 2015 and that's where I was kind of like, not care, but because I never had a connection with this person, essentially, like I wanted to be with him all the time, and I just wanted to hang out and kind of have that relationship, that I never really had up until then. So I started slacking and then my grades did go down and down. I remember I spent thousands of dollars and not doing anything and not progressing and up to like now, not really gone back, I've taken classes here and there, but now I'm kind of serious to finish school. LR: You mentioned marketing is what you wanted to get into? Was that always... AF: No, I started with biology and pre-med stuff. I really wanted to be a doctor, and little by little I realized as much as I like that kind of fast paced energy, it was not for me. I took like the human biology class where you're actually in with the bodies, and I was like, “Oh, cool.” It wasn't anything out of the ordinary. But I was like, “I don't think I want to do this forever.” So then I started working in sales at a jewelry store and then very quickly got really into that kind of side. But it wasn't even like the selling. It was the arranging of products and showing products and that route. 32 LR: That makes sense. So this gentleman that you met and eventually married, looking back on it now, what prompted it, I mean, was it literally just because you... AF: Josè and I got very you know, it was a bond. We liked a lot of the same things. We liked soccer. I was never into cars, but I'd always liked cars, and he worked on cars. So we've had different cars that he would be working on. I met him when I was 20 or right before I turned 20. So my entire year that I was 20, we were together and our first date was December 25th on Christmas, because when you're Hispanic, the 24th is the big day that you celebrate and the 25th is kind of cure your hangover you would say. He picked me up and we went to grab Chinese because it's the only thing open and we watched a movie and, and then a couple of days later we had our second date and by the first of January he asked me to be his girlfriend. I was like, “Yeah, I would love to.” He was my first everything as far as kind of going further goes, he was my first. And we were really good together. He sold cars, and he was five years older than I am too, so he had been selling cars for a couple of years. He did really well and we kind of just hung out and we would go biking and we would go golfing and sit and watch soccer games and eat pizza. It was just very kind of friend- I mean, not friendly, but obviously, like, we just got along really well. LR: And it almost sounds like he became your whole life, though. AF: Yeah, very much, he did. In looking back today, I was like obsessed. I wanted to be around him all the time. If I knew it was his day off and he didn't ask me to hang out, I was upset and I would leave and I would be like, “Oh, I'm studying.” 33 But I was just kind of waiting for him to text me and not care about it. I think it's because I've been home all my life and I was very good at just being home. I would party when I would go out with my friends and we would go dancing a lot. But it's just that connection that we had that I was like I loved and so then I wanted to be with him all the time. But yeah, he became my whole world. LR: And you eventually married him? AF: Yeah. So we went on our first vacation five months together, so he took me to California and then by that August, or October we'd been together for ten months. We got engaged. A year later, we were married, we got engaged on October 11th, we were married on October 22nd of the next year. The wedding came, and when he decided to get married, or we finally decided a date, I was very much looking for the next six months and he was like, “No, what about October 22nd?” I was like, “That's a month and a half away. Like, how are we going to pull it off?” I remember just being like, OK with whatever. I wasn't too into it or whatever. He bought a MetroPCS store for us in Brigham that we were running that was going to be like our business for the future, you know, looking towards and I quit whatever I was doing to go work at the store, like I was making no money. I hated that store and I hated doing that. But I'm kind of a long-term kind of person, so it seemed worth it at the time. Our first year of marriage was rough. At that point, I wasn't happy. We were eating a lot. I was pretty overweight. I was close to about two hundred pounds. I remember one time I had a doctor's appointment and he was like, you're a full blown diabetic now, which I had been told I was pre-diabetic at the 34 age of 12. I knew it was going to happen in the future. I just expected it when I was like in my forties. But the bad habits just continued. Right after that, I started getting into shape. I started running and eating better and I kind of quit the bad habits. For a while we started smoking weed and just kind of the motivation just went down. Then I started working at Fred Meyer Jewelers after I told them I couldn't run the phone store anymore. I was like, “I can't, it's going to ruin us. It's going to ruin everything.” So I started working at a jewelry store, which I had done before. My old manager quit from sales to Fred Meyer Jewelers, and he hired me. I didn't even have a real interview he was just like, “How is life, blah, blah, blah,” and he just passed me up to the district manager and the district manager loved me. So I started back in sales and a couple of months after I started there, a lesbian couple came in and there was a more masc presenting black lady, and there was femme presenting white lady who were together, and my coworker gave the ring to the masc presenting lady. I'm like, “The ring's not for her,” internally thinking, “The ring's not for her.” She's like, “It's for my wife.” I think that's the moment we're like the whole my whole life, like flashes between your eyes and you're like, “Oh, I'm gay.” I never went through the middle stages. I never went through thinking it was bi or anything. I always knew I was like, oh yeah, gay. I remember the little scenarios with my friend, Ricky, being how I was obsessed with it. Then in, I can't remember when it was, I think it was like younger and then I remember in fifth grade being like, “I really like this girl,” walking alone, in recess, like the pavement with my little hands in my pockets 35 being like, “I really like this girl.” But then, like, right away, I was like, “Oh, wait, girls can't like girls.” I didn't remember that until that moment. It was just like a locked memory. Then again, I remembered being probably right around that same age, there was a girl that lived around the corner from me and I would go and there was a bakery next to her house. So I would go buy pastries for us every day and I'd take them over and we'd play for hours. I remember she moved one day and she was telling me she was moving, and the day that she actually moved, I went to go say hi. I remember as soon as I got home, crying and just being to my mom, “She's my friend and I love her.” My mom's like, “You'll find other friends and you guys can stay in touch. There's phones,” and just like sobbing and I completely forgot about that until that very moment. So I kept it for a while. F.D., he's my manager, he's the one who's trans. So very early on, he like, “Oh, I knew you were gay,” and that's usually that scenario. Everybody else knows before you or at least in my case, a lot of my friends are like, “Oh, yeah, we know. So what are you going to do now?” I was like, “No clue.” I loved Josè. Or the idea of what I thought love was. I loved José. Soon after that we had our first wedding anniversary and I remember we had our honeymoon probably in June and in that sense, I remember paying for everything and it was something that I kind of regret against him. Then we had our first anniversary and I bought us a hotel in Vegas and we went for the weekend and I again, remember paying for everything and felt like he wasn't doing enough. From there I kind of, not resentment, but just like unhappiness started. So I had known I felt like he wasn't doing enough, and then right after 36 when we came back was when I really started working out and eating healthy. Probably six months after I told I was diabetic, I lost about thirty pounds and I was looking a lot better, feeling better. José was starting to feel insecure because he was still in that kind of really unhealthy lifestyle. Then he started doing keto and kind of losing some of the weight and then he was feeling better. I just kept feeling conflicted and conflicted. I knew I wasn't happy, and little by little things start to unravel. I remember one day I got kind of drunk and I said, “Do you think we'll be friends after we get divorced?” He was like, “We're not getting divorced. What are you talking about?” I was like, “Well no, you know, like the divorce rate's kind of high, just like, do you think we would be friends after?” He was like, “No.” That happened like probably 2016-17ish. Then we had a little bit of a fight or I just told him like whatever we needed to work something out. He moved out for a little bit and then we kind of got back into the rhythm of it. I remember one day I came home and it was May 1st. I think my time is off, I think that was it was 2018. So we got married, 2016. Our first actual full year marriage was 2017 and then by January of 2018 that's when I was really unhappy and really just kind of working on myself. We broke up kind of the beginning of April, late March, and then we were together, and then we kind of got back together for about a month and a half and then about May 1st, 2018, that's when I was like... I came home and he was drunk and he was just like he was crying, he's like, “I don't think we're going to work. I'm afraid you're going to leave me and blah, blah, blah, blah.” I just felt so, I felt in my head I was like, “I just had to tell him, I have to tell him.” 37 I probably should have waited for him to be a little more sober, but I just kind of blurted out the words and I was like, “Josè, I'm, gay.” He was like, “What?” I was like, “I don't know, I've had these feelings and I didn't know how to tell you and you're emotional and I just don't.” So we were up for hours talking and I think I was like, “Do you need me to leave, do you need me to go.” I think I took a breather. My friend picked me up and then I left for a little bit. I came back and he had set up the air mattress on the floor. I was like, “Are you really going to sleep?” He was like, “Yeah.” So that's where we right away it started falling apart. Then the next day I remember his mom, he moved out the next day. We kept in communication, and he was like, “Are you sure? Like is this blah blah blah.” We would talk, and then he was like, “Did you ever cheat on me?” I was like, “No, I would never, I had never I mean, I only knew I was and I had never talked to a girl or whatever with a girl.” I would tell him because I really did honor our marriage. That did it, and that was it. Then we had no communication for a month. Halfway through the month of June, I think we had a couple of days to ourselves. We got a hotel room and just sat and talked. We talked and talked and talked. I didn't tell my parents I wasn't coming home, and that's a little bit of a key detail into a story. Josè and I were just talking in this hotel room all night. None of us got some sleep. We were just there being together. Then he was like, “OK, like I have to go to work.” I had to go to work the next day. I showed up at the house the next day, very early on my way to work. So I had already had a super emotional, stressful night with him. My dad calls me and 38 he was like, “Since you disrespected me and you didn't tell me what was happening or what you're doing, I'm going to need you to move out.” Just right off the bat. My dad's very hot headed. I was drained from emotion. I was like, “OK.” So essentially I got to work to the jewelry store and I remember being by the big safe where we keep the diamonds, and I just fell apart, started crying on the floor. My friends picked me up and they're like, “You're going to get through this and we're going to get through this. Don't fall apart, like you're stronger than this.” My work team was kind of like the ones who, like, really helped me through everything. I think I left work early that day and I was like, “I just need to go grab my stuff before he gets there.” My mom didn't know that he had asked me to move out. So when I got home and I go grab my bag, my mom's like, “Where are you going?” I was like, “Dad didn't tell you?” She was like, “No.” I was like, “Dad asked me to leave. I'm going to have to go.” So I did. I left and that first night I stayed with a friend and my friends dad is actually friends with my dad. So he called them and he was like, “Hey, just so you know, like Andrea was at my house last night.” And then the next night, I called my uncle and he was like, “Hey, my house is full right now, but let me talk to your other uncle.” So I did go to my uncle's house in Roy and I spent a night or two there. Then my dad texted me. “Why don't you come home?” It took me some head to get around. But I was like, “I just I wanted to be home.” I went home and we didn't talk. Until this day, we haven't talked about it and was something that got brushed under the table. 39 He didn't know why and whatever. That was it. I have never had a close relationship like we had before. So that was a big impact. Right after that, like Josè and I had conversation right in the next couple of days and he was like, “So what are we doing? Do you want to try to work this out or do you not?” I was like, “Josè, it's not that I don't want to work it out, this is who I am and I hope you can understand.” We had multiple conversation. I was like, “You look at girls the same way I look at girls. I don't know how else to tell you that. Like the sex we had like I've never once really enjoyed or felt like something was wrong with me because it wasn't pleasurable.” And that took him aback. And I was like, “That's not you, trust me. It's not you. It's really me.” We had a really big conversation and now we're actually really good friends. We have conversations all the time. We share a dog. The dog lives with Josè most of the time. I bought the dog for our first anniversary for him because he wanted a baby. But since I was younger I was told I can't really have kids with the PCOS. So I was just like, “I can't really have kids but here's a dog.” So we just had to figure out that for a long time. But over, further into a little bit we talked about it and he was pretty open and I mean he understood and he still and he's, I mean, old school in a way that he still doesn't completely understand how somebody could be gay. He thinks it's a choice, even now. He's seen me with like a girlfriend not too long ago and he was like, “I get it a lot more. I can see the happiness in your eyes. It makes a lot more sense.” But it took him, I mean, it's been almost three years that we've been divorced for him to really understand. 40 LR: So during all of this time, I'm trying to understand if your father was upset at you for not telling him about the marriage or that you were gay. AF: No, So I actually have not. My dad doesn't know. He was mad, not because of the marriage, he was mad that I didn't tell him where I was going to be that night and if I was safe. LR: Ok. AF: It was more that protection and he was in his head, “She doesn't need me to watch out for her, then why is she living here, like living in my house essentially.” LR: OK, ok, so you were married but living with your parents? AF: Yeah. So Josè moved in when we got married, he moved into the house with my parents because he lived with his brother and the plan was to save up money for a house. LR: OK, that makes more sense. Then you said PCOS? What is that? AF: That's polycystic ovaries. OK, I think it's hypothyroidism that I have a PCOS and the blood of, made it for like the whole diabetes and just all that fun thing. MT: My wife has the same thing. We're shocked that we were able to have two kids really quickly. AF: Ok, awesome. Congratulations. In some cases it is, people are lucky and you can do it in other cases. I mean, my body just doesn't function, like I don't get a period, ever just naturally if I needed one that would be because I have to be on birth control or like other hormones which make me feel terrible. So I just choose not to. 41 LR: Makes complete sense to me. So since your divorce, is there a reason why you haven't told your parents? AF: I've told my mom. So let me back up. I told my mom and she's known that's the reason I got a divorce. But very early on, she said not to tell my dad. So it came from her. My little brother is gay, my youngest brother Frank. We have been both told, don't tell your dad because he is old school in the mindset where he doesn't want to have gay children. So it's just a bad... LR: This is kind of me interjecting because I'm curious as a parent myself, how is that for you not being able to be honest with your dad? AF: It sucks because he's the one that I've always been closest to. I was always a little tomboy that we were outside cutting the grass together, any time he needed help picking up the leaves. I'm still the first one he calls. My dad trusts me, probably more than anybody, probably even more than my mom, like any time my dad has anything going on, I’m the first one he goes to. So I've had, like, girlfriends here, there. I mean, I can't say like this or that or I have to keep very, very certain to keep things, very surface things, or I'm just hanging out with somebody or I'm going to watch a movie. I guess it never passes that. With my mom, like, I've been able to be a little bit more open with her. But even with her, she was like, “Let's keep that part surface.” You know, when I broke up a couple of months ago and I was going through a really rough time, she's like, “What's wrong?” I was like, “You remember to keep it surface,” so I use her words against her. I know that's good or bad, but I kind of just take it that way. I was like, “This is how you wanted it, so I'm going to keep it.” 42 Back in January, my brother got his nails done with my ex-girlfriend and I mean, it was just little flames on his fingers, nothing more, nothing less. My dad essentially did the same thing that he did to me. He's like, “I'm going to need you to find where to live if you're going to act like this.” My brother just stood his ground and he was like, “I'm not going and whatever,” and he didn't take them off. But he also hasn't done anything else since then. My mom was even got to the point where she was like, “I will pay for the apartment for you guys to live in, and if that means your brother is going to be safe,” because she was worried, I mean, I was worried, too. I started just being like, “How can I make money that I'm making now? Make sure that I have an apartment for him and I.” I'm very protective over him, more than anything, really. I mean, he is a little bit more effeminate and he can't hide it to save his life, it's just him and he's perfect the way he is. So my dad's the one with the issue. MT: Do you think the issue comes from the religious side? Or do you think there's a little bit of, you know, Hispanic culture? AF: I think it's the Hispanic culture. We have a cousin who is openly gay on my dad's side, and my dad will say the meanest things in Spanish and he'll be like this slur word or this and that and him and that. It drives me insane because he's like, I wish you would know. Some people have been like, well, like one of my uncles is like. “Maybe it's because your little brother is a man and it reflects on him.” So it's that more in culture. Some people told me he's probably a little bit more comfortable, you being gay or lesbian, in the sense that I dress super masculine or anything. But I usually do dress a little bit more masc and a little bit more 43 androgynous. My little brother walks around in short shorts and a crop top like I don't know if it's that issue that the way my brother portrays himself and acts that it's not manly to where my dad's comfortable with me being this kind of tomboy because this is who I've been since I was six, seven. I mean, I grew up with all boys around the neighborhood. We would all have bike races. We would all play basketball on the street. I mean, it was all boys and the few girls that I had friendships with, they were really close, tight friendships, but it was just always one on one. It was never like a group. That's kind of how I felt with Josè. I felt very comfortable with the boys. I always would hang outside with my dad and his friends. They're like, “Bring us another beer,” or like and we can just hang out. I was just good. I've always felt very comfortable with the boys, not as comfortable with the girls in that kind of friend way. But my little brother's been the opposite. All his friends in elementary school, I mean, up to probably junior high and high school were all girls. Whenever we have a little get togethers, all his friends are girls, and then a couple of his friends are also gay. I mean, I don't know, to pinpoint it, we have an uncle who's also very homophobic in that way. But we just keep it to ourselves. My mom was just like, “Just take care of yourself,” and she probably doesn't want to get too involved, so then my dad can't come back at her. It's just kind of culturally the way we, I mean that's probably a lot to do with the culture, but also just their internal marriage, which has always had their ups and downs. But what marriage hasn't, you know? MT: Have you told your, you said it was your younger brother was gay? 44 AF: Yeah. MT: So the brother in between. AF: Yeah, he knows. He'll sometimes walk in and be like, “I can't believe my dad's like that.” MT: Have you told anyone else in your extended family? AF: I told cousins in California, like ones a middle school counselor. Told him and I've told certain cousins, my younger cousins know, but they know not to say anything. They're just like, “How's it going?” I'm like, “Good, how are you?” They're very like they're very good. I mean, other than that, it's just like friends. I post on social media and if people get it, they get it. But if not like I'm not here to explain anything. Kind of the way I take it. LR: So I gather then that your parents aren't on social media? AF: They are on Facebook, so I had left Facebook. I do everything I mean, usually just Instagram. LR: OK, that was going to be my, if you're honest on your social media accounts have. AF: No, my dad could have, he could not really. He doesn't even know what Instagram is really. My mom I think have somehow if you accidentally make like a Facebook account you get an Instagram account. But she's also never on it. But I've also tried to keep things very... I think I've posted one picture of me with my ex-girlfriend explicitly kissing. But other than that, it's usually just like posts, but like allies in the community or this and that. 45 MT: Because of your dad's feelings, does that affect your desire to get married again? AF: No, I'm actually really excited. I'd love to get married again. Yeah. Working in the jewelry industry, kind of that wedding vibe stuff, I've helped lots of same sex couples, I've helped lots of hetero couples. I helped a thruple one time. Yeah, that one was interesting, they had a commitment ceremony. Just seeing the excitement that people have to buy a ring and kind of go to that next stage in their life, I'm really excited to do it again. But do it with somebody that I actually know now what love is or like what the future can hold. MT: Does it scare you that you have to come out to your dad? AF: Yeah. I think the biggest reason why I'm kind of ready to get my life together essentially, because like I said, I've been partying the last three years, not really caring about things. I want to be in a place to where like I could move out of his house and be like, “Look, this is me, this is what I'm doing for myself.” If I have a partner, this is them and not really have to be like, I don't need you anymore. So if you don't want to be a part of my life or it gets to that point then I'm sorry you're missing out, but it is what has to be done. I think that's… I told my dad's brother too, the youngest one who is like very open minded, he has young daughters. He was like, “If my daughters ever feel the same way you do, I want them to be comfortable come telling me.” So he knows. He's always been like, “If you need me to come around, when you tell him, I will be there, I can maybe just be a boundary.” I am prepared for the day it comes. I just I don't want to be dependent, not that I am now, but it just living at his house and being a college 46 student again, it's not cheap. I just want to be able to get done with school and hopefully to get to work and get it done and get that done and move out and see what happens, if that makes sense. LR: Any other questions? AF: I had one, can't think of it now. LR: I'll give you a second to think about it. I just have two more specifically. What advice would you give to young people within the LGBTQ+, or as my oldest would say the alphabet mafia. But who identify with within the community? What advice would you give them? AF: I would say that after all the ups and downs you have gone through, all the happy moments you've gone with people in your life, all the sad moments that you've gone through in your life, when you really are truly yourself and feel comfortable and feeling what authentic love is like from a partner of your choosing really opens up your eyes to see that life holds a lot more than ambition, money, this and that. It really gives a purpose because with José, I never wanted children, but now I can't wait to start a family. I can't wait to have, I wouldn't necessarily say the traditional white picket fence, but have kind of a story of the white picket fence. We bought our first house and very much I felt it was always him. But now, when you could really identify with the people that care and love for you and even just the smallest, having friends and like a group of friends in the community, that you are happy to communicate and tell your stories, because up till about last year, I didn't have that many gay friends. But now I'm really good friends with two gentlemen who have been together for six years and have their 47 dog and have their house. It really makes me excited to get to the point where they are. Over the last couple of years, I've made friends in the Lesbian community where it's a lot of we want the same things or you think of the same things. Up to the age of probably twenty four, I never really had that connection with anybody. So really finding essentially your tribe that you can talk freely and feel that kind of friendship love, which is different from partner, but that friendship love like means so much. I think that's what I have been missing my entire life. I never felt like I could reach out to certain friends like I wanted to reach out. But now, anytime I have anything, these guys, I call them, they call me. I used to never have conversations with people every day. I would have very sporadic conversations. “Are we partying this weekend and what are we doing this weekend?” But now it's, “Oh, how's your day been?” Like my friends own a candle company here in Ogden and they're at the bazaar every Sunday. I go visit them every Sunday and help sell their candles or help promote their candles, because I'm so proud of these guys and especially these guys that have made it from East L.A. One of the boys has said he's been shot at and he's had to fight his entire life. He's been this effeminate man who's been taken advantage in multiple ways. I can never imagine that. But the fact that he's felt so comfortable telling me all that stuff and we've known each other a year, like just really kind of brings a connection that I never had before. I think just finding your people and finding the authentic love really opens your eyes and brightens the idea of a future for me at least. 48 LR: Do you think as you've been able to be more authentic with yourself, you're able to be more authentic with those around you? AF: Yeah, yeah. I very much, I always felt kind of uncomfortable in women's clothes, or not necessarily uncomfortable, but just not as comfy. I was very good. Over time I kind of felt more comfortable dressing the way I do or expressing myself in the way that I do, and kind of taking more of a protector. If I'm in a relationship, I become very much kind of a protector, feel like I want to take on that role and that where I had to maybe push or kind of stop those feelings, I just let them flow. For instance, last December, somebody broke into my girlfriend's house, my ex-girlfriend's house, and said he wanted to hurt her. I just remember crawling in my skin and being like, don't let me see this man, because I will like just these feeling that I was like I didn't think I was capable of or like felt that I was entitled to. But I've been letting that fell naturally in and feeling more of myself in past relationships and in new relationships and all that. MT: I wanted to touch a little bit more on the religious side, like being Catholic, growing up Catholic. Have you seen disconnect between your feelings within the Catholic Church and your identity, especially with their stances on gay marriage? AF: Yeah, yeah. So as a kid, I grew up watching telenovelas where at the end of the telenovela you got married in the big church with the priest and that. I always knew I wanted that, but I never fell into kind of the... I didn't know how I was going to fit into it. I think that's where I've kind of grown the biggest disconnect. I mean, I did my first communion. I had my confirmation and I remember very 49 young my mom told me if you wanted a big 15th birthday party, I had to take all the steps to do it. And I did. I did my first communion, my confirmation, I had my quinceanera and I had done all the steps that you can take to be a full Catholic member up until marriage. I've always known I want, even up to now, I would love to be able to get married in a church and kind of do it like that. But that's kind of where the disconnect has stopped. It being like, “OK, this is our stance on how I feel and, you know, and this and that.” But like, it would be nice. I've done everything at St. Joseph's. First Communion, first confirmation, and that's where I had my 15. I mean, everything, so that's always where I grew up, and this is where I want to get married. But now I kind of go back into the church and not that I feel uncomfortable, but it's just kind of that a little bit of a dissonance. I make a joke all the time, “I'm going to walk in and burn very audibly.” Some people are like, “Ha ha ha.” My older kind of family, they're like, “Andrea don't say that.” But to me it's just kind of like a funny way to brush it off. I've even mentioned to past partners, I would love to have my kids to do all the sacraments. I mean I was baptized when I was ten months. I mean super young. I mean, baptism is kind of not like when you're a full Catholic, it's kind of your confirmation where you're getting anointed and you pick a saint name. I remember picking Saint Bernadette and all that stuff. So I love the church, but I don't know if I would consider myself religious. I don't pray very often. But when I do, it's usually to the Virgin Mary. I think that's who I've had a little bit more connection on. My parents have always had a statue of her in the house. I mean, 50 that is the first kind of little metal I wore when this is the chain I got when I turned fifteen, but I took for the Virgin Mary off, and I just wear the chain. LR: So when you got married to Jorge, you didn't get married in the church? AF: No, it was just a little backyard wedding. Somebody, an officiant came and José and I got married and that was it. We had planned, and he was like, he didn't have any of his sacraments. His mom wasn't that religious. She had bounced, like a lot of Hispanic people that come from Mexico, bounced from Christianity to Catholicism and back and forth. A lot of time when you to come to Utah, you kind of come into the LDS church and even baptized. You're like part of the church. He didn't grow up with religion, really. He was like, if I pray, I pray to God and that's about it. Once he came to my house, he was like, “Oh church.” We would have to go for baptism or first communions. He was like, “I'm not used to this.” I was like, “I know. Just put on a my shirt and let's go.” LR: It's interesting. OK, any other questions? MT: No. LR: So my last question is, I wish I had a really good end question for the interview, but I don't it's more of a kind of a culture question. But how does your experience here in northern Utah compare with where you grew up, or other places you've lived in within the, how to say that? MT: Within the LGBT community? AF: You know, I don't think I have too much of experience. I've lived in Utah since I was basically the age of three, lived in the same house for the past 25 years. It's really all that I've known. But as soon as I leave Utah, a couple of years ago after 51 I separated from José, or my divorce was finalized, I went and spent New Year's in New York with a friend and just being able to be like, oh yeah, right away, “Oh, hi, I'm Andrea blah, blah, blah.” Then of course, the conversation comes out like, “Oh yeah, I'm gay, whatever.” But it was never like something that I had to hide or something that I had to say otherwise just felt really nice. Being in New York I mean, it's accepting and everybody's really cool. I hang out with a bunch of girls from Florida because my friend was at a party school. So I want to go visit her and I hung out with all her roommates and everybody. But it was just very nice to not have to pretend to be anybody else or not even to think that I was somebody else. It was just Andrea and I'm gay the same where I've gone to Denver to visit a friend. I just am who I am and nothing more, nothing less. Meeting girls that like will come and then being in Utah, I mean, I have friends in Park City that are gay in Provo and in that area too, where you just, it's more kind of the immigrant kind of structure that I relate to being like Gay and an immigrant. We like the same bands, even though they didn't grow up here, it's just kind of a small community of knowing that, like, we're Hispanic and we like girls and knowing that it's not anything crazy or the fact that, like, I can go to Logan and hang out. I mean, I've hung out with, like, a rich Italian girl being like, “Out of all the places you pick Logan.” She was just like, “Yeah, I'm doing like psychology research.” I think that's the first time where I really was like kind of a really liberal or kind of open mind. She's like, “I had been out since I was like 14, 15.” She said a line that had stuck with me. She was like, “I can't wait to see my future wife pregnant.” I never thought about that. But meeting people in northern 52 Utah that have those outside experiences kind of really brought in mine. When she said that, I was like, yeah, like I can have a wife that's pregnant. Just kind of threw me for a loop. I think for a month I thought about nothing but and I think I got bored even online and started looking at like sperm bank. How does it work and how much does it cost? And just kind of going through that, just seeing the new experiences that other people have thought up that I hadn't. Really opens my horizon. MT: It's very interesting. LR: Do you have any other questions? MT: No, I don't. LR: Well, I really appreciate your time and your willingness. Before we actually turn it off, is there any other story or memory or anything else you'd like to add before we stop and close the interview? AF: I would just want to say that the time that I have been out and been able to express my sexuality with partners and other people, I have never felt more close to people in my life. Growing up in a household where emotions are not something that are very, they're kind of dismissed. I remember telling my dad, “Oh, that makes me feel bad,” like when he would say something and he'd be like, “They're just feelings,” and feelings were not validated being to a place where now, and especially with girls where feelings are a big part of it. Having my feelings heard and understood has never felt nicer. I think just the fact that, like, they're like I hear your feelings and I validate them has been the biggest kind of eye opening thing for me just because I've always had walls up. That's just 53 because they were there from the get go. Feelings come and feelings go, but you don't talk about them, they're essentially not real. You're having a bad day, or if you feel like you don't want to do much, that doesn't matter. But expressing it to somebody who understands and they're like, “It's OK,” the thing is, you take care of me and I take care of you that I've had in past relationships really have opened my eyes to feeling comfortable in who I am and feeling that feelings aren't just fake. LR: Yeah. AF: So that's what I would say. Feelings are real, so find your people that like validate them. That has never felt nicer. LR: That's awesome, thank you.